contributed by Debra Brennan Tagg [financial wiz / pr guru / future screenplay writer] 

EDITOR'S NOTE: Part of the Art of Communicating is being aware of and sensitive to the thoughts and feelings of the person with whom you are communicating. This doesn’t mean you have to share these thoughts and feelings – you just need to understand them. To help you do this, we’ve decided to turn the tables and ask a residential client to contribute a series of installments, candidly reporting her experiences dealing with a designer on the remodel of her and her husband’s home. As design-minded people, we tend to get wrapped up in our own heads, not realizing how confused, anxious, annoyed and sometimes downright frightened our clients can be. It’s their money, their possessions and their lives we’re messing with after all. So read, absorb, learn and enjoy. And realize that our reporter has never dealt with a designer before. This is going to get good.

 
My Whole New World Of Design

I am not in your world. I am outside of your world, which is, I suppose, why any of this information may be useful to you. I am a city-dwelling thirty-something successful businesswoman. I live in a house on the most historic street in Dallas. My husband and I have lived in it for 2+ years. We decorated it ourselves. And it sucks. We finally decided that we're staying for at least five years, and a house like ours deserves to look like we (and our taste) live here. The following is my tale of meeting the most recent man to change my life: designer Rob Daley.

Prep for Meeting 1: The List

I make a list of everything I'd like to fix. It is extensive, well organized, and includes such useless information as "Bathroom: new hand towels (Macy's?)". Of course, I am unaware at the time that this is useless information.

I scan decorating magazines, travel magazines, and catalogues. I rip out anything that catches my eye and label each picture for what I like ("lamp", "floor / wall contrast", "bathroom tile"). I stack my papers, tidy my house, light a candle. I am ready to meet my designer.

Meeting 1: It's got good bones.

Rob arrives at my house on a Friday at 3. My husband chooses to be home for the first seven minutes of the meeting. He points out to Rob the only chair that must remain in the house and tells him that he is open to changing everything else. This is a bold-faced lie, but this is not a day for absolute clarity.

I present Rob with my list and pictures, which he scans and sets aside. On the floor. I inform Rob that I don't want my house to look "done". I don't like fake floral arrangements and little knick-knack collections. In fact, I want to destroy an entire wall of shelves in our library, which we use as a TV room. (This is a major decision since the only architectural note of interest in our house is that we have the largest library on the street.)

I proceed to list the million and one things about our house that I hate. Rob asks me if there is anything about the house that I like. My answer: the backyard. The scope of the project is now clear to Rob.

Immediately I also list all the problems in the house that I have no idea how to fix. In an effort to stop my Tasmanian devil frenzy, Rob has a simple reply: "It's ok – that's my job. I'm a designer." Oh yeah. Duh.

Rob then asks me a simple question: How do you use your house?

I'm not quite sure how to respond until he leads me through my house, room by room. Where do you eat breakfast? Dinner? Do you entertain? How many people? How often? What do you serve? Do you read? Watch TV? Nap? Where do you like to spend time together? What do you do on the weekends? What do you do in that weird little corner in your kitchen?

Rob and I spend the next two hours picking apart my house. He finds points of horror that I have never even noticed. He picks up the "absolute honesty" ball and runs with it. I hear things like "so what's up with the kitchen?" (I have a hard time telling him that I actually completely redecorated the kitchen when we moved in, which you may recall was a mere two years ago. In other words, this room is my taste.) Rob manages to word some things a little more gently: "Does this laundry room work for you?" Though the words sound innocent enough, the tone indicates that I should scrap it and start over. Instead, I am brave. "Uh-huh." Real brave.

My inner child wilts a little more room by room. My hatred of my house grows exponentially, and by the end of the meeting I am almost embarrassed that I have ever invited a friend over. (As consolation for the reader, I will later discover that this is a good thing because it is basically an essential element to really getting to good answers about what I want my house to look like.)

Rob, on the other hand, is having a great time. He sees what I can't yet. He sees a new front door for more light, a functional banquette in my kitchen, and a way to make our useless over-sized living room functional. He sees the house I want to live in. I see a bigger project than I had bargained for. Rob leaves, a smile on his face and a plan formulating in his brain. He informs me it'll look great when we're done because, well, "it's got good bones".