Updated August 2024

If you are feeling overwhelmed in your interior design business, the best thing you can do is set boundaries with your clients. When I’m working with interior designers who want to elevate their client experience and streamline their backend operations, the first thing we do is look at their client-facing processes to see how we can tighten everything up. Fixing any challenges they are having with this piece of their business immediately impacts their feeling of being overwhelmed by reducing the demands and requests that are coming in.

Six Boundaries to Set With Your Interior Design Clients

Setting AND THEN ENFORCING boundaries in your interior design business can be tricky, especially when you’re in the weeds and feel like you’re getting steamrolled and don’t even realize you’re saying yes anymore. Been there, done that.

But what boundaries do you set with your interior design clients that are sensible and impactful so you can still be an approachable and ‘down-to-earth’ business owner?

While this will be specific to each interior designer based on their preferences and the services they offer, here are six key boundaries interior designers should set to save their sanity.

How people can contact you → are you okay with unscheduled phone calls, text messages, Instagram DMs, emails, whats app messages, drop in visits, etc. The more channels a person has to communicate with you, the messier it is to manage and track all that correspondence.
When people can contact you → for real, just set business hours. It’s that easy. When are you working? When do you NOT want to work? Set real live business hours, and then don’t respond to emails or messages during your non-business hours. If you’ve set the expectation that you are “closed” in the evenings and with your family, then clients won’t expect a response.
Your response time → this is important for setting expectations (and can be a strategic way to get clients to communicate via your preferred channel). Let your interior design clients know when they can expect a response to their emails, phone calls, etc. And if you DON’T want text messages or Instagram DMs, let them know that the quickest way to get a response from you/your team is to [insert the way you want them to communicate].
How revisions work → this is just the nature of the beast for interior designers. Every service you offer should have clear boundaries around your revisions policy/process because, without it, your project could go off the rails if you’re in revisions phase for six weeks, making changes to the design as they come in (NOOOO!!!).
What the support phase or management phase of your service includes → if you have a streamlined process (woop woop) and move out of design and into management, your interior design client should have an idea of the kind of support and access they have during the support/management phase. Do they get unlimited access to you? Change requests? On demand site visits? Or, do they have access to your team? A limited number of meetings? Etc.
When you do meetings/calls → por el amor de Dios, please set some boundaries around when you hold meetings and when you take discovery calls. Establishing a cadence to your week and having clarity into your days is HUGE for managing your time. Only do new client meetings on Tuesdays? Only present on Fridays? Easy. Now, you can look ahead to schedule those events and understand when you and your team have capacity.

I often see interior designers struggle with clients who call, text, and email nonstop. Then the interior designer responds after hours, via text or Instagram DM, or decides to go against their policy “just this once.”

Now I totally get it. As business owners, we want to make our clients happy, and sometimes it’s easy to let something slide “just this once.” But we all know that’s not how you grow your business in a sustainable and manageable way if every client has a different set of rules.

Experience has shown me time and time again that no good deed goes unpunished. Sticking to your policies is always the easiest and most efficient thing to do.

Start by looking at your client-facing processes to see how you can tighten up how you communicate with clients and how you can set some boundaries that will feel good for both parties.

Once these policies are in place and shared with clients, there may be a little pushback from clients who are used to the old way of doing things. But I can say once you create boundaries and stick to them, your clients will eventually follow suit and will love knowing exactly how to work with you in a way that benefits them the most. You always want to present your boundaries as a benefit to clients.

Need better boundaries in your interior design business? Check out my Business Blueprint for Interior Designers and access the top processes interior designers need OR check out details of my signature program, The Designed to Scale® Method, where we help interior designers design profitable services and elevated processes for delivering them to your ideal clients.

How Boundaries Benefit Your Interior Design Clients

Here are a few examples:

By letting clients know you will no longer use text messaging as a form of communication, you will ensure nothing gets lost in communication and your whole team will be updated on their project by keeping things in email/your project management software/etc.
By scheduling phone calls, you’ll always have time to prepare for their meetings and give them 100% focus with all their information in front of you, making the most of your time and theirs (especially if you bill hourly).
By sticking to your business hours, you let clients know that your personal time is important and restorative for your creative process and makes you much better at designing their home/wedding. Your best ideas often come to you when you are inspired by life outside of work.

Where to Communicate Boundaries In Your Interior Design Business

Create an FAQ page on your website.
Share about your process on your website and on your social media accounts.
Include best practices in your investment guide that you share with potential interior design clients (what your hours are, how you communicate with clients, what your process is).
Share them in your interior design contract.
Reiterate them in your new client welcome guide.

How to Let Existing Interior Design Clients Know About Your New Boundaries

Now you know where you can set boundaries; you know how to word these boundaries to clients, but how do you roll it out when your clients have been texting, calling, and running you ragged?

Send out an update to clients. This can be wrapped in an email to with any company related or seasonal updates. “As we’re moving into the [fall] season … ] or [As we’re implementing new software to better serve you …] or [We’re excited to introduce our newest team member. She will handle x, y, z. We also want to remind you of x, y, z boundaries.] <— you get the idea!
Redirect your clients when they don’t follow the boundaries.
- A text comes in? Send them an email letting them know you received their text and you’re emailing them back so nothing gets lost.
- They call you after hours? Send them an email during business hours letting them know you saw their call came in after hours/when you were with your family, and then answer their message by email OR include your scheduler so they can book some time.
- They email you after hours. Don’t respond OR respond and then schedule the email to go out during business hours. I also like to have autoresponder emails go out that let clients know you received their email and that you will respond within X business days (whatever your policy is) and then what your business hours are.
- They email you for support after your service has wrapped? Direct them to your design assistant, studio manager, or admin.

Something to note:

01 | If you set boundaries, YOU have to follow them, too! Otherwise, you will just confuse your clients and (sorry to say) come off as flaky.

02 | Some interior designers are okay with text messaging and phone calls, and maybe you are one of them. If that’s the case, then you may want to look at how that’s working for your productivity and the client experience. Then, determine if you should, at a minimum, set boundaries around those communication channels. For example, set response times for text messages and phone calls. Let clients know the preferred way to get in touch with you. Let them know your hours for those communication channels. Let them know how long your typical response time is (i.e., I respond to text messages within X business days).

The most important thing to remember is that boundaries protect you and your client and make it possible for you to take on additional projects while still feeling good about your workload. If you struggle with boundaries for clients or feel like you are so deep in text messages and phone calls and clients pushing you for more more more, I’d love to help you refine this key part of your process with my done-for-you Client Experience Templates or in my signature program, The Designed to Scale® Method.