Unsuccessful vs Successful Interior Decorators

by Thomas Dill
(Costa Rica)

Have you ever had a “wonderful idea” for a room decor spring into your imagination? Perhaps you’ve mentally furnished that room right down to flowers and wastebaskets.

Interior decorators do that, too. Decorators experience so many stimulating new fabrics, wallcoverings, and furnishings every day that elaborate ideas continually spark.

However, truly professional interior decoration always begins with 2 things:

* The particular space to be decorated

* The client who will occupy that space

Unsuccessful decorating is usually a plan that developed in an interior decorator’s mind. The decorator decided to use this plan “on the next job” without considering the clients. The most successful interiors meet a client’s personal needs within the room’s limitations.

Does custom decorating mean that the client must spend a lot of money?
Not at all.

At some time, you’ve undoubtedly walked into a room that made you feel particularly good. It may have been a very simple, modest room, but it had some sense of the owner’s personality.

You’ve probably also at some time walked into a room that was obviously carefully (and expensively!) decorated, and found it too cold and unappealing.

Successful interior decoration doesn’t depend on costly furnishings or arrangements according to some rigid formula. Rather, good, creative interior decoration requires a knowledge of the elements and materials of design and decoration. Equally important is the ability to use that knowledge and fulfill the client’s needs.

How skillfully the interior decorator is to assess the client’s needs will affect the success of his/her decorating plans.

Thomas Dill.