pink peony, you could select some designers on Houzz from your local area, and contact them to inquire. You could also do online e-design with a designer -- there are some here at GardenWeb/Houzz who do this.

Edited to add: One GW designer who does this is Flo Mangan who is very active in this forum : ) .

Greatly depends on where you live and the caliber of designer. Like buying a car, you can get a Honda or a Porsche. Also, is it truly just materials selections or would they be configuring cabinet layouts, furniture choices, overall scheme for a room?

Oldest song in the book, LOL, but its not for me. My friend who lives on the west coast. She and her husband bought an older home and they are gutting interior. They already have architect plans drawn up. Contractors hired etc. But she wants to hire someone just to pick out finishes. She actually went with an online service who does this type of thing and didn't get the experience she was hoping for and now feels intimidated to call someone. she feels like she won't be able to afford it since the online fee was so high she can only imagine what a real live designer would cost. We both googled and found no clear cut answer.

I think Maria Killam offers this as an eService.

I know there are a lot of posters on here that I would LOVE to hire!!!!

We paid $2,500 for a designer to pick the paint colors for our five bedroom, three story row house. She was top notch and rarely works on jobs this small (I had to charm her into doing it). Most of her gigs are $500,000 +.

Design fees can range from as little as 75 .00 and hour for a "newbie" to several hundred per hour in a major city for major experience. It will depend on if you are building, or renovating, and how much work is entailed. Or they can be a % of the total cost of the project.

In any case, the word "just" is one to eliminate from design vocabulary. I "just" want all the finishes, flooring, tile, paint, fixtures and their finishes and make it all look nice and make sense together and and.....

There IS no "just" That's why your friend is wanting the pro help.

IMO there is no way you can do this on line . I would never try to design a space without actually seeing it. As for the cost that varies with area and the scope of the work. As suggested find some designers in your area and meet with them. You need to have a rapport with who ever you choose.

I believe we paid $300 12 years ago for a designer to pick out paint colors for our home. She had to work with our existing furniture and we had wood blinds but no draperies at the time. She was at our house maybe 2 hours? We did go with most of the colors she chose. I thought it was money well spent because I had trouble visualizing what would look good in what was then a new house for us. I'm not sure if I would do it again only because I think I have a pretty good eye and choices I've made since have turned out quite well.

Thank you. I think I’ve convinced her to take the plunge.

patricia i think you are right. I think her experience with this online company soured her a bit. Poor recommendation to her by someone who had a great experience with them.

She said they couldn’t understand her vision and when i asked her what her vision was she said she didn’t know LOL!

pink peony, does your friend have some Pinterest boards or Houzz boards, or even some old-fashioned pages from magazines stashed in a binder?

I wonder if the difference between your friend and the person who recommended the online company is that the recommender had a vision, and your friend doesn't. Or thinks she doesn't. To me it sounds as if it wasn't a poor recommendation, but that your friend and the other person are in two very different places -- one with a vision ready to work with a designer on translating that into rooms and a home, and your friend still not quite sure what that vision is.

So step one for your friend is likely working on figuring out/establishing that vision for herself and then to be able to explain it to someone else, like a designer.

She said they couldn’t understand her vision and when i asked her what her vision was she said she didn’t know LOL!

Oops, maybe that's the problem. No one's a mind reader. I'd assume that a designer can help someone develop and articulate their vision, but that sounds more time-consuming (and costly) to do all that trial and error with a pro. Personally I'd rather pour over pinterest and houzz pics on my own time and have some direction for how to use the pro's time.

I'd be interested to hear from the pros how this works. Do you often get clients who don't articulate a vision, and how do you handle it?

I often get people using indeterminate or non specific words to indicate their design style, or even, "I don't know". The phrase I most often use when I encounter that is, "Show me a picture that illustrates what you mean." Or, "Show me some pictures that appeal to you."

It can mean more expense up front to a customer for me to explore their style together. But I have sat down with clients and created Houzz idea books based on a few key phrases that they have uttered, and then we analyze them together to figure out what they are responding to. That means not overwhelming them with too much at once, and watching their facial expressions and body language. Designing is a lot of psychology, actually!

Between that, looking at their existing home, their wardrobe, and their leisure activities, I can usually dial it in close enough to limit 1000 selections to just 3-4. But it takes time to do that up front getting to know you before beginning the actual design work of pulling together selections.

The hardest clients are those who don't know what they want, but aren't willing to trust me and let go of some control for me to help them. We both end up frustrated.

I don't understand how you can work with an online consultant to pick paint or tile. It isn't just that colors vary from screen to screen but you need to see how a color looks depending on the hour of daylight and the other objects in the room that can create shadows. Our designer had the color samples for each room painted in at least four different locations in the room. Then she came to hour house five times to look at the color samples on the walls, stopping by even for 15 at a particular time of day to see how the sample changed depending on the light.

A friend used online consultant to pick out living room furniture, artwork, and make a configuration for the room. It ended up being a pretty generic Crate and Barrel look, though I think that was what she was going for. I can see how these kinds of tasks could be more easily done online.