Often people ask about the fees involved with hiring an interior designer for their project. How much would it cost to hire a designer? Is their designer over-charging them? Any question regarding design fees cannot easily be answered because each project is unique, as is each client, each designer, and each design firm.

However, there are five ways in which interior designers can charge:

1) Hourly fee. This is dreaded by many clients, and understandably so. Are we talking 20 hours or 35 hours? That’s a huge difference in the total amount. Some designers (and other service providers too) are willing to set a “cap” on the total dollar amount, or total number of hours. But before signing an agreement with a cap, you must make sure you know what will happen when the maximum is reached. Will your designer consider it “case closed”, or will (s)he just not bill for the balance of time spent on your project? An hourly fee is more fair for everyone when it is used for consultations rather than complete design services.

2) Percentage-based agreements. For a percentage-based agreement, the designer will charge you a certain percentage of the total budget of your project. The agreement should be clear as to what would happen should you increase your budget, or decide to decrease it for whatever reason. Read the rest of this entry…

Throughout the course of history the number three has always been significant. From the early days of Greek and Roman mythology to modern times, the number three has always played a part in cultural roles and customs. Therefore, it should be of little surprise that the number three is widely used throughout the interior decorating community.

Applying the “principle of 3″ to your own home can be a fun and unique way to spruce things up. For instance, why not try grouping some of your favorite items together in three’s? This works especially great with candles, fake fruit, books, photos…the only limit is your imagination!

It is important to remember when grouping your items, to make sure they are all of the same category or that they can be grouped together by similar functionality or dcor style. An example of this would be to use three different kinds of imitation fruit in a decorative bowl.

Size is another important consideration. Your items should be of varying sizes, though not too big. For example, using three candles of different sizes work quite well. You should also make sure that there isn’t any other dcor in the same area that will distract the attention away from your grouping.

Because of the ease of this decorating technique, you want to be careful not to overdo it. You can always alternate your grouping as you feel so inclined. By simply using one of these examples, you will bring a fresh new atmosphere into your home.

Sarah Blanch is a writer for House-Decorating-Ideas.com. She writes about decorating ideas and how to implement them into your home.