After you’ve moved in together and have unpacked all your worldly possessions, trying to merge your individual tastes can be a challenge, one that could dampen that honeymoon glow. Luckily, there are tons of services out there to help the two of you blend your lives (and your belongings) together. You can get help with almost anything, from picking wall colours to choosing furniture to total room renovation; and there are several different routes you can take, ranging greatly in price and time.
Option one: The colour consultant
A colourist (or colour consultant) can assist you in choosing the perfect colour for any room in your house. Benjamin Moore, Kent, and Randall’s Decorating Centres are some retailers that provide this service. Sharyn Adler Gitalis, a colourist contracted by Benjamin Moore in Toronto, and an independent decor consultant, goes into clients’ homes to help them pick the perfect colour for their room.
“It’s really great for people who feel insecure about choosing a colour,” Gitalis says. And sometimes people know the colour they want, but not the shade, she explains.
Busy, working newlyweds Melissa and Bruce Ahlstrand used a colourist for their first home and felt it was worth the money.
“I didn’t have time to sort through so many colours and I don’t have the best eye,” Melissa admits. “We have some open-concept rooms too, so the same paint shade had to look good in three different areas. Our colourist came in with all her paint swatches and we went through the house. It wasn’t overwhelming at all. It was great.”
The cost? A colour consultation ranges from $75 to $150 per hour, and can take up to three hours. For many couples, the cost is well worth the comfort of knowing they won’t have to repaint due to poor colour judgment.
“I never hear anyone say it was a waste of their time or money,” says Laurie Slack, manager at Randall’s in Kingston, Ontario, “but I have seen a lot of people come in on their own trying out their third bucket of paint.” Something to keep in mind if you’re at all challenged in the colour and design arenas!
Option two: The decor consultant
A decorator (or decor consultant) will ease you through the challenging process of styling and designing your new digs. They can assist couples that want to rid their homes of mismatching colours, clashing furniture and uncoordinated accessories. They can also assist you with flooring, lighting, window treatments—and almost anything!
The Bay provides such home interior services. A sales consultant can assist you with your decor choices while you create a room design with furnishings from the store.
Or you could hire someone like Gitalis, who is also available independently for such home consultation projects as decor and design. However, couples that have just made the ultimate commitment need no big commitment to get help with their home. A consultant like Gitalis can be enlisted on your home-planning team for as little as a few hours, to give you new ideas to work with on your own. “I can help negotiate between personal styles,” Gitalis says, “or I can come in for just a consultation to help get the ball rolling on design issues and ideas.”
If your floral throws and Asian-inspired wall hangings aren’t quite meshing well beside his Andy Warhol prints and hockey memorabilia, then this service could be invaluable to you. A decorator can help you merge your belongings and styles without making you wipe the slate clean with all new interiors.
The cost for a decorator? A consultation can run $200-300 for a few hours. For projects, after consulting with your decorator, you can often negotiate lower prices per hour. However, this doesn’t take into account the cost for your new furnishings, so depending on how expensive your taste is, the price is up to you.
Option three: The interior designer
An interior designer differs from a decorator in that they can oversee renovations for your home and have been formally educated in space planning and functionality, especially useful for couples that need to make the most out of a small first dwelling.
Randall’s employs accredited interior designers who are available by appointment to assist clients with their home design. A certified interior designer can perform all of the skills mentioned above, such as colour consulting and lighting design, but what sets a designer apart is the ability to plan renovations for you to architecturally alter the interior of your home. This is particularly handy for newlyweds who have purchased a fixer-upper or have taken the road of construction.
Kent, an Atlantic-Canada-based home improvement centre, provides a different sort of service, useful for couples that are building their first home together. Couples can seek free in-store help with design questions or enlist the aid of an interior designer to help them model their house, room by room if necessary.
“A lot of new builders come in,” says Heather Whitman, an interior designer at Kent in Halifax. “They often feel overwhelmed by the building process and I can walk them through it.”
Space is always an issue, Whitman adds. “Who gets the most closet space for example? And storage? This issue with space can even continue all the way to the bathroom. And there is always reference to the man’s space in the house and where that is going to be, often a study or the basement.”
The decorating aspect is consistently another issue that arises between newly cohabiting couples. “Posters and art always have to be compromised,” Whitman notes, “and old college throwbacks that one party is endeared to—those are often things we have to work around.”
The expense of an interior designer varies widely. Initial consultations are often fairly affordable, beginning at $80 flat at Kent, and $75 per hour at Randall’s. Larger projects depend on the volume of your home purchases and the level of involvement you require; your project can cost anywhere from hundreds to thousands of dollars, and could take days or even weeks.
Whatever you choose, the important thing is to first weigh your costs and needs, then research, research, research! If you go the route of an independent colourist, decorator or designer, often the best indicator of quality is recommendations, so ask friends, family or neighbours who have recently revamped their home. With luck, a personalized, stylin’ home will be just around the corner.
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