Say hello to the experts

If you have a house getting ready for possession in the next one year or are looking to do major remodelling in your current home, you are sure to have spent ample hours searching for an interior designer.

A quick Google search for “Interior designer in Bengaluru” yields 3.39 million search results! This is not surprising because nowadays, everyone from an architect, civil engineer, carpenter to a plumber informally calls themselves interior =designers. So, how do we find the right one? First, let’s take a look at some of the other home experts:

The architect

He is the one who plans the overall internal layout and exterior elevation of the building. This is based on:

The law of the land – the offsets, floor area ratio, etc demanded by the authorities (read BBMP, BDA and the like).

The needs of the owner - the room sizes, direction, external elevation and the like.

The physical, and design constraints such as the slope of the land, the bathrooms being next to the plumbing lines, the columns needing to be straight, etc. The architect is also expected to do a sanity check on whether what he has designed can be constructed and whether it will be livable.

The civil engineerHe is the person who will take the architect’s designs and construct the
building based on hardcore principles of engineering such as the load on the walls, the thickness of the columns and beams to take the load, the type and amount of material to be used. Your architect and the engineer need to be in constant touch to ensure that what has been designed:

Can be constructed. 
Is being constructed.
Any construction constraints that come in are discussed and changes factored into the architect’s plans based on your agreement.The interior designerNow that your home is constructed, the interior designer comes in. He will take the space available and make it livable in line with the needs, lifestyle and the outlook of the owner and the “feel” that one would like to give to the space. This would include the space planning, colour schemes, lighting, furniture, furnishings, woodwork, including build versus buy decisions for the furniture.

In a continuum extending from science on the left to art on the right, the civil engineer will mostly stand on the science side, the architect in the middle and the interior designer on the right. That however, does not necessarily mean that anyone with a good sense of art can do an interior designer’s job since there are technical aspects within interior design that one needs to know and be good at.

A well-designed home is exactly like a well-designed car – you just know that it’s well done when you walk or drive into one; you may not be able to pinpoint specifically what the difference is, but while the car feels great when you drive it, the home just feels “nice” when you enter.

I remember this interesting episode of a home owner who commented, “You know, whenever the neighbours come in, they say that my home somehow feels different and more balanced.” In this particular project, the interior designer had only changed the position of the fans in the drawing room to go with the symmetry of the overall interiors of the room.

And it does not stop there – things like deciding whether the shutter flap will be a pull up or pull down, the drawers will be to the right of the kitchen hob, the left or right under based on whether the user is left-handed or right, the material to be used in case the home is self-managed or maid-run are key things that the interior designer will plan for while designing your dream abode.

Finding the right expert
Even with the most thorough research, after going through many profiles and past projects, I have seen client-designer relationship go bad and the project bearing the brunt of it. Finding the right designer is much like an arranged marriage; it’s about moving beyond how the person appeals to you in the first meeting and the matching of the wavelengths. The only other thing you may want to check while looking for a designer is whether he has been around for considerable amount of time and has some grounded experience, whether he will be personally available to you and be directly involved in your specific project and whether he can get the job done within your time and budget constraints.
There are so many areas of homemaking that demand technical expertise. Colours and lighting - perhaps the most underrated design element - is an area that interior designers spend considerable time and effort on. An extremely well-designed home can look ordinary if the colour selection and lighting is not done properly, and a fairly simple home can look extraordinary with the right colour selection and lighting.

When designing the furniture, the interior designer would incorporate the limitations of the material, hardware and the workman to get the desired output.


While the limitations of the workman can be managed with over-communication or by getting someone better, it is extremely important to know the material and hardware that will bring the designs to life. With the huge hardware range that’s available in the market today, this is one area of technical expertise that the interior designer has to be conversant with to do a good job.

Due to the above reasons, having an interior designer by your side is helpful especially when doing up the interiors because a home needs not just to look good, but also to be built specific to a lifestyle and be liveable for years to come.

Getting the best out of your interior designerWhile every project demands different kinds of interior designers, there are certain common do’s and don’ts to ensure a healthy relationship between you and your designer:

Have the detailed scope, payment terms and overall timeline clearly defined and stick to these as the project proceeds.

Once you have provided your inputs and documented the scope and budget, trust your designer to deliver and do a good job.

Don’t visit the project site every day, unannounced. Imagine how you would feel if your manager peeps into your desk three times a day and the kind of respect such a manager will command. Set up work inspection days in advance with mutual agreement of your designer. This will create a general atmosphere of positivity.

Avoid mid-work design changes. Think through all your needs and discuss these with your designer before finalising the designs. Last minute and on-the-fly changes are always messy. At the same time, if there are key changes that have to be incorporated, then ensure that these are discussed and any accompanying budget and timeline changes are agreed and documented.

Due to the unorganised and unprofessional nature of the labour market in India, your designer may not be able to give you a project plan with weekly timelines. However, you should expect that the general pace of work is nippy and there is visibility of the work being completed in time. If not, raise this during your scheduled site visits.

These suggestions should mostly see you through the entire process of creating your dream home, in a fuss-free manner, minus any mishaps and arguments. Happy homemaking!

(The author is an interior designer & founder of The Studio)