People use "interior designer" and "interior decorator" as if they're the same thing, and understandably so, the line between them has blurred over the years. But they're really two different jobs, with two different skill sets. Knowing the difference helps you hire the right person for what you actually need.
What an interior decorator does
Decoration is the surface layer, and it's a genuine skill. A decorator works with what's already there, the existing layout and architecture, and makes it beautiful: colour, furniture, fabrics, lighting choices, art and accessories. If your home already works well structurally and you simply want it to look and feel wonderful, a decorator, or a designer working in a decorating capacity, may be exactly what you need.
What an interior designer does
A designer works with the whole picture, including the things you can't easily change later. That means space planning and how rooms flow, where walls and openings sit, how natural light is used, lighting design, bespoke joinery, and the technical detail behind a renovation, as well as all the decorative layers on top. In short, a designer shapes how a space works before making it beautiful.
A decorator makes a room beautiful. A designer makes the whole home work, and then makes it beautiful.
So which do you need?
It really comes down to the scale of what you're doing:
- If you're not changing the structure and simply want a space restyled and refreshed, decoration may be all you need.
- If you're renovating, extending, building, or something isn't working about how the space functions, you want a designer involved early, ideally before the building work begins. The decisions that matter most happen first, and they're expensive to undo. We wrote more about that in why the best projects start early.
Where we sit
At Cheshire Property Studio we're a full-service interior design practice, we handle everything from space planning and bespoke joinery through to the final styled room, so the structure and the surface are considered together. For a smaller, surface-level project, our online design service gives you the design direction to do it yourself; for a complete project, our full-service team takes care of the lot.
Not sure which you need? That's a perfectly good reason to get in touch, and we'll point you in the right direction, honestly, even if that turns out not to be us.
