Why Talk About Professional Ethics & the Interior Design Industry?

The topic of professional ethics—acting in ways that embrace accountability, responsibility, and fairness—can be a tough (and nuanced) one to wrap your head around. 

Yes, we all (hopefully!) recognize the need to act with integrity in all of our professional exchanges—with clients, colleagues, and industry partners—but there is limited and sometimes ambiguous guidance to tell us how to do that. 

This is a serious and important topic, so I thought, let’s try to tackle it.

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If you've been paying attention, you may have noticed the term "Master" has quietly faded out of the interior design industry's vocabulary. A few years ago, HGTV stopped using "master bedroom," "master bathroom," and "master suite" in favor of "primary" or "main." Now, real estate sites like Zillow use "owner's suite" or "primary suite" to describe the largest bedroom in a home.

So why the change? To understand it fully, we need to look at a bit of history.

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An interior designer recently reached out to us with a frustration. She was in the process of putting together a scope of work for a full-service design project that involved construction, and she was spending quite a bit of time researching the answers to several questions about what could/should be done in this home to meet the homeowner’s needs.

This interior designer didn’t go into a lot of detail about the nature of the questions she was trying to get answers to, but, yes, in a project that involves construction, often there are several considerations that need to be evaluated before the project direction and full scope of work can be developed. 

The interior designer indicated she was putting in a LOT of uncompensated work merely to get a reasonable and workable SOW developed for her client.

Unpaid work???? Uh, no!

In a situation like this, where the appropriate design direction needs to be investigated, and questions need to be answered (perhaps getting conceptual pricing from contractors) BEFORE a SOW for a project can be definitively determined, a designer should ….

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One of the questions interior designers ask us all the time is, “How should I help my client budget for their construction project?”

At Dakota Design Company, we're all about knowing your numbers and ensuring your clients have a full understanding of what their project will actually cost. 

Because let’s be real, there’s nothing worse than starting a project thinking it’ll be $40K, only to find out you’re actually looking at $150K by the time everything's done. 

No one wants to get hit with a surprise like that.

So, let’s dive into this: How do you help your clients budget for projects with construction?

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Interior designers are well aware that completing all design decisions and documentation does not equate to the end of design effort for any given project. During actual construction, implementation, and installation, an interior designer remains actively involved in decisions, troubleshooting, coordination, and client communications. This phase is referred to as Construction Administration in the industry. 

Interior design projects range from those that involve construction (for which a building permit is required) to those that involve placement of furnishings only. Between major construction projects—such as a new home build or a major remodel to an existing home—and projects that involve new furniture pieces only, there is a whole range of different scopes. Here, we are talking about interior design projects that involve construction activities, which could include significant construction or just new finishes, cabinetry, or millwork, regardless of whether a building permit is needed. 

So, at what milestones during a residential construction project is it critical that an interior designer make a site visit to review completed work and provide approvals? 

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Dear Dakota,  

I am contemplating obtaining a 2-year interior design degree from a community college and would love your thoughts on whether the extra schooling would be worth my time. Although I am strong in many skills and have a Bachelor’s degree in another field, I do think I could benefit from the extra practice and knowledge that would be gained from school. How can I decide whether going back to school would be right for me?

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This summer, I worked less on purpose. My team and I intentionally scaled back—no new clients, fewer projects, and a plan to keep things running smoothly while I tapped out for a bit.

I’ve done this before (read about my summer slowdown of 2022 and how to implement a slowdown in your own business), and each time brings its own set of lessons. Some I expected, and others caught me off guard. 

Now that I’m back into the swing of things and have had time to reflect, I want to share what I learned. If you're balancing family, business, personal goals, and trying to stay healthy, I think these takeaways will resonate with you.

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