Choosing the Right Interior Design Projects and Clients for Success: What We Look For In A Good Fit

If you’ve ever worked with an interior designer before, chances are you understand that it can be a long term, collaborative relationship. As with any good relationship, it requires good communication, patience, trust, and openness to new ideas. As a matter of fact, we lay out our philosophy to new clients in the first lines of our letter of agreement like this: 

Nancy Lane Interiors strives for the most comfortable, enjoyable, and transparent decorating experience possible. Please note that the decorating process and collaboration may take weeks to months. We require open, timely communication and honest feedback as a part of the process.

Just like every homeowner looking for professional design help wants to find a designer who is a good fit with their personality and preferred design aesthetic, interior designers also have a process for determining if a project will be a good fit for their company. In today’s post, I’m laying out NLI’s approach to project selection and how it ultimately benefits you as the client.

Design & Styling: Nancy Lane Interiors | Photo: Ellen Renee Photography

What We Look For In A Good Fit for NLI

As a bespoke full-service design firm, we take on a limited number of projects each year to allow us to fully support our clients as we bring their design dreams to life with our design team. Currently, the majority of our work schedule is concentrated with full service design projects that typically take anywhere from six months to a year or longer, depending on each project’s specific scope of work.

Be sure to read our post on Debunking Fears About Hiring an Interior Designer.

This is why it’s so important for me to make sure a project is a good fit from day one for myself and my team. By the time we finish our design plans and final selections, more times than not, we have become very close with our clients. I’d go so far to say that by the end of a project and the final reveal of completed spaces, it feels, dare I say, like we’re family.

Here are a few things I personally consider before we take on a new design project with a potential client to see if we'd be a good fit for each other.

Project Type

I’ve been collaborating with Houston area pros both personally and professionally for the last 20+ years on a wide range of design projects, from whole house remodeling to kitchen and bath redesign projects to material selections for renovations and new builds to seamlessly bring projects to life.  Our specialty is full service furnishings for whole rooms to whole homes utilizing our collaborative, client-centric approach to design.

Design Style

It’s important to choose a designer whose style aligns with your vision, and likewise, it’s important for me to take on projects that align with my personal belief that a home should feel unapologetically “you” and unmistakably like “home.”

For years when asked, we referred to our style as timeless and classic but with a twist and modern yet timeless with a twist. Those descriptions still fit and we're proud of it. We don’t do trendy here at NLI and we are happily not known for a cookie cutter signature look. We don’t have a recipe where the same room feels like a copy paste version of previous designs. After all, you are one of a kind. We believe your home should be too. Besides, what fun would that be? #NoRinseandRepeatHere

We love sourcing from a wide range of vendors, selecting and customizing items based on our client’s desired preferences and aesthetics, and going on treasure hunts near and far several times a year in order to do so. While we customize every design based on each client's style preferences, functional needs, and investment budget, we find that working with clients whose style aligns with ours makes for the most streamlined, efficient, and enjoyable design process. 

Design & Styling: Nancy Lane Interiors | Photo: Ellen Renee Photography

Appreciation For The Value Of Good Design

I'm very proud to say that Nancy Lane Interiors is known for designing curated, comfortable, warm, inviting spaces, where the environments we create marry personality with practicality and bridge the gap between timeless style and modern lifestyles. At NLI, we choose timeless over trendy, personality over perfection, and interiors that are more sanctuary than showroom. But we also make sure every space we design is warm, welcoming, and comfortable day in and day out. We love working with clients who relish good design in their homes as well.

We tend to work with clients who have an appreciation for thoughtful design choices. They understand there should be unity between the home’s architectural style and the contents within. They recognize a functional layout and purposeful furniture selections lend to a space that feels intentional and personal. Homeowners who value good design realize how that translates into quality experiences and cherished time spent with family within their home. Our ideal clients know that quality furniture pieces are a worthwhile investment because they hold up to tough day-to-day use while also providing a luxurious look and feel.

Trust

When clients place their complete trust in us, magic happens and we are able to perform our very best work and create the most beautiful homes and spaces that are utterly unique. We are so grateful and beyond blessed to work with the most amazing clients who seek us out for our expert design problem solving skills and our reputation for our non-judgmental, deeply caring approach to working with them.

Clients who love working with NLI the most are happy to entrust us to design, select, source and procure all items for their projects on their behalf knowing we have their project goals and their approved investment amount in mind.

Communication Style 

We believe in a collaborative, client-centric approach to design and constantly strive for honest and timely communication throughout the life of our design projects. We work hard for our clients and it is our goal to make the clients we work with feel assured we are devoting our expertise and knowledge toward creating an ideal space for them and their families. 

As part of our onboarding process, we share multiple guides in order to educate clients, some of whom have never worked with a designer before. These guides explain how we work and include a Furniture Budget Breakdown with examples of how much different rooms cost, an NLI Client Experience Guide that breaks down the different phases of a design project from start to finish, and we even include a timeline chart to explain the rollercoaster of emotions that a client may experience during the life of a design project. 

We want our clients to feel comfortable expressing their honest thoughts, ideas, and concerns, and it’s what we’ve built our entire design process around: proactive and well-planned communication. We have 3 milestone meetings: Kick-Off, Design Concept, and Final Detailed Design to ensure we are all on the same page. Depending on a project’s scope of work, we may have additional meetings and we send weekly/biweekly email updates once construction/furnishings are underway or as necessary.

All of this to say that we want to be on the same page as our clients every step of the way and for them to know what to expect at every stage of their project. We want our clients to trust the process and rest assured that we are always available should they have questions or concerns and to know that we are working behind the scenes to execute their desired aesthetic and bring their design dreams to life, planning and managing the moving parts and the smallest of details that bring a design plan to fruition even if they don’t hear from us on the daily. 

The design process relies heavily on electronic communication and unfolds more seamlessly when communication between the interior designer and client is open, timely, and respectful. Timely responses are always best and in fact, timely feedback is crucial to the momentum of the project. Our goal is to respond to emails within one business day and we ask that clients reply within a similar time frame (24 - 48 hours) in order to keep momentum moving forward. After all, completion time will be affected by how quick clients are to communicate their responses and design decisions to our design team. If we don't get the necessary feedback or approvals, we simply cannot move your project forward (much like a tennis match where one needs to consistently return the ball back over the net in order to keep the game in play).

Timely Decision Making 

Executing a design project typically requires an absolute plethora of decisions. The faster and more confidently design decisions can be finalized, the more efficiently the project can move forward. When both the client and the interior designer are in alignment with the points noted in this post, especially with regards to timely communication, their design project can progress more seamlessly. 

Over the years, we’ve honed our design process so our clients aren’t involved in the bajillion domino design decisions required to bring their goals and our vision to life. We narrow options and selections, provide relevant information, and present the most critical decisions needed to make the best decisions for their home. 

Experience tells us that when our clients place their trust and confidence in our abilities and skills to execute a cohesive and thoughtful design, the entire process is much more enjoyable and efficient for everyone involved.

Design & Styling: Nancy Lane Interiors | Photo: Madeline Harper Photography

Photography Opportunities 

At the end of a full-service design project, when everything is installed and looks perfect, we love to bring in our professional photographer to photograph our projects so we can use these photos in our portfolio and marketing. Professional photographs of completed homes are the very best way for us to showcase our work and our design skills, and posting photos of our completed full service projects helps to solidify our business growth on the world wide web and on social media. In fact, clients tell us all the time that they reached out to us because they were impressed with the photos we shared on our website and on our Instagram. 

Our goal is to accept full service projects we’ll be able to photograph and that align with our body of work and ideal project type as outlined above. That said, since we photograph only a small fraction of our overall work every year, this is not a deal breaker for us. We understand if some clients are hesitant to share their personal spaces and we respect their wishes wholeheartedly.

Professional Collaborations

As a Houston, Texas based interior designer who has been in residential design for many, many years,  I’ve had the pleasure of working and collaborating with a multitude of talented professional men and women in the design industry. We often collaborate with architects, home builders, contractors, carpenters, artisans, tradespeople, vendors and suppliers and are happy to work with like minded individuals.

We love making new connections in our industry and happily work with collaborators brought in by our clients. That said, we've also worked with a few who have made our job and our clients’ experience much more difficult than necessary (and more expensive I might add).

During our initial conversation with a potential client, we gather details about who a potential client has already contracted with and are happy to share recommendations for our clients to interview and vet once we’ve been hired for a project and have a full understanding of our client’s needs. 

All of this to say, there are many, many things we consider when we meet with potential clients to discuss their design goals and dreams for their homes and we don't take the decision to work together lightly.

We truly believe that the success of the projects we take on can be directly attributed to the time we spend making sure a project is a good fit for us and for our clients. Through the years, we have also learned the project and client types we aren’t a good fit for:

• Projects with unrealistic deadlines and/or unrealistic budgets

• Clients who are looking for the cheapest, fastest option available

• Clients who are not good communicators and do not respond promptly to requested or required information and are not committed to communicating with us consistently or respectfully throughout their project

• Clients who are looking for a personal shopper to find the lowest price on everything

• Clients who don’t trust or value our team’s contributions to their project

Bottom line: We don’t take your project lightly. We don't take the trust you put in us lightly. And we don’t take the relationship of mutual respect and caring we build with one another along the way lightly. That’s why we work with people who truly appreciate the heart and soul (not to mention the sweat equity!) we invariably pour into projects. With us, you don’t get the design expertise and experience we bring to the table without that level of commitment and dedication. It’s just who we are and how we want to show up in our work.

As a homeowner myself, I know you have a plethora of choices when it comes to designing, renovating and furnishing your home.  If you’re looking for a designer to help you love where you live and you resonate with the points I’ve made today and think we might be a good fit for each other, fill out our contact form here and let's set up a time to chat on a discovery call.

Please note we are currently scheduling new full service projects for start dates in late Fall/Winter 2025.