We all love working on our own home’s interior design. This is pretty standard. Our homes tend to be our most valued possessions. They are the thing we spend the most money on – whether that’s our mortgage or monthly rent payments. They’re the space we spend the most time in, relaxing, sleeping, cooking, spending time with family and friends and generally building warm and fond memories. So, we’re going to want them to look their best at all times. Sure, there may be tweaks that we want to make as time goes on. Seasonal tweaks.
A change of furniture or colour scheme here and there. But often, after we’ve engaged in an initial burst of interior design in our homes, we find that the spaces meet all of our needs, ticking our boxes and putting a smile on our faces. If you find that you still yearn to design interiors once your home is up to your standards, however, you may be looking for another outlet. This may be the time that you should consider whether you could make a career out of interior design.
Interior designers can prove extremely successful, with this job allowing you to earn enough to pay the bills while also enjoying what you do on a day to day basis. Here’s some more information on the subject that could help you to decide whether it’s right for you!
What Does an Interior Designer Do?
Let’s start out by highlighting what becoming an interior designer actually entails on a day to day basis. An interior designer is a professional who takes on a creative and multi-faceted role in society. If you become an interior designer, you will provide your clients with accurate and professional advice on the subject of the development and execution of interior design changes across their property. You might become a commercial interior designer, giving advice and helping to make commercial premises (such as stores or offices) look great.
You may become a residential interior designer, providing people with advice and information on how to make their own homes look great. You may provide advice ranging from how to arrange a room to how to use the space in a room, what furniture will look good, what colour scheme someone should go for, what materials they should try to incorporate, what flooring will work best and so much more. You will guide each project from its start to its completion.
How Much Does an Interior Designer Earn?
Now, you may be wondering how much interior designers actually earn. This is a tough question, as individuals at different stages in their career, with different levels of talent and with different amounts of experience will earn completely different amounts in this sector.
Someone who is providing interior design advice to a major commercial store in a capital city will likely earn a lot more than someone who is taking on their first project helping someone they know with designing their lounge in a small, rural town. However, you can get a general feel for how much interior designers earn in your local area by researching averages. Most job sites will be able to give you an indication of how much you can expect to earn where you are.
Employed vs. Self Employed
Next up, the question of employed versus self employed. There are a few employed interior design roles, but you’ll likely find that the majority of interior designers are self employed or set up their own businesses. This gives them a lot more freedom over their work. When you are self employed or have your own business, you will find that you can choose exactly where you base yourself from, who you want to work with and what type of projects you want to work with. You will carve out your own, individual area of specialism and niche. You will build relationships with the clients you want to work with and you will keep them on board, benefiting from recommendations and positive reviews.
If you do decide to become a self employed interior designer, you need to make sure that you register as self employed and complete your own tax returns at the end of each fiscal year. This means putting aside tax and other essential contributions each time you’re paid. This will ensure that you have enough money to pay your tax bill at the end of the year! If you struggle with this, you may want to reach out to an accountant who can help you further. You also need to put money aside out of your pay checks for things that an employer would usually cover, such as annual leave, sick pay, pension contributions, savings for parental leave and more.
Registering a Business
As you experience more success, or if you want a fully professional look and feel to your interior design project from the get go, you may want to register yourself as a business. Again, the requirements of this will depend on where you live, so make sure to look into the rules and regulations in the area you’re operating within. If possible, find a way to register your business that separates your finances and assets from your business’ finances and assets. This reduces risk in regard to your venture, as you will find yourself at less of a personal loss if your business doesn’t take off as expected.
Training
Now, actually getting started. You may find that you have a natural flair for interior design. But you may also find that you want more training to boost your confidence in this field. There are plenty of courses out there that you can look into that will help you with various elements of interior design, guiding your personal style and helping you to understand what works and what doesn’t. Having some sort of qualification can also be a selling factor, giving clients more confidence in you, your abilities and your experience.
Setting Up a Website
You will also need to set up a website if you’re going to gather any clients. A website will serve as a base for you to let people know that you and your services actually exist. They will be able to find you and they will be able to get a feel for you and what you do.
Your website should match the aesthetic of the homes and spaces you want to design. It should be easy to use and navigate and it should feature high quality images and text to help people fall in love with you and your brand. Work with a professional web designer, a graphic designer and a copywriter to achieve these goals.
As you begin to work on properties, bring in a property photographer who will be able to show off your work in its best light to create a portfolio on your site too. You can also look into different contact options on your page, such as web chat for website, allowing customer and potential clients to get in touch with you easily when they’re interested in your interior design services. When your website is up and ready to go, you should start focusing on local SEO, helping people from your local area who are looking for interior design services to find their way to your page. Landing high in search engine results for keywords related to interior design can boost traffic to your site and really help you to secure more clients.
Setting Up Social Media
You should also consider setting up social media for your interior design services. Create business pages on platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest. Here, you can show off your portfolio, providing people with another space to discover your work and get to know what you do. You can find that you secure clients through these platforms, as these are spaces where people spend time browsing when looking for interior design inspiration themselves. Make sure to stick to your aesthetic with every post. This will create consistency. Develop a good tone of voice – you should use the same tone used on your website for captions on your social media posts.
You should also upload quality pictures of your previous work, using this space as a sort of portfolio for people to browse through. If you find that you’re neglecting your social media, you should come up with a content calendar. This will ensure that you post regularly and consistently, encouraging more engagement on your profiles and your posts and making sure that your name is the one that sticks in people’s minds when they think of interior design services.
Sure, becoming an interior designer is going to take time, effort and financial investment to get started. But this is true of the vast majority of jobs and you can find that this role is truly enjoyable and rewarding. Hopefully, some of the information above will help to inform you and guide your journey!
Photos by Alona Gross on Unsplash
