Designers help pick palettes, create layouts, and find furniture for existing homes — and their help comes at a price. Hourly rates can range anywhere from $50 to $500, according to home renovation site Houzz. On top of that, some designers use their discounts in their own favor, charging you the retail price and keeping the extra for themselves. Some won’t even take a project if the budget isn’t substantial enough.
But if the thought of trying to re-create a living room from your Pinterest board on your own is too daunting, there are quite a few design sites that will charge you a flat fee to design your room for you. Some will even pass on the discounted rate from manufacturers on to you. Whether you want your room to be contemporary, modern, or industrial, these services can help you find a rug that ties the room together and fits into your budget.
Laurel & Wolf
If you have no idea where to start when it comes to designing, well, Laurel & Wolf might be the place. If you click through to its style quiz, you’ll be confronted with a bunch of rooms. Pick the ones you like best, and you’ll learn which styles you like best (you’ll have to provide your email address to get the results). From there, you can start your own project, providing information about your taste and budget. Using the photos you provide of your room, a few of Laurel & Wolf’s interior designers will create style boards for you. You’re then paired with a designer who refines the original submission until you have what you want. When you’re satisfied, you get a shopping list, floor plan, style board, and instructions on how to put the room together. If you want, a shopper will make all your purchases for you and send along all the tracking and delivery info. Fun fact? Christina Applegate used the company to remodel her kitchen.
Price: $199 per room for a single designer, $299 per room for three to five “First Look” style boards
Concepts: Approximately 10 days of “design time” to work with a designer of your choice with unlimited revisions during this period
Number of designers: More than 1,000 in the company’s network
Buy-for-you option: Yes
Decorist
While Decorist works pretty similarly to Laurel & Wolf, you have to dig around to find the free quiz that susses out your taste (again, you’ll have to give up your email address to get the results). There are two ways to find a designer on Decorist. You can purchase the package, then answer questions about your budget and style and have the company pick you a designer, or you can browse on your own. Designers are grouped based on price, and you can see their favorite styles — be it modern, eclectic, or modern-eclectic — and scroll through their portfolios. Whichever way you choose to go, you’ll get two design concepts from your designer. After you work together to finalize your design, the designer will send you the design, floor plan, set-up instructions, and shopping list. Decorist will also order all your new stuff for you, if you prefer.
Price: $299 per room, $599 for designers with over five years of experience
Concepts: Two
Number of designers: More than 100
Buy-for-you option: Yes
Homepolish
Decorist and Laurel & Wolf deal in remote designers, but Homepolish will send someone to your house, if you prefer. They will also do video consults. The pricing is a bit different than the other sites on the list, too. A small project, one that can be completed within three hours, costs $349. Homepolish recommends this if you’re looking for advice on a color palette or help finding a few pieces of furniture. After that, you’ll need to shell out $130 per hour for a more in-depth project, and there’s a 10-hour minimum. If it sounds like a more traditional approach, Homepolish says it’s different because it does away with mark-ups. In other words, the designers don’t buy your furniture at a discount, then take the extra cash when they sell it to you for retail price. Because it relies on sending designers to your place, Homepolish isn’t available nationwide yet.
Price: $349 for a total of 3 hours; $130/hr for 10 hours minimum
Concepts: N/A
Number of designers: More than 500
Buy-for-you option: Sort of, the shopping list tool lets you buy everything at once from several different sites
Decorilla
This is yet another site that starts with a quiz, Decorilla does have some unique features. Like Homepolish, you can request to have a designer visit your house. You can also chat via a phone or video conference. Regardless, you’ll get two design proposals, a color palette, 3D renderings of how your space will look, and a shopping list. The best part? You’ll get the opportunity to check out the room in virtual reality in a try-before-you-buy (or tear up floors) situation. Decorilla says it passes its furniture discounts on to you, too.
Price: Based on type of room; it’s $539 for a bedroom, for example
Concepts: Two
Number of designers: More than 230
Buy-for-you option: Yes
Havenly
By now, you know the drill: Start with a quiz, share your budget and style details, and get three style ideas. Choose your favorite, and the designer who created it will send you two concepts. Collaborate and listen to your designer, then you’ll get a shopping list. What sets Havenly apart is its price for sprucing: $79. It’s not as robust a package, however, and isn’t meant for an in-depth project.
Price: $199
Concepts: Two
Number of designers: Five listed on the site
Buy-for-you option: Yes
Homee
Formerly Zoom Interiors, Homee works a little differently than everything else on our list. For one, you get free designs. The company instead makes money off the furniture you buy. You choose what room you want to decorate using the app — be it the living room or bedroom — and then decide whether you want to keep the existing furniture. Afterward, you pick a style, select photos of rooms you like, decide on a color palette, and answer a few final questions about whether you want the room to be kid- or pet-friendly. Set your budget, and upload some photos of the space. Everything is chat-based, so once you finish answering questions, your designer will immediately follow up with you. Within a few days, your designer will send you a style board with some products. Though Homee says you get discounted prices and it does price matching, it doesn’t actually tell you what manufacturer your furniture is from, so you’ll probably have to ask your designer about each piece if you want to find out more about it.
Price: Free
Concepts: One
Number of designers: Eight listed on the site
Buy-for-you option: Yes
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