ArcLight provides design services globally. Professional interior design is not geographically contingent any more than are other professional services.

In the luxury residential design world, a client who hires a particular designer for their primary residence often uses the same designer for vacation homes elsewhere and for their subsequent residences when they move. Additionally, new clients frequently hear about a good designer through friends and family living elsewhere, and determine to hire in that same aesthetic philosophy and project execution process to their own hometown. Before long, even if a designer were to attempt to work in a specific geographic area, the practice would quickly turn into a national one. Active and serious designers are on the road constantly - apart from just for client project reasons - researching product lines, visiting manufacturers, attending design expositions and conferences, collaborating with custom workrooms, acquiring antiques at auctions and markets, and generally experiencing the international cultural milieu that clients expect be brought to bear in their project spaces.

Depending on the project size and budget, after executing a contract, a designer travels to the project site for an initial meeting to discuss strategies and concepts. Subsequently, most clients find that product recommendations and approvals, budget updates, and ongoing communications are best handled by email and phone. Sometimes, a joint trip to a major design center is useful (e.g., New York Design Center and D&D Building, Los Angeles' Pacific Design Center, San Francisco Design Center, Chicago Merchandise Mart) if the client has weekday availability for such travel. For a large-scale project, the designer is also present for the installation day(s), when furnishings are delivered from the local receiver to the project space, and contractors are on hand to physically install hardware, draperies, and light fixtures.

An interior designer supervises furnishings installation by specialized contractors, if requested by the client. This is most common for large-scale projects (several rooms or a whole house, kitchens and baths), where there's a crucial role in informing the delivery laborers where to place each of hundreds of pieces, and how and where to physically install furnishings that affix to the building envelope. For a picture-perfect final product - and if the space is to be professionally photographed upon completion - the designer (with a team, depending on project size) does the fine-tuning of placement, arrangement, fluffing, and editing all the details of the project space. In the case of a smaller project with just a handful of pieces, many clients find it most practical to supervise their installer personally or even do the install themselves (in the latter case, primarily only when there is no drapery hardware or lighting involved in the project, and when the client has the schedule flexibility to receive the delivery personally).

Interior designers are not general contractors, and do not by definition do physical work inside clients' homes or hire subcontractors to do such work (if you encounter a self-titled designer who does do home improvement contractor work, they are not by definition an interior design professional!). A designer can recommend specialty installers (e.g., the installer for a hand-painted custom wallcovering, built-in and finish carpentry, drapery hardware that may require blocking, steaming and dressing complex window coverings), whom it may make sense to fly in from a distance as well. As installation supervisor and coordinator, the designer is generally the main point of contact for the installers/contractors, as well as the decision-maker for resolving real-time issues with parts, fit, spacing, product flaws, and other unforeseen hiccups that almost inevitably arise out of complexity.

Unlike most design firms, we prefer smaller-scale, luxury projects. There is a major gap in the design services market for serious professionals who are willing to pay careful attention to clients who are interested in investing in one room (e.g., a living room, kitchen, master bedroom, outdoor entertaining area), or updating/upscaling their space with a carefully selected set of new feature pieces. Typically, a client who envisions a narrow scope for a high-end residential design project is forced to either (a) expand their scope to attract a top designer, or (b) settle for a less serious decorator who likely operates in a local area and is accustomed to lower-budget projects.

Yes, you can. A designer's primary practice is in selecting and sourcing furnishings for a client's space that bring to fruition a specific design vision conceived for that client's uniquely-featured space, personality, lifestyle, taste, desired stylistic sensibility, functional requirements, and budget. However, in cases where a prospective client wishes to select and source furnishings independently due to budget constraints that obviate the need for access to trade-only lines, comfort with design decision-making without professional assistance, or simply having sufficient excess time on hand to do the research and project management, we are happy to provide "just ideas".

This type of service - billed on an hourly basis - axiomatically begins with an extended interview to understand what the client needs and wants. There is, of course, no single "correct" combination of color, texture, shape, volume, and stylistic references for a given interior. There are many possible optimal design visions for any one space (even within the constraints of a designer's signature cultivated "look"), and identifying the operative design concept is only possible in context. Once the concept is agreed upon, a designer can easily provide a "brain dump" of conceptual ideas as to how to execute that concept: a floor plan, number and type of furniture pieces, colors, textiles and materials to look for and avoid, a lighting plan, specifications for renovation work, specific historical period styles to incorporate, etc.

Comprehensive luxury design for a single living room, furnished and styled to achieve a "magazine-quality look" usually leverages a budget of at least $500,000 (including furnishings, design fees, and renovation contractor fees). Costs vary enormously as a function in particular of the choice to include original artwork, rare antiques, or investment-grade pieces, as well as choices regarding the overall mix of "high" (fine bench-made pieces) and "low" (mass-market production items).

Lately, the design community has settled on "the number" (what it takes to do one room correctly) as $1 million - but we disagree. Sophisticated, luxurious, inspirational and timeless design is entirely achievable starting at around $150,000 for a living room, kitchen, or other single room.

Design fees are most commonly charged as a fixed lump sum for a defined scope of work (usually 30-40% of the furnishings budget), with furnishings purchased by the designer billed at cost. The design fee covers client consultations, design work, product research and selection, order execution and management, logistics for shipping and delivery, installation supervision, project work by design assistants and other firm staff, coordination with contractors and architects on the project, and firm overhead.

Alternatively, for projects that involve a limited scope, we embed design fees into the billed costs of furnishings (just like a physical store does). This simplifies billing by eliminating the professional fee component, and is useful for projects where the client is interested in a more transactional and less consultative structure. Please explore this approach in more detail with our Luxury On Call offering.

Many other design firms continue with the old-school approach of billing professional time on an hourly basis. This practice creates unfavorable incentives for the client and the designer alike, and usually results in much more expense. However, when clients just need a very limited amount of consultative help ("just ideas"), we simply bill design time at the industry standard $150 per hour.