Budget, why do we need to know this?

Of all the subjects I get asked about from other designers, the most frequent one is, how do you get people to tell you the budget and when they do, be honest about it. The budget, or investment you want to make on a project, is the most important piece of information you can give to your designer. Simply put, we can’t do our job without it. As an example, lets say you want us to help you re-do your living room. You want new furniture, area rug, new window treatments, lamps, etc. You want to have the room painted and the hardwood floors re-finished. Once we discuss all of that the next question I ask is how much do you want to spend on this project? Now if you tell me you don’t know care you want it to look great, you want the wow factor!! My come back to you would be, “so it is ok if I send $150,000 to do the room”. After you pick your jaw off the floor, you look at me and laugh and say of course not. So you do care how much I spend of your money?? At that point I have a very serious discussion with you about money. I often have it said to me, “well if I tell you that I would be willing to spend $30,000, you will spend it all”. My answer is yes I will. I could also spend $12,000 too. However, if you are expecting the look that $30,000 will give you, don’t tell me that you will spend $12,000 and in your mind be prepared to go to $30,000 if need be. The problem I will run into is, as I work on your project and work hard to keep on your $12,000 budget by choosing cheaper furniture, cheaper fabrics, maybe blinds for your windows rather that a beautiful soft treatment that would have looked awesome. I will have to compromise on quality to stay on your budget. There is nothing wrong with that at all if that is truly what you want. I think you get the picture. I can guide you for what you need to spend to get the quality and look based of the rest of your house, but the final word is yours on budget, you just have to be up front about it. Once I have put your project together and return to your house to present it to you, you will be very disappointment in what I am showing you, with me staying on the $12,000 budget and you having it in your head, that you would spend $30,000. The best example of this is going through model homes. Go through a model home worth one million dollars and then go through one that is worth $500,000 and see how disappointed you are in the $500,000 model. It doesn’t mean that the $500,000 is not a great house; it just means you are not comparing apples with apples. Keep that in mind when you are doing projects around your house. You truly get what you pay for. I am not saying it is wrong, just different. I will work with any budget and if I think that the budget you have is not enough to do what you want done, I will tell you that too. Sometimes you have to do projects in stages based on budgets. This is much better than trying to do everything at once and compromising on quality. Let me guide you with that, I have been doing this a long time and have lots of experience with it.