Country: Australia

How to Become an Interior Decorator

An Interior Decorator decorates (or redecorates) interiors of buildings, with the aim of making rooms more attractive, comfortable and functional. Most interior decorators are hired to decorate homes (including yachts!), but they may also be hired to decorate interiors of businesses such as boutiques, restaurants, and offices. They may work on the entire interior of a building or a single room such as the living room, kitchen or bathroom.

An interior decorator’s work may involve a variety of elements, including:

• space planning or “layout”

• colour schemes

• furniture

• paint and wallpaper

• window coverings

• fabrics

• flooring and carpeting

• lighting

• art objects

• hardware fixtures

• accessories (e.g. vases, pillows, bookends)

• plants

A decorating job may be as simple as rearranging furniture yourself, or it may involve hiring and supervising contractors. As an interior decorator your tasks may include:

• meeting with clients to determine their wants and needs

• reviewing and taking measurements of the space you will be decorating

• preparing proposed room layouts

• obtaining cost estimates

• showing samples (e.g. colours, fabrics, tiles) to clients

• arranging and overseeing painting, wallpapering, flooring, etc.

• selecting and purchasing furnishings and other items

There are no formal educational requirements to enter this career. You can start calling yourself an interior decorator as soon as you start doing interior decorating.

$35,000 - $60,000

Average per year = $47,475

When it is difficult to find temporary work a recruitment firm can be a useful friend. However they try to charge a premium of around 1/3rd of all of your earnings for their services as I was to discover.

For the unwary negotiating with a recruitment firm is nearly impossible as most feel the firm holds the upper hand. This is not always the case, the key is to prove or improve your value. When you become indispensible in the position you can then leverage that fact gently if it is reasonable.

As a clerk, it became apparent that certain personalities were favoured in our office culture. When we candidly discussed pay rates internally, which was only a vague inclination as permitted by our contracts, it outlined some discrepancies, the individual negotiations with the recruiter for the same type of position varied in range.

While the employer was paying the same flat rate, which was marketable, the recruiter was taking a varied percentage. Benefitting from workers in a clandestine fashion and then locking them into non disclosure contracts.

Once I discovered the actual rate of pay from the employer I had a superior platform to negotiate with the recruiter and knew the limits.

A successful negotiation netted a 30% pay increase. Furthermore the process impressed my manager and provided an incentive to promote me to a manager from a clerk. This was despite being very underqualified relative to my peers, who were placed under my direct authority.

Although competent and highly qualified they were lacking the communication skills required to train the constant inflow of trainees.

Additionally the inevitable positive feedback from the recruiter to keep me on side was a useful testimonial that I have filed in my resume.

Please help in any way

forward but careful

listen clearly before responding

sit up tall

be confident

be excited about the position

I soon noticed that I wasn't as effective as other employees in obtaining resources to improve my job area and it wasn't because I was any less polite, reasonable or likable.

Turns out in my particular case, formal meetings and formal requests made him nervous and defensive. I found that if I simply asked for things in passing with a general explanation, he was a lot more accommodating.

Moral of the story is, work with your boss the way they like to work, modify your style to suit theirs, don't expect the opposite!

Managers are humans, subject to their emotions, and the quicker you work out their managerial style, the easier it will be for you.

When it came to the, "how much do you expect to be paid for the job"? I was a bit taken back as the advert had stated X amount of $. I paused and took a deep hopefully un-noticed breath and replied, well from memory the advertisment said X amount of $ I believe that is fair and reasonable for the experience and qualifications I have.

(Hindsight I must add, I was nervous but confident that I was worth what they were offering as a starting rate and knew from browsing the net that it was about the going rate for the position I was applying for)

I got the job!