Overcome Prevalent Home Decor Dilemmas as Laura U Shares Expert Tips

May 30, 2025BusinessDesignInteriors

The Real Deal on Interior Design Success

net's face it—interior design drawls less on sheer creativity and more on efficacious process, arrangement, and partnerships. In this piece, Laura Umansky, the brainchild of Laura U Design Collective, shares the most frequent pitfalls designers trip on—from finicky clients to unrealistic deadlines and communication breakdowns—and offers workable strategies to circumnavigate them. Whether you're dealing with procurement snafus or spearheading lengthy renovations, clarity, vigilance, and expert systems are your ace in the hole.

Contemplation Questions

Inspect your current client process for chances to elevate communication and boundaries. Consider how you introduce your team to clients, addressing whether you're setting up your junior designers for success and respect. Do you consistently review and improve your procurement and project tracking systems or only respond when issues pop up?

Take a gander back at a project that felt a bit awry—be it timing issues, procurement delays, client discord, or some monstrous combination thereof. What changes would you implement with the wisdom offered by Laura? Jot down a reimagined process, set different expectations, and enhance communications for a smoother journey next time.

Insights Gleaned from Laura Umansky, CEO of Laura U Design Collective and Co-Founder of DesignDash

Interior design prowess is equal parts art and life. For Laura Umansky, OG in the landscape of Laura U Design Collective and DesignDash co-founder, the most prosperous projects share four vibrant characteristics: clear expectations, consistent communication, mutual regard, and shared commitment to a tightly-honed process. This week, we chatted up Laura about the sneakiest problems designers encounter—and how to root them out before they mushroom into colossal headaches.

Avoiding the Process

"One red flag? When a potential client wants to control procurement themselves," Laura expounds. "That's not how our salt-and-pepper design experience unfurls—and the most thriving projects invariably belong to that school."

When a client hankers after managing procurement, it's often a sign they haven't grasped the labyrinthine machinations behind the scenes. Laura notifies her team to prefer spearheading the entire design process because it facilitates quality control and achieves seamless communication. Figuring in clients' self-directed purchasing into a broader design scheme usually introduces inconsistencies, muddles delivery, and invites glaring omissions—all obstacles that could've been skirted with head-to-tail control from the get-go.

Illuminate the value of the design process in your welcome packet or proposal to adapt the client to your groove. Depict your process with a visual roadmap that showcases the benefits of sticking to the game plan.

Skepticism Towards Your Team

In some instances, clients hit it off well with Laura or Director of Design Shannon Smith but harbor doubts about junior designers. This can dent team morale and productivity. To obviate this quandary, the leadership ensures that senior designers remain the preeminent contact point for all projects, big or small.

"That's a slip-up," Laura contends, "yet it's also why we task senior designers as the lead point of contact, whatever the project scale. It sets the tone for how our entire team should be perceived."

It's easy to assume the principal designer will be in charge of all aspects of the project. The team unveils who'll be working on the project promptly—usually Shannon or Megan Strasburg (Director of Residential Design) after the first meeting—so clients can form a bond with the entire design squad. While it's infrequent for a client to only meet Laura once, it's crucial they understand whom they'll interact with day to day.

Stress team introductions as a physical asset. "You're not just bagging me—you're bagging the power, resources, and special care of our full studio."

Inaccurate Timelines

Timing is of the essence.

"The principal issue we confront is duration, as clients often have whacked-out expectations about how long tasks should take," Laura observes. Roughly 80% of their clients have collaborated with a designer before, usually a freelancer instead of a larger company. That previous collaboration may have shaped expectations that don't necessarily resonate with Laura's operating style. Each design firm functions discreetively, with its quirks and idiosyncrasies. It's essential to synthesize your communication style, process, and project timeline from the get-go.

Furniture lead times, stock depletion, and construction delays are obstinately part of our existence, but clients may be ignorant of the fact. Laura's team solidifies buffers into their project timelines and regularly updates clients. With furnishings, for instance, they may order goods a year in advance, then reengage with the client months later to revisit selections and confirm alignment prior to installation. Managing expectations is an assiduous process, not a one-time talk at the project's commencement.

Swap detailed timelines for visual ones with estimated delivery windows. This helps construct realistic expectations minus pinning down uncontrollable specifics.

Procurement Issues

"Procurement is where all the rubes come up," Laura mutters. "Mastery over your ordering process—and sturdy connections with vendors—is indispensable." As any interior designer already knows, procurement partially pertains to submitting orders and wholly encompasses preparing for what could go awry. Design studios should devise systems that anticipate potential issues early. For prevention rather than reaction is essential.

"We appreciate one another's active engagement once a week to overview all active orders," Laura explains. "We verify that everything has been affirmed by the vendors, address any roadblocks and muddles right off the bat—whether something's been postponed, withdrawn, or subjected to a giant uptick in price."

For smaller studios or solo designers, Laura prescribes using tools such as Studio Designer (which LAUDC employs) to stay orderly. If you're juggling multiple projects, outsourcing procurement might be the wisest choice. "There's also procurement services out there for designers," Laura notes. "Designer Advantage is one alternative for those who don't have an in-house procurement officer."

How do you recognize when it's time to enlist additional assistance? "If you're managing three to five projects concurrently, you can justify hiring someone solely to manage procurement. It boils down to the scale and nature of the projects you're executing."

Block out time every two weeks for an "orders audit." Invent yourself a checklist so nothing drops through the cracks.

Wrapping Up

Many thanks to Laura for setting aside time to confabulate with us and solace solutions to predicaments designers frequently face. Whether you're steering a solo boat or hemstitching a growing flotilla, parrying these twists and turns necessitates camaraderie, systems, and collective wisdom. That's precisely what DesignDash's Community provides to its members.

From business insights and dependable resources to tête-à-têtes with designers in the grind of your labor, our Community was fashioned to propel your success, guide you through rough patches, and tender peer reinforcement. Join the Community here.

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The art of interior design, as shared by Laura Umansky of Laura U Design Collective, is about having clear expectations, consistent communication, mutual respect, and a shared commitment to a well-defined process, making it a blend of creativity and life.
In concerns related to procurement, Laura Umansky advises that mastery over ordering processes and maintaining strong vendor relationships is essential to manage potential issues skillfully, as seen in her team's regular reviews and weekly engagement to ensure all active orders are confirmed and any hurdles are addressed promptly.