The titles are often used as if they mean the same thing. They don't.
If you are planning a new home or a renovation, you will soon be choosing between an interior designer and an interior decorator. The difference decides whether your home is planned around the way you live, or simply furnished as it is.
Here is what each one does, when you need which, and where curated furnishing fits in, shown through a villa our team is designing in Abu Dhabi.
What does an interior designer do?
An interior designer shapes how a home works as well as how it looks. It starts with space planning: how rooms connect, where walls, openings and staircases sit, how ceilings are shaped and how light moves through the home.
Our interior designers are all trained in interior architecture, so the plan comes first. Every room is laid out around how you live, before a single finish or piece of furniture is chosen.
When the plan changes everything
In this Abu Dhabi villa, the original staircase was a glass balustrade against bare walls. Through space planning, we redesigned it as the heart of the house, with an indoor tree rising from a bed of planting at its foot, so the staircase becomes the first thing you notice as you arrive.
From the plan to the finer details
Once the plan is right, interior design carries it through: the concept and palette, materials and finishes, lighting, joinery and the finer details that make a room personal, like a ceiling designed around the light or shelving built into the wall.
Because the same team plans and designs the space, every detail has a reason to be where it is, and the whole home feels considered rather than assembled room by room.
The best homes are planned from the walls inwards, not the furniture outwards.
What does an interior decorator do?
An interior decorator works with the space as it is. They choose furniture, fabrics, colour, art and accessories, and style a room so it feels finished. A luxury interior decorator can refresh a home that already works well, without changing its layout or finishes.
Decoration is the right choice when you love your home's layout and simply want it to feel fresher, warmer or more personal. If the layout, lighting or joinery need to change, you need an interior designer.
When you want to furnish, not redesign
When we design your home from start to finish, the furnishing and styling follow the approved design, so decoration is already part of the work. Curated furnishing is different. It is for homes where the layout already works and no major changes are needed, or where a full interior design is not the right step for you right now.
You might have your own design, or no design at all. We start with what you want to achieve in your space and how you live in it, then select and source the furniture, lighting, fabrics, art and accessories to bring it together.
Interior designer vs interior decorator
Who do you need? Three questions
- Does the layout work for the way you live? If not, start with an interior designer and space planning.
- Is it furniture, colour and styling only? A decorator, or our curated furnishing service, may be all you need.
- Would you rather have one team responsible for the plan, the design and the furnishing? Choose full interior design.
With full interior design, you can walk through your layout at life-size before anything is built, then follow the design through 3D visuals / CGI renders and design drawings, which your contractor uses to prepare the shop drawings.
