"Interior Designers Help Homeowners Discover Styles" from the Associated Press is a must read for anyone thinking of re-decorating their home or, better yet, hiring an interior designer or decorator, to help them.

Hiring an interior designer or decorator is a wonderful way to make your home uniquely your own, especially these days when homeowners are inundated with programs and content from design television shows and shelter magazines.  These shows and magazines have had a great democratizing effect on the world of design, but the glut of information can also make it very difficult for homeowners to pull all the details of a space together and often homeowners fall into the trap of literally copying a spread in a catalog piece-for-piece  thereby taking any originality or personality out of their homes.

Cost tends to make people think that working with a designer is out of their reach, but in reality not hiring a designer can be just as expensive.  Designers know what works and what doesn’t and a good designer can present you with options to fit any budget.  Working with an interior designer or decorator { yes folks, they are different -- the AP article does a good job of illustrating the differences concisely} can help you shorten the design decision making process {no more walls with dozens of paint swatches!} and can even help minimize the overall cost of redecorating by eliminating costly mistakes and re-dos.

For more great information on hiring and working with interior designers, click over to "10 Questions to Ask When You are Looking to Hire an Interior Designer" written by yours truly back in April.