Interior Design

Interior design services for Seattle, Bellevue and Kirkland homes: the order of decisions

An interior project is a long chain of decisions, and each one narrows the next. DeZZign works through them in a fixed order: who lives here and how, what the building allows, how the plan works, how the money divides, and only then what the rooms look like. Reversing that order is where the trouble usually starts. A marble chosen before anyone has checked the floor structure, or a kitchen island chosen before anyone has checked where the drain can run, tends to come back as a change order.

A word on our portfolio. The cases named on this page are in Ukraine, and we name them for the decisions they show. Washington has its own codes, trades and approvals, covered below. Our architects develop the documentation to local codes; drawings that require a local license are signed by licensed professionals we work with.

The packages and the stages are described higher on this page. What follows is the part those summaries leave out: how style is reached, what each sheet is for, where the budget goes, what to order when, and how the drawings survive contact with a job site.

How we decide on a style by looking at how you live

Nobody on our team opens with a mood board. We ask who gets up first, who cooks and how often, where wet coats land, who works from home, what gets stored and how much cleaning you will actually do. Those answers rule out more options than taste does. A polished dark floor is a poor match for a golden retriever, and open shelving is a poor match for someone who dislikes dusting.

Three of our cases show how this works in practice. Ascetic House (487 m², Kyiv region) began with an owner who is a professional athlete. His day runs on training and recovery, so a full spa zone and a 25-meter pool became part of daily life rather than decoration, and a restrained palette of stone, wood, concrete, microcement and porcelain keeps the rooms calm. The House in Yuzhny (280 m², Kharkiv region) was designed for two adults and a teenager who wanted transparency and air. That single wish made panoramic Reynaers windows the main element and then called for engineering to match: a heavy glass unit, trench convectors and hydronic floors to deal with the heat loss. Orange County (66 m², Kharkiv) had a young couple, a budget ceiling, a style reference taken from a California design hotel, and a small guest room with a children's room to come later.

Minimalism deserves a warning. As the Ascetic House case puts it, a room with few surfaces makes every junction visible, so a minimal interior asks for more precise drawings and better trades than a decorated one. We say so at the concept stage, when you can still choose a style that matches the crew and budget you have.

What an interior design project includes, sheet by sheet

The clearest example we can give is the set behind our Minimalist Style apartment in Kharkiv, which we walk through in 68 Sheets: What an Interior Design Project Actually Includes. It runs to 68 A3 sheets, and renderings fill 24 of them. Each remaining sheet is written for a particular person on site:

1. Photo survey and measured plan for everyone: real room sizes, ceiling and sill heights, risers, openings.
2. Furniture and fixture layout with a room schedule, including notes such as "provide blocking" under a wall-hung console.
3. Partition plan for the framing crew, with wall thicknesses and door openings.
4. Outlet, switch and lighting plans for the electrician, with position, height, type and purpose of every point.
5. Radiant floor and AC plans for those trades, showing loops, zones, thermostats and unit points.
6. Reflected ceiling plan with 1:2 details for the ceiling installer, including curtain pockets and soffits.
7. Flooring plan with exact materials, formats and areas, which works as an order list once waste is added.
8. Wall elevations at 1:30 for the tile setter and painter: where finishes stop, how tile is laid out, how high each outlet sits.
9. Millwork drawings at 1:20 and 1:10 for the cabinetmaker, who still confirms dimensions on site before making shop drawings.

Two habits hold such a set together. All heights are measured from one datum, finished floor level at 0.000, so five crews do not measure from five different surfaces. And the notes say openly what is still unknown: "confirm after AC unit is purchased" is a useful line, because it tells the electrician to wait. In the US the electrical sheet is also a code document. Our article cites the National Electrical Code rules that keep any point along a kitchen countertop within 24 inches of an outlet and require two 20-amp small-appliance circuits and GFCI protection in kitchens and bathrooms.

Interior design mistakes that cost the most to undo

Our list of the top 12 interior design mistakes covers rugs, art heights and furniture scale. Those are cheap to correct. The expensive group is different, because it surfaces after finishes are in place and takes several trades to fix:

• hiring a contractor first and a designer second, so the price was set before anyone knew what was being built;
• closets built to dimensions taken over old plaster, which then miss their niche;
• tile ordered by eye, then topped up from a new batch in a different shade;
• a switch that ends up behind an open door, or a thermostat exactly where a cabinet goes;
• a sofa that fits the room and not the stairs, because nobody measured the route in.

A misplaced outlet is the number we quote most. In the Seattle area it means an electrician, a drywall finisher with several coats and a texture match, and then a painter, and our article puts the total at $550 to $850 or more for one outlet. Outlets placed without a plan rarely go wrong one at a time.

In Seattle-area homes we would add four more: a grid of cool-white recessed cans that makes a gray January grayer, dark walls in rooms that already face north, no real entry for wet coats and boots, and exterior-looking finishes indoors that cannot take constant damp traffic. Each is a quick change on paper.

How to split an interior renovation budget

Design fees on this page start from $10/sq ft, the design stage runs 2 to 4 months, and supervision starts from $2,000/month. Construction and furnishings are separate, so the real budget question is how to divide the larger sum. We have no universal percentages, since a kitchen-heavy remodel and a furniture-led refresh of a sound house look nothing alike. What we use is a structure of lines, set before materials are chosen:

• work behind the walls: demolition, framing, wiring, plumbing, ventilation;
• surfaces: floors, tile, paint, ceilings, doors;
• millwork and kitchen;
• appliances, plumbing fixtures and lighting;
• loose furniture, textiles and art;
• design, supervision and permit costs;
• a reserve.

Protect the first line. A cheaper chair can be replaced in three years, while a missing circuit means opening a finished wall. For the reserve, one public benchmark is HUD's rule for its FHA 203(k) renovation loans: on a structure 30 years or older the contingency is at least 10% and at most 20% of repair costs (HUD reference page, revised January 2016). That is a lender's requirement, used here as market data, and it matches the logic of opening old walls.

Budget work happens on the drawings. In the Orange County case the estimates came before construction and were corrected through simpler design decisions under a budget ceiling. In the Minimalist Style apartment the old kitchen and wardrobe stayed, with new fronts and appliances on the kept kitchen and new panels on the wardrobe's kept mechanisms. Our fee moves with the package, the floor area and how much custom millwork the rooms need.

What to order before construction starts, and why lead times shape the schedule

Some imported tile and stone can take 8 to 16 weeks from order to delivery in this market, and we sequence procurement to the build from the first week of drawings. The reason goes beyond waiting. Many selections set a dimension that a crew needs early, so the choice has to come before rough-in even if the item arrives later:

• the range hood, oven and refrigerator, for their connections and cabinet openings;
• wall-hung toilets, shower systems and valves, whose hidden parts go in before the wall closes;
• the AC units, for their power, drain and clearance;
• concealed door frames and sliding systems, which affect partition thickness;
• large-format tile, whose thickness and bed set the floor level.

Tile from one batch is best bought in one order, with waste added to the areas on the flooring plan. One broken 1200 x 2400 slab can mean weeks of waiting and a shade that no longer matches. Custom millwork comes last in fabrication even when it is designed first, because the maker checks the walls after partitions and finishes are in.

Older Seattle homes: permits, lead paint and asbestos

The area's older houses tend to need a real remodel rather than a cosmetic refresh, so we check the rules for the address before drawing a moved wall. SDCI's page "Do You Need a Permit?" says a permit is required, however small the project, for work on load-bearing supports, changes to the building envelope, and work that reduces egress, light, ventilation or fire resistance. Painting, kitchen cabinets and surface finishes over existing walls usually need none, and neither do minor alterations costing $6,000 or less in any 6-month period, a figure based on the fair market value of labor and parts even if you do the work yourself. A remodel of part of a house may qualify for the faster subject-to-field-inspection permit. Electrical and plumbing work are permitted separately, with Public Health - Seattle & King County on the plumbing side. Bellevue and Kirkland run their own departments, so we confirm those steps with each city. SDCI also notes that unremodeled parts of your house need no upgrade to current code.

Age brings two more checks. Under the EPA's Renovation, Repair and Painting rule, anyone paid to disturb paint in a home built before 1978 must be certified in lead-safe practices, with interior work covered above six square feet of painted surface. Puget Sound Clean Air Agency requires an asbestos survey before remodeling. An owner living in a single-family house may do it personally, while condos and rentals need an AHERA-certified inspector. We put both on the plan early, because results can change the demolition scope. Old plaster also moves the numbers: the set is drawn from measurements over existing finishes and is adjusted after demolition.

Condo interiors, HOA rules and light in a gray climate

Washington's condominium law, RCW 64.90.255, lets an owner alter a unit where the work does not impair structural integrity or mechanical or electrical systems, subject to the governing documents. Changing the appearance of common elements needs board approval, and so does opening a wall into an adjoining unit you have bought. The declaration can go further, and older buildings may sit under an earlier act, so we read your documents before fixing the plan. Plumbing stacks, shared ventilation and the floor assembly above your downstairs neighbor usually decide what a condo layout can do. For more on these buildings, see apartment and condo design.

Light in the Northwest works differently than on a sunny-climate mood board. Long gray months make low daylight the normal condition, so we follow the sun on the plan, put the rooms you use by day on the brighter side, and layer warm sources at several heights in place of one ceiling grid. Pale matte surfaces return more of the light you have. Views of water, trees and mountains set where a sofa or a desk faces. And a rainy climate needs a dedicated drop zone at the door, not a hook behind it.

Room by room: where each decision lives

Each room has its own page with its own detail, and a whole-home project coordinates them. The kitchen needs appliance choices before any electrical plan. The bathroom is settled by waterproofing, drain slope and the tile layout on its elevations. In a bedroom, bed position fixes the reading lights, outlets and curtain pockets, while a living room starts from how seating relates to the view, the screen and the people talking. The hallway is a storage and floor-durability problem first. A kids' room has to grow, as in Orange County, where a future children's room was planned in from the start. A home office depends on screen glare, cable routes and the sound of the door.

Working with your contractor, and how supervision works

A complete set changes how you buy construction. Several contractors can price the same sheets, so differences in their numbers reflect method and margin and no longer reflect different guesses about scope. In Washington, contractors must register with the Department of Labor & Industries and carry a bond and insurance, and you can check the status in the state's database before signing. We can help you select a contractor, and we hold a coordination meeting before installation starts so that questions surface at the table.

Supervision is a defined routine: site visits of up to twice a week, meetings with you and the contractors up to three times a week, adjustments to working drawings, and samples checked against the approved ones. The visits that matter most come before something gets covered, such as wiring, plumbing, waterproofing and insulation. Every dimensional change goes back through the designer, because a swapped light fixture or a wall that turned out an inch off can affect three other sheets. If you live elsewhere, photo and video reports replace some of your site time. Note the limit: supervision follows the design and works with qualified contractors. Scheduling and budget control belong to broader project management, which is a separate scope. At the end of a job like House for Cosmopolitan, where we coordinated materials, furniture, lighting and built-ins through implementation, the junctions are what you see.

When this service fits and when something else fits better

Interior design fits when you are changing how several rooms work together, or finishing a new shell, and want one set of drawings for it. If the whole house is in play, including flow between floors, start from whole-home interior design. If you only want one room, its page above is the right door, though we will tell you when the problem really sits in the room next to it. Work that adds floor area, moves the envelope or changes the structure calls for an architect as well as a designer, and we cover both. Commercial spaces follow their own rules: Copper Hall (660 m²) needed a ground-floor hall that converts for events, and the Trichology clinic (150 m²) had to fit diagnostics, therapy, surgery and a hospital unit into its plan.