Experts to your home's rescue

Sometimes you need professional help. Especially when you have run out of ideas to refurbish your home. Steven Kurutz narrates his recent experience of trying to find an expert online

It was an act of desperation that led us to write the email. My wife and I felt overwhelmed and hopeless. Two years into our marriage, we began discussing the possibility of seeking
professional help. The problem was our home. We had finally acquired some furniture, including a dining table and chairs, a credenza, a properly proportioned couch and a side table. Considering I had lived as a single man with little more than an overlarge sofa and a TV on the floor, it was a big improvement. But our rental apartment still wasn’t coming together.

Framed art sat on the floor because we didn’t know where to hang it. The furniture floated independently with no cohesion. We went to stores and shopped online, but the thought of buying anything caused paralysis: We feared we’d make a costly mistake. In the bathroom, I had already painted the walls glossy black years earlier, a decorating disaster. The space also lacked storage and needed a new recessed medicine cabinet. Neither of us are Bob Vila types. These were jobs for a decorator and potentially a contractor. But we had no clue how to find reputable professionals.

Then my wife Cara came home one day and told me about a service she had heard about. It offered a free consultation with an interior designer who comes to your home, discusses your goals and creates a plan. If you hire the designer, you pay by the hour. I had stubbornly held on to the idea that if we studied enough shelter magazines, we could pull together our space ourselves. But it’s at your lowest point that you’re sometimes willing to try something new. OK, let’s contact Homepolish, I finally said.

Homepolish was founded in 2012 by 24-year-old Stanford University graduate Noa Santos and his partner, Will Nathan.

Initially, Noa was the only designer. But before long, the roster had grown to 60, and now there are more than 500 designers affiliated with the company. The process is akin to online dating. Prospective clients log on to the website, enter basic information (location, budget, goals, preferred style) and are matched by one of the company’s “queen bees” with a designer suited to their project.

A free consultation follows, either in person at home or via Skype. If clients don’t think they jibe with the Homepolish designer, they notify the queen bee and — as simply as swiping on Tinder — are rematched. (The queen bee also acts as a go-between if any problems arise during the design process.) Once a match is made, clients can buy either a single-day session (three hours) or a set number of hours, which are bought in chunks of five, starting with a 10-hour minimum.

Easy on the pocket

Homepolish has opened up personal design to this large segment of professionals who, though successful by most measures, were nevertheless previously unable to afford most decorators. Chris Wallgren and his partner, Brijen Shah, fit the category. The couple bought a two-bedroom co-op on the Upper East Side 3 years ago, and after a few tentative furniture purchases, grew frustrated trying to decorate the place themselves.

“I’m at a stage in my life where I don’t want this to look like college,” Chris said. But when the couple interviewed designers and architects, they were stunned, Chris said. “The decorator comes to your apartment and says, ‘OK, this is going to cost a hundred grand,'” he said. “You need a $30,000 couch.” Instead, on a friend’s recommendation, they tried Homepolish. During the initial consultation, the designer they were matched with rearranged some furniture. It was an immediate improvement and set the couple at ease about spending money. The designer projected a $25,000 budget and 50 hours of work. “That’s what he estimated, and that’s what he stuck to,” Chris said, adding that it was a collaborative, largely stress-free process that resulted in a home that feels “complete.”

Haley Weidenbaum, a 28-year-old designer in Los Angeles who has become something of a star within the Homepolish stable, said the loose approach was what made the process feel collaborative and unintimidating. “Usually at a firm, it’s more than one person on a project,” Haley said. “This feels more personal and less businessy. The client just feels like, ‘Oh, this person is helping me with my home.’”

Our own home

My wife and I hope that’s true. We were paired with a young designer, Michelle Zacks, who was a clothing designer before switching to interiors, working for a Brooklyn firm and later as an assistant prop stylist. She came over one evening, and we discussed our goals: a renovated bathroom, a living room that looks pulled together, more lighting and a non-Ikea storage solution for my record collection.

My wife liked her energy, and I liked that she humoured me by looking through my giant stack of shelter magazine tear sheets. We agreed to the initial 10-hour buy-in, with the possibility of buying more hours and increasing our $5,000 budget as the project goes along. So far, so good. When we met with Michelle to go over lighting and storage solutions she had sourced, she showed that she understood our style. She also arranged for a reasonably priced contractor to look at our bathroom and give us a quote, which we have accepted.

It’s comforting to know that we can go in baby steps, without committing too much time or money upfront. And as Haley said, the process feels informal, as if a friend with good taste and connections is helping us get our place together. For Noa, the Homepolish co-founder, that’s the whole point. “People find the task so daunting,” he said. “It’s such a big spend. What people want is a design partner.” That, and a living room where the art is off the floor and on the walls.

The New York Times