Last Updated on Monday, 28 March 2011 04:59 Written by thegoodetouch Tuesday, 31 August 2010 11:58

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From the Interior Designer’s Essential Guide for Consumers
By Marjie Goode of The Goode Touch Interiors, LLC

An interior designer can help you with many aspects in your life!

An Interior Designer can:

• Help you add color to your life through paint, fabrics, hard surfaces such as tile, granite, carpet, hardwood. This list goes on… There is color in every aspect of your life. Everything you touch or look at has color. It is so important to have a trained eye for the implementation of color.When designing a project, colors will be selected for every aspect of the project, from fixtures and finishes for a construction project to the fabrics and stains or paints for furnishings, to the paint colors and accessories for an interior project.
• Help you add the right shapes in your life – do you like clean lines and defined edges or do you prefer soft curves or combining the two treatments?
• Help you by understanding how you live so that they can add form and function to your life. A designer should get to know you personally. They are capable of designing every aspect in your home from the public areas to your personal spaces.
• Help you from making costly mistakes. Your furnishings are an investment. Most people do not go out and buy new furniture. Think about your parents – do they still have the furnishings you grew up with? Most Likely. So the next time you go out and buy a piece of furniture, invest in window treatments, or renovate your home – think about how many years you will live with your decision.
• Help you understand what your buying decisions affect. People think that a designer should come in and just help them pick a color or a piece of furniture not realizing that every aspect and decision for that item affects you and everything around it.
  For example: All of the options in selecting a sofa – arm style, the perfect fabric, stain finish for the legs or skirt treatment, trim, seat cushions options, back cushion options, seat depth, seat height, do you want pillows created from a different fabric. The decisions go on and on. An interior designer wants to know how you are going to use the sofa in order to help you with every decision so that you purchase the perfect sofa for your needs.
• Give you access to thousands of products. At designer showrooms around the world there are thousands of product lines available which you can view but need to purchase through an interior designer. Then add all of the other wholesale resources to the trade and retail stores and you realize that hiring an  interior designer can be very beneficial in the process of making sure you select the best merchandise for your project.