Project Minimums
Project Minimums
5 Min Read
Most experienced Interior Designers have a project minimum, whether they state it on their website or just have it in mind during a consultation with a potential client.
What is a Project Minimum?
A project minimum is the amount set by a designer or contractor that a client must spend when furnishing or remodeling a space.
For example, to update a Living Room, Bedroom, Dining Room, or Guest Bathroom, my project minimum is $20,000.
For a Kitchen remodel, my project minimum is $60,000. This is separate from a design fee.
Why do Interior Designers have project minimums?
Interior design is a luxury service and is not for everybody. It takes a lot of time to design a home with careful attention to detail paid to every item and element. And if you limit the budget, it takes even longer to find the perfect furniture piece or countertop to work with the design. This can lead to spending more money designing your home then on the furniture that goes in it.
There are 2 main spending categories when you design a home:
Materials
Trades (I include Interior Design services in this category)
The goal is to balance these 2 categories- you don’t want to compromise the quality of the products so you can afford the best contractor, only to find the faucet you ordered on Amazon.com was delivered damaged and can’t be installed, so the project is delayed until your order a replacement (and often resulting in additional charges from trades).
On the flipside, you don’t want your beautiful, carefully selected tile to be installed by the tile contractor who gave you a great price, only to find out he did a poor job laying out the material and the pattern doesn’t match up, or the grout he used is incredibly cheap and discolors within a few months, but changing it out is cost prohibitive so now you just have to live with it.
Achieving the beautiful result you envisioned that will endure the test of time relies on both quality materials and trusted trades.
So what does this have to do with project minimums?
After you go through an intensive design process to give a vision to your remodel, the last thing anyone wants is to find out they can’t afford it. Unless you’re secretly a contractor who can do all of the labor yourself or build your own Ikea cabinets, there is no way to turn a $70,000 Kitchen design into a $35,000 remodel. Project minimums and up-front estimates are a way to ensure we’re not wasting everyone’s time (and your money).
Now- more than ever- it is hard to stick to a budget. Especially if that budget is unreasonably low. I don’t have any control over price increases and freight surcharges on the materials or labor side (read here for why materials and remodeling costs are at an all-time high). Until we complete the design and have a project bid by all vendors and trades, it’s impossible to accurately quote what it is going to cost (want a list of all of the numbers that go into pricing out a bathroom remodel- take a look here). And you can’t get accurate bids without a detailed design and product selections. I estimate 8 weeks to put together a design package. That is a lot of meetings, product selections, time, and energy. Throughout the process we discuss costs and what selections will be lower or higher, but until we have all the bids put together you can’t say exactly how those selections affect the bottom line.
Should I work with an Interior Designer who has a project minimum?
Sometime potential clients can find project minimums offensive, but ultimately they are to protect you from getting excited about a design that is outside of your budget. I use project minimums to start an honest conversation about realistic costs associated with a remodel. Potential clients hire me based on the images in my portfolio. To get the same thoughtfully curated home, it takes a lot of time and work. But the goal is an end-result beyond what you ever imagined.
Want to talk about your remodel? Schedule a complimentary 20-minute intake call here.