We did not hire a designer only because my husband insisted that we design every aspect of the house ourselves. However, I think hiring a designer is money well spent. We have stumbled at every design choice and our house lacks the polish and flow that it would have had if we had professional help. Educate yourself in the differences between "interior decorators" and "interior designers." At least around here, designers have 2-4 year post secondary degrees and decorators don't. There really is color theory and design theory etc. that you want your designer/decorator to know. Also, pick a designer whose favorite style is your favorite style (i.e, if you like contempoary don't pick a designer who usually does traditional designs) My best friend is an interior designer (and I really wanted to hire her for her house) and I have seen her portfolio and to me the extra money is worth it.

We thought we could do it all ourselves also, but there were just too many decisions--stone, mortar, tile, stain, paint, etc. So we hired a interior designer that really helped us. Maybe ask your builder or architect who they recommend, look at houses that person has done. Or if there is a house that you like alot, ask who their designer was. Or, post here where you are located and maybe someone would have an idea. It also helps to know what style you are going after. Look at lots of magazines and tear out what you like and then decide what you like about it--color, texture, etc. We paid $75/hour and it was money very well spent. Be aware though--ours charged for emails and the time he spent getting to our new house. I was very organized when he did come. Had all of my questions on paper and then wrote down the answers he said so I would not have to ask again.

We did not, because my wife watches HGTV and has a good eye for color and what works. However, she threw a baby shower for a friend, and 5 people at the party asked her who her interior designer was. (I like to brag on her.)

Yes, brick does come in different sizes. We went with the Acme King-size brick. It's slightly more expensive, but you actually need fewer because it's larger.

Alabamanicole,
Reading your comments, I'd say you can do it. Maybe you are just concerned.

Yes, you could hire a professional to help you with that. Architects are usually the ones deciding about the exterior color scheme and texture. In 5 years I have been with this architectural company, only once an interior designer was involved in the brick selection (and she just approved what we selected)
Most of the times, the interior designers are involved in selection of flooring, wall coverings, etc.

This is what I suggest:
You go to the brick provider and take a look at their brick samples. You select the 3 bricks that you like the best and ask the person to give you many addresses that used those bricks and you go for a ride and look not only the bricks but the material combination and colors and go from there. Do not be surprised if the sample that you saw at the brick showroom looks so different than the one already installed.

You can also look around and select some material/color combination that you like and then go to the brick provider and ask them to tell you what that brick is. They do this everyday. You also want to keep in mind the overall style that you want for your home, it helps to narrow it down.

If after doing that you can not make your mind, you could go to a professional.

We are currently using an interior designer. I would say he is worth every penny. He catches things that we/the builder/the architect don't catch (or even think about).

I agree with 'marthaelena'; and that goes with almost everything when you are building. Try to find examples of what you like and make an effort to look at homes similar in style to yours. It is very helpful to get that "visual" and I bet you can do that yourself.
Good Luck!

Thanks for the feedback! It's very good to hear that people who have have chosen to work with a designer or decorator are happy they did.

Marthalena, my GC suggested the same thing about asking for addresses or looking at houses. I have been to the brick showrooms and my exact concern is that what it looks like under the halogen lights on a 12"x24" sample will be nothing like what it looks like on the side of a house on a wooded mountain lot. Oh I can make a decision... but it won't necessarily be a good one!

It's an urban infill lot in an old neighborhood, so there isn't any construction going on in similar conditions for me to scavenge ideas from. I have driven to nearby areas with similar topographic conditions where there is new contruction, but the homes are 3-4x the size of mine and nothing similar in style. It beats nothing at all, though.

My GC has someone he is recommending and has offered to pay for half of what is a fairly modest fee in the first place -- about what it cost me to get the plans drawn.

It sounds like I could go either way. I can punt the exterior choices down the road for a bit, I think, at least until the lot is cleared and I start to get a house-sized shape to work with.

Because almost no decision is cheap or easily changed in a house design you should hire a professional to help you with anything you are not qualified to do yourself and consider it part of he cost of the project.

But the difficult part is in arriving at a realistic evaluation of your skills and not adopting the self-serving approach that it's easy or that you can't afford it or that you can find the answers on the internet.

Designing a house is difficult even for professionals and they never stop learning so find one who has worked long enough to see enough mistakes to be able to protect you from them.

As you know, I am designing pretty much everything in my house as well, and I'm a major control freak. What my lovely wife and I have decided to do is draw the plans, get them perfect-o! and then pay an architect a couple hundred bucks to tell us they look like crap and why.

We are also thinking about having a lighting designer and interior designer do the same thing. We have a very particular style, but from the minds of many.....

That's actually why I got on this site in the first place. I know what I want and I'm very stubborn, but lots of people on this site have used what I want and presented it in a different way, making me look at my selections twice.

"pay an architect a couple hundred bucks"

Maybe he/she will clean your windows for another $50 and save a return trip.

A couple of hundred bucks? Dream on. :)

My house designer/draftsman was $1200 for a smallish house, for tweaks to get the house to work right structurally and to draw plans as needed for the trades, inspectors and bank. Do your own design because you want to get it a certain way, but don't expect it to save you any money... in fact it cost me more in the end than his normal design fee. That's before factoring in my software costs and time spent.

A friend did the same thing as me but used an architect, and it was over $5000.

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macv, you are right. The hard part is the self-assessment. But the worst thing is paying someone to do a job that it turns out you could do better and faster. Not that I've *ever* had that experience with so-called professional contractors before...

im not finished with my house but we dont plan to. Like many people we watch a ton of hgtv and figure we can just copy other designs and add things we like. Ultimately were not getting one because there's no money for it, after spending so much money there is very little left for a designer.

alabamanicole
Are you suggesting that a homeowner with no prior experience in house design or drafting could design a house "better and faster" than an architect?

I can understand someone wanting to believe that but a house is a major expense so at some point you need to be realistic.

I don't want to turn this into an architect vs DIY designer discussion but IMHO a homeowner would need to spend an incredible amount more time than an architect in order to complete a set of drawings suitable for bidding and construction.

Do you think an architect could get through a long and difficult graduate school education, pass a long and difficult registration exam, work for a firm for many years with demanding clients and have learned nothing useful about designing and documenting a building? If homeowners have developed similar or better skills I don't see any evidence of it here on the Gardenweb, no offense intended.

"Are you suggesting that a homeowner with no prior experience in house design or drafting could design a house "better and faster" than an architect? "

No, I'm not.

alabamanicole-
So you are asking about an interior designer not a house designer right? I am not very clear on the difference between them. But from my basic understanding an interior designer would help you in your interior selections like carpet, hardwood, tile, cabinetry, colors. A house designer helps in designing your home and is done once the plan is complete. Is this right? I have pretty much chosen almost all my finishes hoping that I can get the exact dollar figure that I will be working with before signing the contracts. But I didn't use a designer (other than the salespeople who some people call designers) to help me with these selections. I think it would be worth it if it ran in the $1,200 dollar range given the stress and the time you need to spend. Although I am wondering if it is a little too late for me.

That's how I define house designer vs. interior designer or decorator. I haven't priced anyone else. This particular decorator is $1500 on a per-project basis.

I don't think a decorator would mean LESS work, at least not in that price range. I think it really means someone to bounce ideas off of and who can make informed suggestions and offer alternatives. For $1500, I'm sure he's not doing my shopping for me.

I've picked out and priced almost everything for the interior for the same reason as you. No fuzzy wishful thinking allowances for me, please. But I've never done an exterior, and that's where I feel my comfort zone petering out.

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Macv, to clarify -- when I referred to doing a better job than "so-called professional contractors," I was talking about the flotsam of the industry. (Which, it seems, are most of the people working in the construction biz.) Having a license means nothing and I think all their references are cousins. I meant the carpenter tasked with building a recessed trap door that insists that you have to use strap hinges, because that's the ONLY kind of hinge there is. Darryl & Darryl who build an access door that requires that you bust it open like an episode of COPS. Living for two weeks without hot water because it takes the plumber 3 tries to show up with the correct size hot water heater. The plumber who wants to use your vacuum cleaner to suck up the broken tile and mortar bed in the shower he just -- oops -- knocked a hole in, because the dust will ruin his. The GC who orders twice as much concrete as you need and the concrete truck driver who dumps half a load in the middle of your driveway and then drives over it in his truck... which you discover the next day.

Arg. I have to stop remembering shining examples of stupidity, laziness and incompetence or I'll never build the house.

well, i have a design background (art director, graphic artist, set decorator) and i can tell you that every designer needs a designer. it's more difficult to be objective and identify the need to "step back", evaluate and assess when it's YOUR house. every designer i know hires a designer to bounce ideas off of and basically hold our hand. it's money well spent; especially since mistakes can be painfully expensive. it's like anything else. when you're too close to something you start to lose sight of the possibilities.

I don't want to hire an architect to draw the plans or even look at them from ground level. I'd be hoping more for a 20k foot view of the overall scheme.

I didn't hire an interior designer because I had all the free help I needed on these forums, web sites, books and close friends who love to decorate and can give me an honest opinion on my thoughts and selections.

So far the house is looking pretty good. I have a long way to go to get in entirely decorated, but I like taking it slow and making each choice a special one. Yes, making the choices is sometimes painful, but in the end I'm happy with my selections.

I don't want someone coming in and making my house "look pretty". I want it to have character, charm and beauty. My rooms have to give me a certain "feeling" when I'm in them and if I let a stranger decorate them they would end up feeling like a hotel or other strange environment to me.

Have you checked out the other forums, i.e., decorating, lighting, paint, furniture, and of course this one? There are lots of professionals that visit these forums who have some great free advice.

Also, don't forget about places like Calico Corners and high end furniture stores that employ decorator's to help customers with colors, design, etc.

My brick sales lady gave me addresses of where I could go see my brick. Just so happens the brick used at the entrance to our sub division is the exact brick on my house. I didn't have far to drive. LOL

However, having said all this about doing everything ourselves, I must admit when it comes to the design of the front yard, being it's 5 times as large as what I have now, I'm thinking I'll need someone to help me out with a design.

We're using one now and it is helpful. There are are a lot of design decisions you couldn't even imagine like placement of outlets, air returns ( the hvac guys wanted to place them in the most visible places which would have interfered with furniture placement, interior designer advised us on placing them in nearly invisible locations). Flooring type, color electrical fixture style depending on your overall sense of style for the house (ie traditional, modern, tuscany etc) Colors, trim type, etc. Expensive but money well spent and my wife watches hgtv 247.

I'm new here but I have to weigh in on this one. I visited our local lumberyard/building store after I finished designing our plans. I found the more eager to work young man, and we ultimately chose him to be out supplier. I spoke to the manager, and asked for him to be our only contact with the project.
We then sat down, I showed him all of my inspiration pics on my computer, and he got to know my taste, and has made many good suggestions on door hardware styles I did not know existed, and so forth.

Well, yesterday I needed to finalize the window order, and was uncertain about how high I wanted the windows, given the nine foot ceilings. Well, he called one of the contractors he's working with and asked permission to take me out to this guys job site where I saw a breathtaking house almost completed. Stunning design.

He showed me their window heights, and I made up my mind, but that's not what I want to focus on. The thing was- this beautiful structure was a nightmarish mix of colors.

The stone on the outside had an orangish hue, while the siding was pale blue- what a clash. I gasped when I saw it.

The rooms inside were all painted a different color including: royal blue, pumpkin, teal, purple, pea green (the dominant color of the house) and so on and let me tell you, after working with color and design for 25 years of my career, I actually had to get out of the house because of the chaos it embodied. I turned to my building supply gy and said "Well, at least you know you'll have a good high-hiding primer order coming your way when they realize what they have done here".

My point is, if you are sure/confidant of your sense of color and style, and you have a history of being able to decorate successfully on past projects, go ahead, but find someone with similar taste, whose home you admire and run your choices past them.

But if you don't feel confidant, and have no experience, consider putting your designs together on a story board for each room, place them all together, and see what you think. If you are not confident them, call in a professional for consultation. it'' be a lot less expensive than correcting mistakes.

Thank you everyone for the continued feedback. In my case I feel pretty confident about the interior, and your stories are making me feel more confident in that area.

It's the exterior where I think I might find myself on wobbly ground!

You are wise to recognize that you need help; the task ahead of you is not at all easy.

I would recommend looking for a sole-practitioner architect, perhaps one who is semi-retired (they never retire). He/she might be able to save you enough money to pay the fee in addition to avoiding some pain and getting a more professional result. Avoiding even one waterproofing error or a dispute with the builder could pay for the architect's fee. I saved a developer from a multi-million dollar disaster with a phone call to a forensic testing engineer during a design meeting and he didn't even buy me lunch.