Design Advice Worth Reading
Good design starts with good information, and the more informed you are going into the design process, the better you and your home will be coming out of it. Here we share honest, process-driven advice on interior design, renovation planning, and furnishing your home well. All written from the perspective of a designer with years of first hand experience.
Explore our series on navigating the contractor bidding process, dive into our The Considered Home series for deep dives on the features that set exceptional homes apart, or browse the full blog below.
Understanding Interior Designer Markups
Most designers never talk about what it actually cost them to get their pricing right. When Nubuor Designs first opened, we passed our full trade pricing directly to clients. It felt transparent and generous. It was also entirely unsustainable, and it took real financial pain to understand why. Here is what we learned, and what it means for how we price today.
Interior Design Renderings: When to Trust What You Cannot See
What a rendering cannot do is show you the finished room. It can only show you the direction, proportions, and relationships between pieces. The rest of the details become apparent in person, in the weight of a fabric, the warmth of a finish, and the particular quality of light in a room that is finally complete.
What a Designer Does During Site Visits
Most clients assume that once construction begins, the designer's job is largely done. The selections have been made, the drawings have been issued, and the contractor knows what to build. In practice, a renovation is a live process with field conditions shifts, and trades working from their own plans without always knowing how every design decision affects their scope. What happens on site every week, and who is there to manage it, has a direct bearing on how your renovation turns out.
What Is a Receiving Warehouse? (And Why Does Your Design Project Need One?)
The difference between a smooth installation day and a chaotic one often comes down to a decision made months earlier. Here's the logistics step most clients don't know to ask about, and why it's worth understanding before your first pieces start shipping.
What Is Pre-Construction and Why Does It Matter?
Most renovation timelines jump straight from contractor selection to breaking ground. What's missing in between is often the most valuable part of the entire process. Pre-construction is the phase where your design team and contractor sit down together before anyone touches a wall, align on exactly what's being built, and surface every conflict, question, and ambiguity while they're still cheap to resolve. It doesn't get talked about much. It should.