Unlocking the Art of Home Cohesion with Expert Advice

This episode explores the crucial role of interior designers in creating cohesive living spaces and why homeowners should avoid designing in isolation. Through insightful discussions and real-life examples, it emphasizes the benefits of collaboration with professionals to achieve harmonious and functional interior design.

• Importance of hiring an interior designer for cohesive designs 
• Risks of designing spaces in isolation 
• The financial advantages of working with experienced designers 
• Real-life case studies illustrate designing challenges 
• Planning as the key to effective space transformation


Learn more at:
https://twinteriors.com/podcast/

Learn more at:
https://twinteriors.com/podcast/

https://scottwoolley.com

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

The following podcast iDesign Lab is an SW Group production in association with Five Star and TW Interiors. This is iDesign Lab, a podcast where creativity and curiosity meet style and design. Curator of interiors, furnishings and lifestyles. Hosted by Tiffany Woolley, an interior designer and a style enthusiast, along with her serial entrepreneur husband Scott, idesign Lab is your ultimate design podcast where we explore the rich and vibrant world of design and its constant evolution in style and trends. Idesign Lab provides industry insight, discussing the latest trends, styles and everything in between to better help you style your life, through advice from trendsetters, designers, influencers, innovators, fabricators and manufacturers, as well as personal stories that inspire, motivate and excite. So, whether you're listening to iDesign Lab during your commute or in a cozy nook in your home or office, grab a coffee or a chardonnay and join us on this elevated, informative and lively journey into the world of all things design.

Tiffany Woolley: 1:09

Today on iDesign, we're going to give a little tidbit. We're going to discuss why you should use an interior designer and why you should not decorate or design in isolation. Decorate or design in isolation, and what I mean by that is why you really should come to an interior designer to pull your project together and not go to the kitchen and bath showroom and not go to floor and decor and not shop these places in isolation.

Scott Woolley: 1:41

Well, it doesn't mean people shouldn't go, but it would be make. It makes much more sense for an individual who's looking to redecorate a room or redecorate a house is talk to an interior designer that has experience and knowledge in all of those different aspects.

Tiffany Woolley: 1:57

So even if you do go to your local you know floor and decor or even a local kitchen and bath shop you should still work with an interior designer who can look at your home and look at your project as a cohesive footprint.

Scott Woolley: 2:15

Pulling everything together in one package.

Tiffany Woolley: 2:17

Right. So even if it's just one room you're tackling, you still want that new kitchen to coordinate with the rest of your home. You don't want it to be like people walk in your house and be like, well, that kitchen was done in 2024, but all their furniture was, from you know, a hammock.

Scott Woolley: 2:36

Well, another aspect of it is an individual who goes to a bath shop because they want to redo their bathroom and the bath shop basically is going to redo their bath, their bathroom, and the bath shop basically is going to change the bathroom for them, but they're not thinking about that bathroom is connected to a bedroom and that particular person is looking at well, I'm going to be changing the bedroom as well. They should really be thinking about is the bedroom and the bathroom at the same time? Or, even more importantly, is the kitchen. They go to a kitchen cabinet company and the kitchen cabinet company is going to sell them cabinets, but they're not thinking about all the other aspects pertaining to that room. What's the flooring in the room? What's the backsplash of the room? Is there wallpaper in the room? Is there paint in that room?

Scott Woolley: 3:22

Is that room open to the family room or to a living room or a TV room, and how is that all going to be cohesive?

Tiffany Woolley: 3:29

And that's why I mean you shouldn't design in isolation. And that is my biggest push when clients come in is really, let's take in the architecture of the home, the architecture of even the condo building, whatever it is. You want your palette to be cohesive and finished Well, you've been an interior designer for 26 years. Oh my gosh 26 years you've been an interior designer doing over 400 homes. I know you say that.

Scott Woolley: 3:59

That is true. I've done a calculation and looked at the projects that you've done over the years. I've done a calculation and looked at the projects that you've done over the years. I've gone through your files. You've done over 400 high-end homes completely. I mean not just one room in a home but a whole home.

Tiffany Woolley: 4:19

I'm not counting just the individual little rooms you've done as favors and so forth for friends and so forth. But going back to the isolation component is I just really would like to stress why an interior designer is important to your project. So, whether it is somebody that you're sourcing on an hourly basis or someone that you're hiring to walk this journey with you in renovation or even from the ground up, it's super important to not just design in isolation. However, these showrooms and these areas are great to go and kind of see what you like, and there are great resources for those purposes, but I really believe you should, you know, begin and end with an interior designer. But why do?

Scott Woolley: 5:05

people not go and in the three years that I've been involved with you in interior design, I've realized and I've seen and I understand why. The first thing I think is that people think that an interior designer is too expensive. They don't realize that the interior designer especially if it's an interior designer who's doing a lot of business and has the right type of accounts with vendors there's buying power. So, like with TW Interiors, we're buying things for in some cases 60%, 70% off retail and we're providing that back to the client that savings.

Scott Woolley: 5:46

So when they're paying the markup for our services at the end of the day, which we show clients, we're showing them that you're buying this chair. When they see it what it is in retail, with our services on top of it, they're buying it from less from us than they would be from retail. So that's one of the things I think that-.

Scott Woolley: 6:07

It's kind of a misnomer in the industry that interior designers were really just for the high-end homes, the elite, and we live in a Pinterest world now where everybody can be, you know, very high-end presentation, right Well the other thing that I keep telling in these podcasts and I've mentioned it numerous times is a client that you had that went to Rooms to Go, bought four rooms of furniture, had the four rooms of furniture put into the house and just could not understand why it did not look the way it did in Rooms to Go, but I remember you talking to the client, telling them well, rooms to Go has particular lighting.

Scott Woolley: 6:47

I remember you talking to the client telling them well, rooms that Go has particular lighting. They have wallpaper on the walls, well take away Rooms that Go.

Tiffany Woolley: 6:55

You can use Restoration Hardware as a great example as well, and I love Restoration Hardware. They've nailed the industry tremendously.

Tiffany Woolley: 7:04

They've curated an incredible collection, so it's not knocking them or their product, but when you walk into their showroom it's a vibe from the music to the smell, to every detail, and they're always lighting high ceilings, the lighting, the architectural detailing, and you know their line is pretty clean and basic actually, and so when you bring that into a clean and basic architecture, you just spent a lot of money and you didn't deliver the vibe Because you didn't pick out the wallpaper or the proper paint color.

Scott Woolley: 7:37

Yeah, and what the flooring is? Is it an area rug? Needed what it is, all the accessories that are going along with it, which a designer is providing and helping you with that service. Correct, yes, it's a big thing for interior designers to you know, helping get that message out that people should think about.

Tiffany Woolley: 7:56

You know, using an interior designer, you know if it's just one room or even like if it's an outdoor, even a renovate, a pool renovation, that come into the office when they've already put the new windows in the house or whatever the case is. But you're already spending that money anyway for all new windows and doors everywhere. Why not base it around your furniture layout and your plan and maybe this door gets bigger and this window gets smaller and you're curating your aesthetic. It's all about not designing in isolation, isolation. Isolation meaning taking every little thing as its own individual task or component, and I'm all about working with an interior designer because we tie all those components together. So you come in with that as your plan. You come in with a budget Everybody does have one and you try to tackle the overall concept, the overall plan, and then you can tackle the tasks as you can, right.

Scott Woolley: 9:07

So before they're buying their first piece of furniture, they've got a plan that they can look at for everything that's going to be in that room. Doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to end up buying everything in that room, correct, but they get a really good, cohesive look and design of how the room should be, with everything.

Tiffany Woolley: 9:30

Again yep, we're all about not designing in isolation.

Scott Woolley: 9:34

In isolation. So that's our tidbit today. All right cool.

Speaker 1: 9:37

Okay, until the next time iDesign Labs Podcast is an SW Group production in association with the Five Star and TW Interiors. To learn more about iDesign Lab or TW Interiors, please visit twinteriorscom.