Need advice on interior design fee issue longish post

15 years ago

I need some benchmarks on potential fees from either design professionals or people who have used a designer for a big remodeling project. I have to negotiate a fair fee with my designer for the services he has and will provide to complete my bathroom renovation.

BACKSTORY:

We hired our designer to complete a bathroom which already had floor plans and plumbing/electrical rough-in. We agreed that it would be a fixed fee contract with our stated budget being $20-25K for materials and labor. The designer said that we would know the fee as we clarified the design aesthetic for the space. As we started selecting materials, DH and I realized that we could save a SIGNIFICANT amount of money by doing research and purchasing materials on our own (with the advice of the designer on style/quality issues).

We talked this over with the designer, who agreed that we should go ahead and do this, though he did make a comment about needing to "true up" at the end of the project to make sure that he would be adequately compensated given this buying approach. I assume this means that if we had bought through him that he would have collected some sort of mark-up, though I thought that was not going to be the case. In any case, he did not amend our contract and the only cost estimates I received from him were the amount of a deposit, which covered both this project and another which we are doing on an hourly basis, and a figure of $3,300, which he provided as we were assembling an estimate of the total costs for the project (before we decided to change our buying model).

A couple of weeks ago he mentioned to me that we had "switched to hourly" for this project I did not interpret his earlier statement as having that meaning. I immediately asked for an accounting of where we were on that. He sent the accounting along with a number of caveats about how this isnt an invoice and he wants to help us finish the project and is willing to cap his fee. With the project still about a month from completion (and a lot of hours given that we still have to do all the installation), his hours TO DATE would calculate out to about $8,000 in fees. All of the caveats clearly mean that he realized that the itemization of hours would be totally shocking to us, which it is.

QUESTIONS:

Putting aside the lack of professionalism and foresight evident in the fact that he didnt clarify things sooner, we are now in a position where we will need to negotiate. And to do that, I need some information to work with. Here are a bunch of questions the answers to these will help us think about how to manage the discussion. Your insight on any or all of them, as well as anything that I didnt ask that you think would help us figure out how to proceed, would be most helpful.

- Is there an approximate percentage of cost for space renovation that would provide a reasonable benchmark for how much we should pay?

- Should we ask him to apply different hourly rates to different kinds of services, which would allow us to pay him less for research - since we ultimately used little of the research on materials that he did for us - and on-site time - which requires time but not necessarily design expertise - and his regular fee for actual design advice? What should those fees be (his regular hourly is $150 keep in mind we are in Chicago)?

- Putting aside the percentage of our budget that we should pay for his services, how many hours is a reasonable expectation for this kind of soup-to-nuts project? How can we think about reimbursing him for his time in a way that is not completely destructive to our overall budget even if we cap him here, at $8000 the cost is double we had built in to pay him?

- How should we address the single estimate of $3300 that we got from him given the change in our purchasing method?

- What kinds of questions should we ask to find out what he would have earned if we had done the project in a more "standard" way? Is this a reasonable benchmark to use to determine how much he should be paid given how we did the project?

Thanks so much and sorry for the lengthy post!

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Comments (8)

User
15 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
there are many designers on the kitchen forum that may be able to help with this, I suggest you do a cross post, and you may want to clarify the title with "attn designers".
jodidesign
Original Author
15 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
I actually did a cross post on the home decorating forum and have gotten a number of responses, though my fundamental questions about how else to think about compensating designers for this kind of work are not yet answered. Thanks for the thought.
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capecodder
15 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Wow, $150.00 an hour. We hired a designer to help us with our small 8x8 foot bathroom, she charged $60.00 per hour and I thought that was steep! She did purchasing for us, and added a 10% surcharge, but she said (and I felt it was true) that she got better prices for us than we would have gotten ourselves. We ended up paying her close to $2000 which I think was way too much. On the hand, in some ways it was worth it because my husband and I couldn't agree on anything! I would think your designer would insist on charging you for time he/she spent on research even if you didn't use that expertise. We experienced this same issue.
But your total figure sounds wayyy too high and negotiation is certainly needed. Good luck.
folkman
15 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
I think the problem is that you and the designer let the "final number" drag out and that should have been fixed. I would hold the designer to the original estimate of $3,300 which, in my opinion is a bit too high but I don't know what that was broken out to cover. I work as a designer in another field and people always think what we do is easy. I see no reason why your designer would want MORE money especially if you and your husband said you wanted to search for the items yourself. If anything the designer's time may have gone done. Unless you asked for MORE things to be reviewed as the project went along, the invoice should not be more than the intial estimate.

I can't justify $8,000 at all unless the other part of the job you had her work on was extensive. I would think the 8 x8 bathroom would be about $2,000 if she was not adding the typical 10% mark up if she purchased the items.
Jim Peschke
15 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Did your $20-$25k budget balloon too? I had a contract with a good CKD AND CBD certified designer in the Los Angeles area for $7,000 and that included a $60k+ kitchen remodel AND a 100K+ bathroom addition. How could any designer justify a design fee that was 40% of the total budget. Even at $3,300 it seems expensive. Unless your budget tripled or you live in Manhattan I think the $3,300 number is pretty fair. It is also his/her fault for not putting changes to the agreement in writing.

- Jim
shannonaz
15 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
We paid a designer a flat fee of $1800 to do plans/drawings for us. That price would have included some help picking materials etc. We ended up doing everything else. Another designer that I may work with to help me put the finishing touches on my home bills by the hour: $75/hour. I am confused. How many hours did he spend on your bathroom project? What did he do exactly? I think 3300 sounds excessive for even a 40,000 remodel unless the designer did everything and coordinated with your GC/subs and you didn't even lift a finger except to sign off on things. Was his original plan to charge you 3300 PLUS make a profit on materials he purchased for you? I think that is mind boggling. 3300 should cover a lot. I thought $1800 was a lot and I realize I didn't even need to spend that amount. My cabinet designer could have done what she did. I really want to know what your designer did!! You sound very reasonable, I hope you come to a good conclusion with this.
jodidesign
Original Author
15 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Thanks to you all for your input. It's nice to know that I am not losing my mind. Since a few of you asked, the budget did not balloon - in fact by doing the purchasing ourselves we saved about $5K on materials over comparable prices that the designer could get (buying on ebay, etc.). We are a few thousand over our target but definitely still in the neighborhood.

I do want to clarify though that the designer IS coordinating with the GC/Subs to get the work done right, including being at my house to oversee work and get bids.

We are meeting tonight and I intend to find out exactly what his original plan was and why that changed, as well as to lay out a few alternative ways he could be compensated and the amounts those generate, pretty much all of which wind up below the $8000 figure. I'll let you know where we come out.
Jim Peschke
15 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
So how did it go?

- Jim

Need advice on interior design fee issue longish post

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Need advice on interior design fee issue longish post

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