Home Business

5. Interior Decorating
Launch you own home business as an interior decorator.

Whenever some people walk into a room, they instantly notice the entire layout and the way all the furniture, furnishings, fixtures, wallpaper, and carpeting work together to create an overall theme. If this is true for you, then we may have the ideal home-based business for you.

Interior decorators are in demand more than ever before, as people continue to purchase new homes or renovate their existing houses. They can be called upon to decorate businesses and offices and well as private homes.

Being a people-person is an absolute must in this profession. You are constantly selling yourself and your expertise, so you need to always be professional and prepare thoroughly. If you don’t come across as someone who is skilled and knowledgeable, your customers will never “buy into” your design services.

You should have a good eye for color, layout, and lighting, and be familiar with the latest decorating trends and popular furniture styles. If you are a bit rusty with these skills, you can always brush up at your local community college or through volunteer work. Related skills such as sewing can be useful as well.

This business is well-suited for those who love to get out of the house and never want to do the same job twice. Most of your time will be spent at your clients’ locations or just out-and-about as you purchase supplies. You’ll rarely have a client come to you, so all you need to have at home is a basic bookkeeping system and an organized way to keep track of your clients and ongoing projects.

Sometimes you may have to work irregular hours in order to accommodate your clients. But the actual working conditions are generally very good and not physically demanding.

Your design advice will be your basic product, for which you can charge at an hourly or by-project basis. In addition, you’ll need to locate good deals with local suppliers such as carpet, flooring, and fabrics manufacturers, as well as service providers such as carpenters and painters.

Good bargaining skills are critical here, so you can’t afford to be a pushover when it comes to negotiating! You should strive to pay no more than wholesale prices, and since you are a design professional, you can charge your customers the full retail price. This markup is standard practice, and may actually constitute the majority of your income.

To launch your business, you’ll need to have a professional portfolio consisting of samples of your work, typically in the form of large color photographs in a portfolio case. If you’re just starting out, consider doing some volunteer work and working on your own home in order to have something to put in your portfolio.

Don’t skimp on costs when you create your actual portfolio. Make it as professional in appearance as possible, as it will be a major determinant of whether clients want to hire you or not.

It’s also essential for you to obtain design boards and books of samples in order to give your clients choices of different fabrics or materials when discussing your designs. These can typically be purchased from manufacturers at around $200 each for an acceptable set, though you may be able to negotiate your way to a lower price. Ideally, you want at least one set for carpeting, one for fabrics, one for flooring, one for wood finishes, and one for wallpaper, but you might not need them all to start out. You’ll also need basic tools such as measuring devices.

All in all, you can get started with everything you need for as little as $1000, or even less if you can work some good deals.

The typical home-based interior decorator usually starts out making around $20,000 a year. But when you’ve built up a good word-of-mouth reputation and your portfolio is adding more and more successful projects, your potential income is limited only by the number of hours you can work in a day. You could eventually take that figure up past the $60,000 figure after gaining some solid experience.