You're renovating. Or building a home. Either way, you’re about to invest your heart, soul, and a *&%@load of money in a space that has to be worth all that. We're here to suggest you spend even more! But trust us, you'll be very glad you did.

Here are ten reasons NOT to skip the interior designer in your home project.

(Yes, we're biased. But we're right about this.)

1. Spend to save. An interior designer helps you avoid making costly mistakes. Your dreamy new dining room built-in should not make the room so small you can't fit your heirloom table. Designers think of that and lots of other things you haven't considered.

An interior designer will help ensure that your (expensive) sectional won't fight with your (also expensive) kitchen counter or the stain color of your (really expensive) oak floors.

2. You live inside, not outside. People who specialize in interiors think about spaces from the inside out, and therefore often catch issues contractors and architects miss, like the fact that you will see the electric meter through your beautiful new frameless corner window. An interior designer is thinking about you, how you live in and use your home, and how you want it to feel and function when you're in it.

3. Communication, Communication, Communication. A residential interior designer has to be a people person, who speaks both your language and contractor language. We make sure understand what you are saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to when the ventilation of your new hood comes up. You might not know you need an interpreter, until you do.

4. The three P's. An interior designer helps you Plan and Prioritize. (The third P is Patience. We can point you to the Religion and Self Help section of the library for that.) Before you make the mistake of putting the horse before the cart, we'll suggest the proper order to do things. Especially on projects that will be implemented over the course of a few years.

An interior designer will help you plan and prioritize and avoid decision paralysis.

5. Decision paralysis. The Internet has put everything at our fingertips, which is awesome. Except when it makes your head spin off. There are hundreds of tiny decisions to make when doing a renovation or new build. An architect will know how to tie in rooflines and route water away from the basement. A contractor will know the best insulation and how to get the wires from here to there. An interior designer knows how to navigate the many micro and let's-face-it, exhausting decisions: trim detail, faucets, door knobs, window coverings, countertop material, bullnose or schluter. This stuff is often beyond the scope of your architect's contract, and are things your contractor just wants you to pick out, usually yesterday, so she can install.

6. Philosophy. Interior designers conceptualize. We are, dare we say, intellectual about this stuff. We talk about how interior elements are in conversation with one another, and we are serious. Bounce ideas off of us; we love bouncing ideas. Contractors don't have much time for bouncing.

An interior designer will help help you conceptualize and think outside the box.

7. Resale. Going to sell your home soon? An interior designer can help integrate your particular style and needs into an aesthetic that will appeal to the masses.

A good interior designer will give you a little push for something unexpected.

8. A little push. A good Interior Designer will design for you, but with a gentle push - for something interesting, something colorful, something unexpected, something more right than what is easy, something better than what you may have been envisioning. Contractors will usually do just what you say (at best), or suggest the path of least resistance.

9. We like you. Residential Interior designers are generally people people. They will take your proffered coffee and sit down and listen to you. They want to get to know you. They work hard at figuring out what you find beautiful and how to make your house feel like your home - without evicting your children and pets.

A residential interior designer is a people person who gets to know how you work to protect the integrity of your home's interior.

10. Integrity of the interior. Who at the table protects your living room from an awkward HVAC chute? Your interior designer. Who makes sure your mudroom isn't set up to become a major traffic jam every afternoon at 3:45? Your interior designer. Who knows how big and how low a pendant should be? And whether it should match the finish on the faucet and drawer pulls? Your interior designer. The box may be beautiful, and the construction may be tight, but if the materials, fixtures and furnishings, and then the art and accessories, don't do it justice, it just won't look like the pictures you've been drooling over on Houzz for the past 18 months. Those homes had interior designers, we assure you.

For more on the matter, read:

here, here, and here.

Or call SYI! We'd love to help.

I have an architect. I have a contractor. Why do I also need an interior designer?