FAQs About Interior Design Services at La-Z-Boy Ottawa & Kingston

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At La-Z-Boy, interior design is one of our most popular services. Our trained and talented interior designers guide La-Z-Boy clients in designing the room of their dreams. 

While interior design assistance sounds appealing, La-Z-Boy clients have several questions before embarking on a room design with one of our designers. 

Mary Lee Smyth, the interior designer at La-Z-Boy Kingston, says, “There are a lot of people who come to me and ask specifically what it is that I do.” 

To help clarify some uncertainties with our interior design services, this article will cover some frequently asked questions (FAQs) that our La-Z-Boy Ottawa & Kingston interior designers get asked.

In This Article…

1. Where Do I Start?
2. What Do Interior Designers Do?
3. Why Do I Have to Purchase a Product Before Using Interior Design Services at La-Z-Boy?
4. Can You Help with Colour Coordination?
5. Are There Any Visual Guides to Help Me See the Project?
6. How Long Does It Take to Finish an Interior Design Project?

1. Where Do I Start with an In-Home Design at La-Z-Boy?

At La-Z-Boy, before speaking to a designer, the first thing they must do is actually speak to a design consultant. Design consultants help with general ideas and inquiries that customers may have. If they feel as though the project may require additional expertise, this is where the start of the process takes place.

Once that's over with, the best place to start is with a clear vision of what you want to accomplish. Not only does this allow the interior designer to know exactly what you want, but it also helps make the process go quicker.

Ideally, when someone reaches out to an interior designer for help, they have a goal they want to accomplish in their home. Sometimes it can be as simple as finding the perfect coffee table for their living room or as complex as changing the overall theme of their home. 

If you don't have a clear vision of what you want for your home. This is okay, but it might be a little bit harder for the designer to help come up with a clear idea. This is why you should be prepared for what you want to accomplish in your home.

Most of the time, Mary Lee says that people usually want to add new furniture to their homes but aren’t sure how to mix new furniture with their pre-existing furniture. “That’s a big one that most people tend to ask me for help with,” she says.

One tool to help customers be prepared for their first design meeting is having inspirational photos of what you envision your home. These can be ideas you find from places like Pinterest or other similar online sites.

2. What Does a La-Z-Boy Interior Designer Do?

To some extent, everyone has a basic understanding of what an interior designer does.  But what does an interior designer do to pull a room together? How do they determine what furniture pieces and decor items should go in a room design?

Well, simply put, Mary Lee says that interior designers ask many questions to understand what you want, and to bring your vision to life. 

“We’re trying to get to know the person inside and out to fully understand what goes well in a room.”

As mentioned before, the only way a person can sit down with a La-Z-Boy designer is if they have already spoken to a design consultant and they have deemed your project necessary to set up a meeting with them.

Typical questions a designer might ask you are some of the following:

• How do you use your current room?
• What kind of furniture do you have in this room?
• Is the room big or small?
• How many people live with you?
• Do you have any animals?
• Which way does the sun come up?
• Do you frequently have guests come over for social events?

Interior designers ask questions to not only better understand your likes and dislikes but also in order to know what the purpose of the room is and how many people will frequent this room. That way, they have a clearer picture of what they should do.

Speaking of pictures, during an interior design consultation, having pictures and measurements of your room on hand is a must! Mary Lee says pictures help visualize the room better, and measurements help determine what can and can’t fit in that room.

The first designer meeting at La-Z-Boy can work in one of two ways--customers can either go in-store to meet with the designer, or the designer goes to the client's home to see what the place looks like. This decision is up to you.

To learn more about what interior design consultation at La-Z-Boy looks like, read our step-by-step process on What to Expect from La-Z-Boy’s Interior Design Services.

3. Why Do I Have to Purchase a La-Z-Boy Product to Qualify For Interior Design Services?

At La-Z-Boy, our interior design services are complimentary but technically not free. This means that interior design services are included with the purchase of La-Z-Boy furniture. 

The question often gets asked, why do I need to purchase La-Z-Boy furniture to receive interior design services? 

Mary Lee says that our complimentary interior design service can be compared to the complimentary breakfasts you get when staying in a hotel room. “You’re still paying for the room, but the breakfast is an added bonus you get after spending money on the room,” she says.

The main reason why purchasing La-Z-Boy furniture is required is because this process is time-consuming and can take a long time to finish a project. La-Z-Boy is also paying for this service at all times, which is why the process is only qualified for customers who are committed to spending money on our products, and who have furniture frames in mind already.

To help get a better idea of how interior design works in general, take a look at our article How Much Does an Interior Designer Cost.

La-Z-Boy has a wide variety of bedroom, dining room and, of course, living room furniture, with many different furniture styles to choose from.

Interior designers know La-Z-Boy products like the back of their hands. This extensive knowledge and familiarity make them well-equipped to put together beautifully cohesive room designs with La-Z-Boy products. 

Further, once the interior designers see the La-Z-Boy furniture you resonate with, they can make conclusions about what kind of style speaks more to you. Do you love contemporary furniture, or are you more mid-century modern? Or maybe you love something more specific, like biophilic designs or cottage core? 

The La-Z-Boy furniture you select will guide the designer in designing the rest of your room. 

4. Can the Interior Designer Help with Colour Coordination?

Mary Lee states that along with not knowing what an interior designer does, some people ask her if the designer can do colour coordination in a house. “To put it simply, yes!” she exclaims.

Not only do interior designers help conceptualize a room by coordinating furniture based on a certain theme, but they can also help accentuate the room by keeping the colours in the room thematic as well.

“You always have to be conscious of colours,” Mary Lee says, “If there’s too many colours brought together all willy nilly, your room might feel very distracting to some people.”

Interior designers can help ease a colour palette if necessary. For example, one of the questions mentioned above talks about where the sun comes up in their room. This question is important not only for rearranging furniture in a certain way but also because certain colours work better when exposed to sunlight.

“If I know a lot of sun is gonna be put in play, I can add lighter colours like creams and pastels to help liven up the room, while also advising people to stay away from too much leather,” she says.

Colours play a big factor in a room's design, especially with upcoming interior design trends.

At La-Z-Boy, designers and design consultants work together to help a customer pick out a colour pattern using various fabrics, leathers and other textures the customer finds appealing. This, however, is not part of an in-home design service and is a regular practice that is done in our stores.

Sometimes designers do what's called a colour consultation, which is not a full design service and only happens when a client asks for more in-depth colour coordination in their room. Designers still require pictures of your room to help compare what is already there, as well as ask additional questions to make sure clients will be satisfied.

5. Are There Any Visual Guides to Help Me See the Room Design?

As you can probably tell from the other sections in this article, visualization is very important within the interior design process. 

It is crucial to understand what your room design will look like before finalizing your purchases to ensure that you will be happy with the final result.  

So with that being said, yes, La-Z-Boy provides several visual guides throughout the design process. 

In-home appointments are a great example; while visiting your home, the interior designer can show you how they visualize the furniture arrangement and point out other design ideas they may have. 

Further, in the early stages of designing a room, the interior designers will draw a sketch of the furniture arrangement and room design that they are planning.  

After these sketches are drawn out, the interior designer creates a visual representation of the room using a 3D Planner tool from La-Z-Boy. The 3D Planner tool works with the room's measurements to see what can and cannot fit before putting the furniture in the actual room. 

The picture below shows an example of a 3D design that Mary Lee has worked on in the past.

6. How Long Does It Take to Finish an Interior Design Project?

Lastly, you might be wondering, how long does an entire interior design project usually take to complete?

Every project timeline is conditional on the scope of the project. 

According to Mary Lee, initial visits with a design consultant and speaking to an interior designer can take as long as it needs to be. "Normally these visits take up around 30-60 minutes," she says.

Once the initial meeting is finished, two meetings take place: one for the designer to see the home in-person and another for the client to see the full design presentation. These meetings take about an hour each but are dependent on how quickly the customer makes a purchasing decision.  These two meetings normally span throughout the course of 1-2 weeks, which is dependent on the designer and customer's schedules.

What takes the longest is the furniture delivery process, which can take up to 4 months for items to arrive at your house. The delivery of custom furniture takes even longer, which you can learn more about in this article.

To help you get a better idea of the entire design process at La-Z-Boy, here is a quick summary of the process from start to finish. You may also take a look at our Step-by-Step article for a more in-depth description of the whole process.

What's Next?

Interior design services at La-Z-Boy are the perfect solution for those needing expert help to put an aesthetically pleasing room together.

After reading this article, we hope to have answered your burning questions regarding the interior design service offered at La-Z-Boy. 

As mentioned before, La-Z-Boy has many different furniture products to choose from in our Ottawa & Kingston showrooms. You can also schedule a visit before coming in. 

Take advantage of our interior design services, so you can see how our top-selling furniture items can look in your home. To learn more about our La-Z-Boy furniture products, take a look at some of our best-selling products below: 

• Best-Selling Recliners at La-Z-Boy
• Best-Selling Sofas at La-Z-Boy
• Best-Selling Sectional Sofas at La-Z-Boy

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How Much Does an Interior Designer Cost?

Top Interior Designers in Kingston

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