Day in the Life of an Interior Designer: Three Real Days
~16 min read ·
3 designers
Three interior designers wrote down everything they did on one ordinary workday. A residential designer in Phoenix working through a procurement tangle that started with a delayed rug. A commercial designer in Chicago whose Tuesday was almost entirely meetings. A solo designer in Portland who started the day with client emails and ended it helping carry furniture up a staircase at 9 PM.
These characters are composites, built from dozens of real accounts, interviews, and community threads. The people aren't real. The experiences are.
7:45 AM
Coffee. Phone first, before I'm fully awake. There are four messages from Elena, one of our clients, sent between 10 PM and midnight last night about the rug for her dining room. The rug from our original sourcing is backordered until July. We found an alternative three weeks ago that she liked. She's now second-guessing the alternative. The messages are asking if the original rug might come in earlier. It won't. I know it won't. But I'll have to call her and say it gently.
8:30 AM
At my desk. I share an office space with my boss Claire and our project manager Yolanda, who's been here twelve years and who I have learned to do nothing without consulting because she will have an opinion about it and she will usually be right. Claire is on a site visit until 10. I check the procurement tracker for all four active projects. One piece of furniture for Elena's project, a slipcovered armchair, shows as "processing" when it should say "shipped." I email the vendor. This will not resolve today.
9:15 AM
Called Elena about the rug. She answered immediately, which means she was waiting for my call. I explained the backorder is firm until July. She asked if we could wait and I said we could, but that her dining room will be without a rug for the family reunion dinner she mentioned in April. She went quiet for a moment. Said she'd go with the alternative. I said I'd confirmed the order today. Hung up and immediately placed the order before she could change her mind again. The order confirmation went out at 9:28 AM.
10:00 AM
Claire came back from the site visit and we debriefed. She's working on a kitchen renovation in Scottsdale and the tile setter installed the backsplash with grout joints that are wider than specified. They're supposed to be 1/16 inch. They're closer to 3/16. It doesn't look terrible but it doesn't look like what the client approved. Claire is deciding whether to have it ripped out and redone or to present it to the client and see if she'll accept it. Claire is calm about this in a way I am not sure I would be. She's been doing this 22 years.
10:45 AM
Started working on a concept presentation for a new client couple, the Garcias. They bought a house in Arcadia in January and they want the living room and primary bedroom designed. I have their intake notes from the initial meeting and a mood board they sent me that has a lot of warm neutrals, natural wood, some touches of terracotta. I pulled about 40 images for reference and started narrowing to a cohesive concept in Adobe Illustrator. This is the work I actually like. It's quiet and visual and I can think. Yolanda brings me a question at 11:15 about a shipping address discrepancy on an order. Takes 8 minutes to resolve. I go back to the Garcias.
12:30 PM
Lunch at my desk, leftover pasta. Answered three more emails while eating. One from a tile vendor, one from the general contractor on a townhouse project, one from Claire about the Scottsdale kitchen situation. The client is coming to see the tile tomorrow. Claire decided not to pre-warn her. Strategy, she says. Let the client see it in context and she may not notice the joint width. I am 60% sure this will work and 40% sure Claire will be redoing backsplash next week.
1:15 PM
Back to the Garcia concept. Selected a sofa in a warm oat-colored performance fabric. Two chairs in a woven natural linen. A coffee table with a travertine top that I found at a trade showroom I visited last month. A jute rug, 9 by 12. A set of ceramic table lamps that were in a new vendor catalog I got last week. Started building the board, placing items, adjusting scale. This part takes longer than it looks. Scale on a presentation board is not the same as scale in a room and you have to keep checking yourself against the floor plan.
3:30 PM
Vendor called about the slipcovered armchair. It's not processing, it turns out. It's "on hold" because there was a credit card issue when the order was placed three weeks ago. Nobody emailed me. The hold was just sitting there. I gave them the updated card number. They said it would ship within 10 business days. Which means it won't be there for the install date I confirmed to Elena last week. I sent Elena a brief email letting her know and moved the install date out by two weeks. Elena has been a patient client, genuinely. I am grateful for that.
The chair was "on hold" because of a credit card issue three weeks ago. Nobody emailed me. It was just sitting there.
— Ada
4:45 PM
Finished the Garcia concept board. It's good. The travertine table anchors it, the fabric selections are cohesive, the scale is right. Sent it to Claire for review before I present to the Garcias on Thursday. Claire replied within ten minutes: "Love the table. The lamp is fighting with the chair fabric, try something matte." She's right. I went back in. Switched to a matte terracotta ceramic. Better.
5:40 PM
Updated the procurement tracker with today's changes. Sent the invoice for the Garcia consultation deposit. Closed my laptop. Talked to my sister on the drive home. She asked what I did today. I said "I found out a chair was on hold for three weeks because of a credit card thing and I fixed it, and I also made a really good concept board." She said the first part sounded annoying and the second part sounded good. Both correct.
8:00 AM
Desk. Coffee from the machine in the break room that makes a sound like it's reconsidering its life choices every time you use it. I have three meetings today: a 9 AM internal project check-in for a law firm buildout in the Loop, an 11 AM client call for an office renovation in Rosemont, and a 2 PM coordination meeting with the MEP engineer for a different project. The design work I was planning to do today will happen in whatever gaps exist between those three things.
9:00 AM
Internal check-in for the law firm project with my PM Tyler and our lead architect Sasha. The law firm wants to add a small conference room to their floor plan that wasn't in the original scope. We talked through whether we can fit it without moving an existing mechanical shaft. Tyler thinks we can. Sasha thinks we can't without adding a change order for the structural engineer. We decided Sasha would check with the structural engineer before we bring it to the client. Meeting: 55 minutes. Decision: wait and see.
10:10 AM
50 minutes between meetings. Opened the Rosemont project to prep for the 11 AM. The client wants updated finish boards for their executive conference rooms. I have two options prepared. The first is a warm scheme, rich walnut millwork, a deep forest green acoustic panel, aged brass hardware. The second is a cooler option, white oak, charcoal panel, matte black hardware. Both are good. The client is a logistics company and their existing office is mostly gray and beige, so I lean toward the warm scheme being a bigger shift for them. Made a note to lead with warm.
11:00 AM
Client call, Rosemont project. Facilities director Derek and their COO, a woman named Helen. Presented both schemes. Helen immediately said she liked the warm scheme. Derek said he wanted to see the cool scheme in a different colorway. I asked if he could describe what he had in mind. He said "maybe a lighter panel, like a medium gray instead of charcoal." I said I could do that. Helen and I agreed the warm scheme was the direction. Derek said he'd like to see one more before deciding. Helen looked like she'd been here before. I said I'd have a revised cool option by Thursday. Call was 40 minutes.
Helen liked it immediately. Derek wanted to see a different colorway. Helen had the look of someone who'd been here before.
— Penn
12:00 PM
Lunch with my colleague Bridgette in the conference room. She's working on a healthcare clinic project and she's trying to figure out the right flooring system for a high-traffic corridor. We talked about it for 15 minutes and I suggested a product I'd used on a similar project three years ago. She wrote it down. We also talked about Tyler, who is in general a good PM but who has a habit of scheduling 8 AM internal meetings which neither of us appreciates. Lunches are short. Back at desk by 12:45.
1:00 PM
An hour before the MEP coordination meeting. Opened the third project, a coworking space in River North. I'm working on the furniture plan for the social lounge area. 40 lounge seats, 12 bar-height stools, 8 focus pods. The challenge is that the area has a ceiling height that changes, there's a mechanical soffit along one wall that drops the ceiling by about 2 feet. I need the furniture arrangement to not make that soffit feel oppressive. I tried three configurations. The third one, where I put the lower furniture near the soffit and the taller bar stools under the high ceiling, reads better. I sketched it out and saved it for review.
2:00 PM
MEP coordination meeting. An hour. The MEP engineer, a guy named Rafael, had six questions about our lighting spec on the law firm project, three of which required me to look up drawings while on the call, one of which revealed a coordination error where a pendant location conflicted with a supply air diffuser. We resolved four questions on the call, noted the pendant conflict as an open item for me to resolve this week, and deferred two questions until Sasha could be on a call with both of us. The meeting was reasonably productive as coordination meetings go.
3:15 PM
Back to the Rosemont cool scheme revision. Pulled up the finish board and swapped the charcoal acoustic panel for a medium gray. It looks fine. Honestly fine is the honest description. The warm scheme is better. I'll show Derek the revision Thursday and let Helen close it out. Added a note in the project log: "Derek requested revision to cool scheme, medium gray panel. Helen preference warm scheme confirmed."
4:45 PM
Caught up on email. Seven since 3 PM. Two required responses, five were informational. Sent one email to the law firm pendant vendor asking about a pendant that could hang 14 inches higher than the current spec. Left at 5:30. Walked to the Blue Line. Thought about the lounge furniture arrangement for maybe four minutes on the train before switching to a podcast. Home at 6:10. My roommate asked how my day was. I said I had three meetings and fixed a furniture plan and helped Bridgette pick flooring. He said "so you were in meetings all day." I said mostly, yeah. He said "that sounds terrible." It wasn't terrible. It was just Tuesday.
7:30 AM
Coffee and emails. The restaurant project, a wine bar called Ember, is opening in 22 days. The booth seating is installed. The bar top is installed. The light fixtures I ordered from a fabricator in Vermont arrived last week and two of them have a weld seam that's visible from certain angles. I spent twenty minutes this morning deciding whether to send them back. The fabricator's lead time is six weeks. The opening is in three weeks. I'm keeping them. The seam is only visible from one angle and only if you're looking for it. I am looking for it because I made the thing.
8:45 AM
Drive to Ember for a site walk. The contractor, a woman named Vera who runs a small commercial renovation firm, is there with two of her crew. We went through the punch list: paint touch-ups in the entry, a gap between the millwork and the ceiling that needs to be caulked and painted, two pendant lights that are hanging at slightly different heights than each other (I measured, 3/4 inch difference, we adjusted on site), and a section of bar rail that has a small ding in the brass. Vera said her metalworker can buff it out tomorrow. I said please.
10:30 AM
Back in my studio, which is a converted garage behind my house. My neighbor's cat was sitting on my doorstep. I let him in. He sits on the fabric sample cabinet and judges everything I do. Good editorial presence. Started working on a proposal for a new residential client, a woman named Cecily, who wants her kitchen and two bathrooms updated. I spent 90 minutes writing the scope of work, building the fee estimate, and formatting the proposal document. I use a template I've refined over four years. It's good now. Year one it was not good.
12:15 PM
Lunch. Made a sandwich. Checked on a wallpaper order for a residential project. The wallpaper shipped yesterday. Delivery window is Thursday to Friday. Installer is scheduled for Friday. This timing is fine but there's no buffer. If it arrives Friday afternoon and the installer is there Friday morning, we have a problem. Sent the installer a note asking if she could do afternoon Friday or early Saturday if needed. She said Saturday morning works. Buffer: acquired.
1:30 PM
Back to design work. I'm developing a concept for a small hotel's lobby refresh, eight rooms, boutique property in the Alberta Arts District. The owner, Gordon, wants to update the furniture and lighting without touching the architecture. Low budget for a hospitality project, about $28,000 for my side. I sourced a deep green velvet sofa, two rattan armchairs, a set of reproduction vintage posters, and a floor lamp with a ceramic base I found at a local ceramics studio. Pulled it all into a presentation board. Gordon will see this on Friday. I think he'll like the green sofa immediately and ask about the posters. That's my read on him after two meetings.
Gordon will like the green sofa immediately and ask about the posters. After two meetings you start to know how someone reads a room.
— Arden
3:30 PM
Called Cecily to go over the proposal before I send it. This is a thing I started doing two years ago and it's changed how many proposals I close. If I just email it, she reads it alone and has questions she doesn't ask and some of those questions become objections. If I walk her through it, I can answer questions and read how she's feeling about the numbers. Cecily was fine with the fee for the kitchen and asked if we could do just one bathroom for now and add the second later. Yes, absolutely. I revised the proposal and sent it at 4:15 PM. She signed it at 6:40 PM while I was eating dinner.
4:30 PM
Furniture delivery notification for the Ember restaurant. A set of bar stools I ordered from a commercial hospitality vendor has been out for delivery since this morning. Delivery window was 8 AM to 8 PM. It's 4:30. I called the delivery dispatch. They said the driver was running behind and the delivery would be between 7 and 9 PM. Vera's crew would normally help receive and position, but they've gone home. This means I'm going to Ember at 7 PM to receive 16 bar stools.
5:15 PM
Ate dinner early. Told my partner Kasimir the stool situation. He said he'd come and help carry them in. He's done this before. He understands.
7:20 PM
Delivery truck arrived at Ember. The driver had the stools in flat boxes, 16 boxes, and two were water-damaged on the exterior. I opened both. The stools inside were fine. Kasimir and I carried all 16 boxes in and I opened each one, checked the finish, checked the welds, checked the leg levelers. All 16 good. We assembled six of them to check the process and then left the rest for Vera's crew tomorrow. Stools looked right in the space. Darker than I expected under the bar lighting, in a good way. Like the wood had been there for years already.
9:15 PM
Home. Made tea. Kasimir said "good stools?" I said yeah, good stools. He asked how the welded seam light fixtures looked in context. I said visible if you're looking for it and invisible if you're not. He said that sounded like most things. I said yeah, probably. Sent Vera a message about the stool assembly tomorrow and updated the Ember punch list. Done at 9:50 PM. The neighbor's cat had gone home by then. The studio was quiet.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does an interior designer do on a typical day?
Most interior designers spend more time on communication, procurement tracking, and project coordination than on the visual and creative work that the job is known for. A typical day might include responding to vendor delays, preparing client presentations, attending project coordination meetings, and doing focused design work in concentrated blocks when time allows. Site visits happen regularly on active projects. The work is highly variable day to day, which most designers describe as one of the things they like about it.
What hours do interior designers typically work?
Commercial designers at firms typically work 40 to 50 hours per week with occasional spikes around deadlines. Residential and solo designers often have less predictable hours, with some days ending at 5 PM and others running well into the evening when deliveries, site visits, or installations require it. Many solo practitioners describe the line between work and personal time becoming blurry over time.