Focusing Your Career on Home Interior Design

Find out more about a career in residential design or home interior design.

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Is a Career in Home Interior Design Right for You?

People’s homes say a lot about them, whether their spaces are relaxed and beachy, sleek and modern, or cozy and rustic. Translating your client’s personality, interests and needs into a tasteful and inviting home environment is both the challenge and the privilege of doing home interior design. If you have excellent communication skills, a talent for working with a range of people, and a passion for helping people turn their homes into attractive and useful spaces, there's no more rewarding field.

In fact, home interior design, also called residential design, is an increasingly popular—and lucrative—area of interior design, especially for those who work for large design firms or those who are willing to relocate to areas with booming residential markets.

The Basics of a Home Interior Design Career

In comparison to commercial interior designers, who focus on designing for corporate spaces such as offices, hotels, shopping malls and even government or community facilities, residential designers often work with individual homeowners. As a result, they must have outstanding negotiation and communication skills, as well as creativity and innovation, in order to translate the client's desires into a workable project. When everything goes well, the result is a comfortable, safe and aesthetically pleasing interior environment, whether it's a kitchen, a living room or an entire house.

The residential design field is not without its challenges, however. One obstacle to building up a successful business is the perception that home interior design is somehow frivolous or excessive. In addition, for many middle-class consumers, hiring interior design services seems like an unaffordable or unnecessary expense. Interior designers battle these perceptions by offering services of real and tangible value to their customers—customers with a variety of tastes from the sophisticated to the utilitarian, and needs that range from redecoration to architectural detailing.

Home Interior Design Specialties

Many residential designers specialize in a particular area of home interior design, working with a specific type of space or design element. Some of the most common specialties are the design of kitchens and baths, closets, and lighting. Also increasingly popular are trends such as green or sustainable design, ergonomic design, and elder design, which optimizes living environments for the elderly or disabled. Other specialty areas for residential designers include:

Apartment design
Model homes
Historic preservation
Home theater spaces
Home offices
Patios and gardens
Guest houses and vacation homes
Workout rooms
Retirement living spaces
Private aircraft and watercraft

Home interior design offers exciting and varied opportunities for the creative interior designer. If you're interested in the field, be aware that you'll need to complete an interior design education at the associate's or bachelor's degree level. Combine that training with interpersonal skills and business savvy, and a residential design career will be within your grasp.