Dear Dakota: How To Know When It’s Time To Rent A Studio Space For My Interior Design Business?

I received a question that I know will resonate with designers who work out of their homes and are feeling like they’ve outgrown their space. 

Dear Dakota,

One thing I am struggling with is knowing when the right time is to no longer work from home.

Many interior design business owners start their businesses from a home office or even from their dining room table or kitchen counter. This is one enormous advantage of starting an interior design business over many other types of start-ups: a brick-and-mortar retail space isn’t required, and you don’t need to invest in any inventory or expensive equipment/tools to get started. 

So, relative to many other new businesses, a service-based business like interior design can be started with a comparatively low financial investment. I’m not saying it’s inexpensive to launch a design business. Certainly, the cost of legal fees, website development, software programs, insurance, and marketing can be substantial, but not compared to say, starting a furniture or home goods retail store. 

The ability to operate a business within your home (at least initially) keeps business start-up costs affordable. For many reasons, though—financial, practical, and functional—many interior design business owners find that at some point, it makes sense to rent or buy an office/studio space outside their home to continue to grow and elevate their business.

But how do you know when the time is right? Operating from a studio space outside the home can significantly elevate the perceived status of your business, it can allow you to escape the distractions of home, can accommodate employees or contracted staff, can host clients, and, of course, can provide more space for storing samples, inventory, and client orders. 

But all of those advantages come at a cost. With the post-Covid exodus of workers from commercial real estate settings and resulting low vacancy rates, business owners in some areas may find that rents are lower than may be expected. But even then, office space rent will be a significant monthly expense affecting your revenue stream, and the upfront cost of designing and furnishing the space can be high.

We typically see several factors that push interior design business owners to expand from their home office into rented office/studio spaces:

01 | Their interior design sample library has grown too big to manage within a home office.

You may start your business with very few samples and order or borrow samples as needed from vendors and showrooms. But, as you increase your relationships with reps, you will find they are eager to provide full catalogs and sample books. As your business grows and you start taking on more or larger projects, you’ll find it makes more sense to carry a wider range of samples to save time and effort. You may even begin to store full sample lines of quartz countertop colors, hardware, window treatment colors and samples, flooring samples, cabinet samples, or a collection of any product category or manufacturer’s line. And material samples can be bulky and large. All of a sudden, your sample library has taken over your closets or garage. 

This is definitely a scenario that signals to an interior design business owner that it may be time to move out of a home office. Having a functional, organized, and easily accessible sample library is a huge benefit and massive time savings to any designer’s sourcing efforts, and can allow you to reclaim your home storage spaces.

02 | They need space for interior design client meetings and presentations, and it is no longer on-brand to meet in a home, at a client’s home, or at a random location.

This is a sign that your business has grown significantly and prosperously. If you have earned a positive reputation within your marketplace as being a top-notch designer, and you have raised your rates accordingly, you may feel that you and your business deserve (and need!!) a commercial space to operate in. 

Having a business presence within a commercial space—or hanging up one’s shingle, so to speak—will elevate the public perception of your professional practice. To most people’s way of thinking, a commercial space may be perceived with a bit more respectability than a business operating out of a home. The mere presence of your operation in the marketplace will elevate your perceived authority and give you credibility as a professional and established designer. This can go far when forming new relationships with builders and architects or when breaking into a new market with higher end homes and projects.

03 | Their interior design team has grown. And it doesn't make sense for everyone on their team to NOT be working together in an office.

Along with your flourishing business, say you have grown your team and support staff. You have taken on employees or contractors to help with the day-to-day administrative functions, with design and implementation, or with drawing, documentation, and bookkeeping. It is inefficient to NOT be together in one place. There is a definite advantage to collaborate, have face-to-face communication, and have access to all the materials chosen for a client project. 

Creative professionals often need the creative spark that comes from in-person collaboration. But having staff show up to work at your front door doesn’t feel professional to you or to them. And the typical home office (often a spare bedroom) is usually not sized to accommodate several people comfortably (not to mention, the extra pressure of having your home “ready” for your team to arrive each day-no thanks!). This scenario may compel you to rent a commercial space that will function well for your growing business.

04 | They have product deliveries and inventory that becomes difficult to receive and store at home.

You may store inventory or smaller items as a courtesy to your clients while waiting for their install day. Or you may have regular large package deliveries that you need to warehouse or store safely. Or you may have accumulated several items returned by clients that you hope to use in a future project. Or, you may maintain an inventory of decorative accessories to use for styling when you have your projects photographed. 

Either way, your home may not have adequate space for surplus furniture and materials. And, if you are managing and storing a good number of product and furnishing deliveries, you may benefit from having a loading dock that delivery vehicles can load and unload from (really, at this point, you need to utilize a receiving warehouse). Read about that here. 

Your home is not equipped to accommodate large or numerous deliveries. And you really don’t want all of these items taking up your personal space at home. And your neighbors may not appreciate a constant flow of delivery trucks on your street. And, if you live with your partner, they are certainly not happy about their home being overtaken by boxes or the cardboard debris that may be left behind for them to break down (IFKYK). 

If you are maintaining any sizable inventory, you will feel a misalignment with working from home.

05 | Their family life does not support the work-from-home situation.

Whether it’s because you have young children, older children, teenagers, aging parents, or a significant other who also works from home, there may be something about the schedule and family dynamic that doesn’t align properly with working from home. You may find there are too many distractions and interruptions to be able to focus well. In these cases, trying to be productive at home can be quite stress-inducing and can even affect your mental well-being. Renting an office/studio space can help you to keep your home and your work life separate. 

There is a trade-off here, though. You will lose some flexibility by not having your office at home. And you will incur extra costs and a loss of productive time by having to commute to your workplace.  

There may be other issues, such as living in a neighborhood with a homeowner’s association that restricts small business operations. Or perhaps you have another child, or an elderly parent moves in with you, and suddenly, what was your home office is now space relegated to another purpose.

With any of these factors compelling you to rent a studio space for your interior design business, the key is to do a financial evaluation (or meet with an accountant or financial advisor) to ensure that the cost of renting or purchasing an office/studio space will still align with your business’s financial objectives. Rental space will likely be the highest overhead expense your business will incur; therefore, it will play a major role in the profitability of your business, which may, in turn, affect your personal income. 

But remember what we said above about the elevated perception that a design business can have when operating from a commercial studio space rather than a home office? That may allow you to raise your rates to offset some of that rental overhead. The key is to evaluate both the advantages and disadvantages, as well as the financial implications of moving your design business into a rented studio space. 

Looking for more? Keep reading: