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Interior Design Careers

Interior designer Barbara Schlattman had a customer who yielded a simple request: "I want a retreat." So Schlattman -- a graduate of the University of Houston and an active member of the American Society of Interior Designers who has owned her own design business since 1975 -- went to work on the complex project designed from this simple request.

"My job is to make it beautiful, make it happy, and make it function," Schlattman says. After consulting with construction contractors and the customer, she thought of an elaborate design for a part of the house that is perhaps the room with the most privacy: the bathroom. And so, work began on the bathroom that would eventually win a national award from The Wall Street Journal.

In-home luxuries creating spa-like private retreat surroundings in the master bath are a new specialty, but the interior designer field has many such specialties. Some focus on residential design like Schlattman, while others work in business/commercial design such as hospitals, university buildings and corporate offices. Others specialize even further, designing only specific rooms like bathrooms or bedrooms.

The interior spaces of structures -- private homes, public buildings, and business or institutional facilities - is enhanced in function, safety, and quality by interior designers' work, in a definition by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Interior designers likewise plan interiors of as part of the renovation or expansion of exiting structures, the BLS notes.

Responsibility over the building's foundation or construction is why 22 states and the District of Columbia register or license interior designers by requiring the passing of the National Council for Interior Design Qualification exam. Some states will not allow workers to practice interior design until the NCIDQ test is passed, while others simply disallow use of the title of interior designer until passing.

The interior design career's biggest fields as of the 2002 BLS report include varied disciplines: architectural, engineering, and related services as well as specialized design services and furniture stores.

"That's the beauty of being in this profession -- you can really zero in," says Rosalyn Cama, owner of New Haven, Conn.,-based Cama Inc.

"It's harder and harder to be a generalist and say you can do it all. You not only need to know the industry, but the industry you are working for," she adds.

The end goal of serving the clients remains the same in other interior design specialties, although they may not be showered with similar lavish requests.

In 1980, Anita Baltimore started a company with four workers called Interior Design Services, Inc., that concentrated on designing offices. Since then, the design firm has branched out to architecture, sales, furniture, and accounting. The company, based in Nashville, Tenn., now has more than 100 employees.

"I've been a busy, busy woman," says Baltimore, a former national president of the American Society of Interior Designers.

She has devoted most of her time, even after the company expanded, to office buildings. She has seen the industry blossom from the days of the 1960s when the main debate revolved around whether to build offices with open or closed walls. The job has become more sophisticated.

Now, rooms are being designed with the belief that a room's environment can affect productivity. The design of a retail store can boost or reduce sales, as can the lighting on certain clothing items.

"I used to have to try to explain years ago what I could do for them -- what affects my expertise and knowledge can have on their office," Baltimore says.

Cama, the interior design owner from Connecticut, has specialized in mainly health care buildings, especially children's hospitals. Her designs focus on creating a safe, family-friendly hospital room by emphasizing multiple light sources (windows, lights), a trendy, modern color scheme ("hopefully the white walls are a misnomer, meaning we've moved from the 1970s," she says), and a window that provides a nice view.

But Cama pays special attention to one part of the room: the foot wall, or the wall the child will be staring at. Why? "You have to make sure the patients or families aren't looking at any clinical stuff on the wall," Cama says

An interior designer for 29 years, Cama has remained contemporary in her thinking by attending continuing education sessions offered through ASID, an organization she previously served as national president. She attends three or conferences a year, some as an attendee, others as a teacher.

"It's a job of ongoing changes," Cama says. "The industry changes, technology changes, methodology changes. If you're not keeping up on it then you're missing out."

Back at the Retreat

For the home retreat project, Schlattman needed to know bathrooms. And more. By the time she was done, a flowing waterfall filled the middle of the 35 x 28 ft. bathroom retreat, decorated with goldfish and orchids.

To the bathroom with carpeted floors and flesh-color painted walls, the customer wanted an open atrium. "But no, that would be too dirty," Schlattman told her, so to give energy to the room, a 20-feet long skylight was used instead.

"She wanted to feel like she was bringing the outdoors, indoors," Schlattman says.

One wall hid a treadmill. Another wall looked too bland and needed something interesting, so Schlattman ordered the installation of a fireplace.

By the end, the bathroom was larger than the house's dining room. When asked how much the price tag for the lavish bathroom was, Schlattman says he leaves the costs for the contractors and the customer, and worries instead about the lighting scheme, the carpets and the colors. "My job is to listen to what my clients want, and to guide them so no mistakes are made and so it still functions for them."

Career Links

ReSources.com: Interior Design's Top 100 Giants - An older list of the 100 largest interior design organizations, but the list hasn't changed greatly since 1998. This website is especially useful because it lists contact information, such as mailing addresses and phone numbers.

American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) - Professional association.

The National Council for Interior Design Qualification exam is required in 22 states and the District of Columbia to be officially recognized as an interior designer.