Interior designer blues

[Anonymous]

I paid for a $400 consultation with an interior designer. I liked her and said I wanted to work with her but I needed to complete my project by August. It took her two weeks to get back to me with a contract and proposed hours (80). The proposed hours were too high for me, so I cut the scope of the project in half and told her my max budget was 40 hours. She agreed to that and told me she’d send me a revised proposal. I waited for two days and she didn’t send it. So tonight at 7:45 PM I texted her and asked her when I could expect the new proposal, and when we could get started, and I expressed my concern that things were a little slow to get rolling. She wrote back:

“I appreciate that you’re eager to get started. I will send you the revised scope of work and contract tomorrow. We can discuss the project start date on Monday. I ask that you please respect my family time over the weekend. Thank you! 😊”

I find this message annoying and scoldy and it has kind of put me off working with her. But then I’ve lost the $400. What should I do?

[Anonymous]

Eh, it's a little self-righteous and precious. She could have easily said she'll have the proposal to you on Monday without the martyr complex about her family weekend time. But she does seem to be responsive and as you say you've already invested some $. So I'd say let it slide but keep your expectations low.

[Anonymous]

Ballsy, but on some level, good for her for saying that.

[Anonymous]

I’m an interior designer and this is exactly why I stopped doing residential design. You wanted to reach out to her and have her respond after hours and are offended that she asked you to correspond during work hours. Meanwhile, I would imagine she had a busy pipeline and does not turn proposals around within a day or two like you feel entitled to. Which is not abnormal at all. A week or two to return a proposal is not abnormal. And mind you, you’ve even cut your scope to a very bare minimum. 40 hours isn’t remotely significant to even complete a living room. But of course you want her to drop everything and work during her family time to get this proposal done for you. You shouldn’t be hiring a professional designer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m an interior designer and this is exactly why I stopped doing residential design. You wanted to reach out to her and have her respond after hours and are offended that she asked you to correspond during work hours. Meanwhile, I would imagine she had a busy pipeline and does not turn proposals around within a day or two like you feel entitled to. Which is not abnormal at all. A week or two to return a proposal is not abnormal. And mind you, you’ve even cut your scope to a very bare minimum. 40 hours isn’t remotely significant to even complete a living room. But of course you want her to drop everything and work during her family time to get this proposal done for you. You shouldn’t be hiring a professional designer.

Do you really expect that every communication that you receive from your clients be during your working hours? So if a client sends you an email on a Thursday evening at seven or a Saturday afternoon, you are going to admonition them to not bother you during your family time?

[Anonymous]

I worked with an interior designer. She was fantastic! I texted her on a Saturday because I was up against a deadline for painting. I had bought the stick on paint samples, she came over on a Saturday and helped me pick out the paint for the house. She was wonderful. Anne O'Conner. She's in Alexandria.

[Anonymous]

I think it's fine for you to send a text at 7:45pm on a Friday evening and also think it's fine for her to wait to respond until working hours Monday morning. She's not even doing that to you - she's saying she'll send you the revised contract Saturday morning. Get over yourself. 40 hours of work is very small beans.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it's fine for you to send a text at 7:45pm on a Friday evening and also think it's fine for her to wait to respond until working hours Monday morning. She's not even doing that to you - she's saying she'll send you the revised contract Saturday morning. Get over yourself. 40 hours of work is very small beans.

I agree with everything you said above but I found the “I ask that you please respect my family time over the weekend” unnecessarily chastising- like in what way is she expecting me to invade her space this weekend?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m an interior designer and this is exactly why I stopped doing residential design. You wanted to reach out to her and have her respond after hours and are offended that she asked you to correspond during work hours. Meanwhile, I would imagine she had a busy pipeline and does not turn proposals around within a day or two like you feel entitled to. Which is not abnormal at all. A week or two to return a proposal is not abnormal. And mind you, you’ve even cut your scope to a very bare minimum. 40 hours isn’t remotely significant to even complete a living room. But of course you want her to drop everything and work during her family time to get this proposal done for you. You shouldn’t be hiring a professional designer.

+1 Just chalk it up as a $400 lesson. You’re setting yourself up to be unhappy with the project since you’re already in a rush and can’t afford the full scope of her offerings. She may decide to walk away from you.

[Anonymous]

$400 is nothing if you don’t jive with your designer.

[Anonymous]

Oh please. Expect this woman to be awful the entire time you work with her. Stop acting like an interior designer is anything but an overgrown princess or bored former SAHM who got an associate's degree on her huband's dime. Normal people in a trade like this understand that your hours and their hours are not equivalent. You were ripped off, do not work with her.

[Anonymous]

How did you end up with the proposal that has to be cut in half? Didn’t your $400 consult included a budget discussion? That’s the part I’d be worried about. If you decided between the consult and the proposal to halve your budget, that’s one thing. But she shouldn’t be spending any time writing proposals that are that far over your budget? Or be writing proposals without knowing the budget.

[Anonymous]

I try to mindful not to text work related things after hours. You could have emailed her. Text feels pushy. She is sending it to you tomorrow. You are just a prospective client. There are probably dozens of you, most of whom won't move forward because they can't afford it. If you are squabbling about $400, sounds like you can't afford it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I try to mindful not to text work related things after hours. You could have emailed her. Text feels pushy. She is sending it to you tomorrow. You are just a prospective client. There are probably dozens of you, most of whom won't move forward because they can't afford it. If you are squabbling about $400, sounds like you can't afford it.

I agree with this. There is a difference between text and email. If you had emailed her at 7:45pm on a Fri you would not have gotten the “chastizing” response from her, she just would have waited until Monday to respond. It wasn’t cool to text her at 7:45 on a Fri night and in her shoes I’d be leery of working with you, especially given how little work you are giving her.

I also agree that from the start it sounds like you are going to be unhappy working with a designer period. 40 hours isn’t a lot of time to do interior design for a home. I used a designer just for specific rooms on the main level and it was more time than that. What’s inevitably going to happen is that she will present you with ideas/plans, you will be unhappy with at least some of them, and there will be back and forth and you will exceed those hours or start nickel and diming the process and you are going to wind up unhappy.

[Anonymous]

I really want to know more about how a $400 consultation resulted in a proposal that was double your budget. Did you change your budget? Did she not press you for one? No matter what, it bodes poorly for the project.