Working with an Interior Designer: How the Process Unfolds and What Is Asked of You

What an interior designer actually does on a project

An interior designer plans interiors so that they suit the lives of the people who live in them. That covers the floor plan, the lighting, the materials, the built-in joinery, the furnishing and the coordination of the trades. With a complete concept for the home, responsibility for budget and schedule comes on top.

The difference from a furniture store lies in the point of view. A furniture store sells products that are meant to fit into a room. An interior designer starts with daily life and derives from it which products, dimensions and materials are needed. That is why every project at Richard Atelier begins with the same question: "How would you like to live?" and not "How should the room look?"

For Anna and Markus this means, in concrete terms: nobody puts a catalogue in front of them at the first meeting. Instead, the conversation is about their mornings, their evenings, their weekends. Who cooks, who works from home, where the keys end up when you come home tired. The plan grows out of these answers. How this approach works is described in detail in the article A life concept instead of furnishing.

Going without such a partner has a cost that is easy to miss. You become the coordinator: the electrician waits for the plumber, the tiler for a decision, the joiner for a measurement nobody took. Evenings go to phone calls, small mistakes multiply, and the home you wanted to enjoy becomes a project you manage. So how does it work, from the first call?

Phase 1: Initial consultation and project sheet

The entry point is deliberately low-threshold. At Richard Atelier it is a free 30-minute initial consultation, by phone or video. In that half hour we clarify what the project is about, which rooms are affected, which timeframe is realistic and whether we are the right partners for the job.

Afterwards you send us photos of the rooms and, if you have one, a floor plan. From these we prepare a project sheet: a compact summary of the starting point, your wishes, open questions and the next steps. The project sheet is the shared basis both sides can refer back to.

Anna and Markus were surprised by how much is possible in 30 minutes. They had prepared a list of twenty points. By the end of the call, three of them turned out to be the real priorities: a kitchen where both can cook at the same time, a bathroom without a bath but with a large shower, and a workspace that disappears in the evening. How best to prepare for this meeting is covered in the article on the initial consultation and the project sheet. And what happens after the call?

The initial consultation is not a sales pitch. It is the moment when a wish list becomes a brief.

Phase 2: Site survey

If both sides want to continue, the on-site appointment follows. We measure the rooms precisely, photograph details and check walls, floors, window reveals and the position of pipework, as far as it is visible. In a Viennese Altbau, this is often where it is decided what will be simple and what will be involved.

A riser in an awkward spot, a chimney that is still in use, a floor that slopes two centimetres towards the middle: all of it affects the planning. Where the structure is affected, we bring in a structural engineer early. If permits or consents are needed, we clarify them with the property management (Hausverwaltung) and, where necessary, the building authority (Baupolizei). More on this in the article on permits for Viennese Altbau conversions.

In parallel we have the longer conversation about your daily life. With Anna and Markus it took just under two hours at the kitchen table of their old flat. Afterwards it was clear that Markus gets up early and Anna comes home late, that both enjoy having guests, and that a bicycle had been standing in the hallway for years because nobody could find a place for it. From these hours, the concept grows.

Phase 3: Concept and design

Now the real planning work begins. From the survey and the conversation comes a concept: a floor plan with zones, first sketches, a material direction and an idea of the lighting. We present the concept in person, because plans alone are rarely easy to read. A material sample in your hand says more than ten renderings.

At this stage your feedback is at its most valuable. Changes now cost only drawing time; later they cost material and installation. We usually allow for one to two rounds of revision until the concept sits right. What matters is that the feedback is honest. A polite "that's fine" helps nobody if you are hesitating inwardly.

For Anna and Markus, the first presentation was mainly about the kitchen. The proposal was to partly open the wall to the living room and place a cooking island. They loved it, but asked about cooking smells. That became a conversation about extraction, acoustics and a sliding door that closes the room off again when needed. Questions like these belong in this phase.

A good concept thinks all the rooms together. A material concept as a common thread ensures that kitchen, bathroom and living space belong together, even though they have different jobs to do. Once the concept is approved, things become exact.

Phase 4: Detailed planning, materials and budget

Once the concept is approved, things become concrete. The detailed planning fixes every dimension: worktop heights, the position of every socket, the joint pattern of the tiles, the interior of the cabinets. This includes the lighting plan, the electrical plan, the plumbing plan and the detail drawings for all bespoke built-ins.

The technical plans in particular are often underestimated. If you think through the electrical planning early, you spare yourself extension leads behind the sofa later. And good lighting planning for the home shapes the atmosphere more than any wall colour.

Materials are also sampled and quotes obtained in this phase. You see the surfaces, touch them, decide. We present the budget transparently, item by item. If things get tight, we suggest where money can be saved without the quality suffering in the places you touch every day. What a complete concept costs and how fees are made up is explained in the article What does a complete interior concept cost?. And then the building site begins.

Phase 5: Execution and coordination of the trades

Many hands work on a building site: demolition, plumber, electrician, drywall, tiler, painter, floor layer, joiner, the fitters from the kitchen and furniture manufacturers. The art lies in the sequence. Whoever arrives too early gets in the way. Whoever arrives too late holds everyone else up.

At Richard Atelier, one point of contact takes care of this coordination. The bespoke built-ins are made and installed by Tischlerkultur, the joinery of the Dobrohruschka family, founded in 1935 by Leopold Dobrohruschka and now run by the third generation. Planning and execution thus sit in one coordinated hand. What this means for you in practice is described in the article Planning and execution from a single source.

Your role in this phase is manageable. You are kept informed regularly, usually weekly, and asked to make a few decisions that only become apparent on site. A typical example: after a wall is opened up, an old doorway turns up that could be used as a niche. We discuss questions like this on site or by photo. How long this phase realistically takes is shown in the article on the timeline of a flat renovation.

Imagine a Tuesday in week six. You glance at the weekly update, look at the photos, approve a niche where an old doorway turned up, and go back to your day. And what happens when the last trade has left?

A good building site is one where the clients do not have to call every day to find out what is happening.

During the works, Anna and Markus stayed with friends in Hietzing. They dropped by every two weeks, on foot from the tram stop, coffee in hand. Nothing more was needed.

Phase 6: Handover and the time afterwards

Handover is more than handing over the keys. We walk through every room together and check every drawer, every light, every tap. Small things that are not yet perfect go on a list with a date for completion. You receive the documents: plans, care instructions for surfaces, operating manuals and the manufacturers' warranty documents.

The first weeks in the new home are a test phase. Some things only show in daily use, such as whether the dimmer in the bedroom starts too bright or whether a pull-out runs too heavily. These adjustments are part of the project. For Anna and Markus it was a wardrobe door in the hallway that brushed against the bicycle handlebars when opened. The joiner swapped the hinge side, ten minutes of work.

Imagine the evening of the handover. You turn the key, the hall light comes on at just the right brightness, the island stands where you sketched it at the kitchen table, and the bicycle has its place. You pour a glass of wine and realise that nobody has called you all day.

The process at a glance

Duration depends heavily on scope, delivery times and permits. The table is a guide, not a promise. What decides whether it all runs smoothly, then? The way you work together.

What makes for good collaboration

Most projects do not fail because of the planning, but because of misunderstandings. A few principles help both sides avoid them. In our experience, these points are decisive:

• One fixed point of contact. You should always know whom to ask. Several voices on the design side create contradictions.
• Decisions at fixed points. Not every small detail has to be decided immediately, but every phase ends with a clear sign-off.
• Honesty about the budget. A realistic frame from the start prevents disappointment. A budget set too low so as not to frighten anyone comes back to haunt you later.
• Honesty about taste. Pictures you like are helpful. Pictures you dislike are often even more helpful.
• Trust in the sequence. Anyone who renegotiates the concept during execution throws the whole chain out of rhythm.
• Written summaries. Every conversation ends with a short record. It protects both sides.

For couples like Anna and Markus there is one more point: agree between yourselves beforehand who has the last word on which topics. It sounds sober, but it saves many evenings. A detailed account of a project from start to finish can be found in From the first line to moving in. And if you would like to see the people behind the planning, you will find them on the Team page. Selected projects are shown in the references.