If you’re building a new home, you might assume you’ll hire an interior designer once the plans are finished and it’s time to pick out tile, paint, and light fixtures.
I would actually recommend doing it much earlier.
Ideally, you should hire your interior designer about a year before you plan to break ground.
That may sound early, but there is a lot that happens before construction begins that can have a major impact on how your home ultimately looks, feels, and functions.
Before You Have the Plans
If you’ve just purchased land and know you want to build, that’s a great time to start the conversation with your designer.
You don’t need finished architectural plans. You don’t need every detail figured out. In fact, I’d rather meet you before those things are finalized.
From there, we can start thinking through how you actually want to live in the home, what you’re hoping to invest, and what needs to happen to get you from a piece of land to a finished house.
We’ll coordinate with your architect as plans develop, review them together, and advocate for revisions when something isn’t working for the way you want to live.
Because once those plans are finalized, some decisions become much harder—and much more expensive—to change.
Your Interior Designer Isn’t Just Picking Finishes
This is one of the biggest misconceptions about new construction interior design.
Yes, I’ll help you select your tile, countertops, cabinetry, plumbing, lighting, paint, and furnishings.
But those decisions don’t happen in isolation.
The layout of your kitchen affects the cabinetry. The cabinetry affects your lighting and plumbing. Your ceiling height affects your cabinetry. Your furniture affects the size and layout of a room.
Everything is connected.
That’s why I want to be involved early enough to look at the home as a whole rather than trying to make individual decisions work after the fact.
Early Decisions Can Prevent Expensive Changes Later
I’ve been brought into homes where construction was already underway and the client needed help making selections.
One example was a partially constructed home where plumbing rough-ins had already been installed. The homeowners were then selecting their plumbing fixtures without realizing that the rough-ins had been installed with a particular plumbing brand in mind.
At that point, they could either stay within those parameters or pay to have the plumbing rough-ins removed and redone.
And that’s just one example.
When a designer is involved early, we can coordinate these decisions before they’re installed—not after you’re standing in a half-finished bathroom trying to figure out what went wrong.
It Also Gives You Time to Make Better Decisions
The other reason I recommend starting early is simple: some decisions take time.
Some products have long lead times. Some decisions need to be revisited. Sometimes you see something you love and we need to adjust the plan around it.
I’d much rather have time to thoughtfully work through those decisions than have construction waiting on us because we’re still trying to figure something out.
The goal is to have the design ready when construction needs it.
Not to be building the ship while we’re floating along in it.
So, When Should You Hire Your Designer?
If you’re building a custom home, my answer is:
As soon as you know you’re going to build.
If you already purchased your land, even better.
You don’t need a finished floor plan. You don’t need a builder selected. You don’t need every budget number figured out.
Those are things we can work through together.
The earlier your interior designer is involved, the more opportunity you have to create a home that is thoughtfully designed from the beginning—not one where we’re trying to make the interiors work around decisions that have already been made.
A new construction home is a huge investment.
You only get one chance to make many of these decisions before they’re behind the walls.
Start the design process before you start building the house.
