How a Finished Home Refers You

Imagine a designer named Leonie Pruett who is redoing one room for the Ellerbys, the dining room of their house in town. It is the room they entertain in. Leonie chooses a hand-painted paper for the walls, a walnut table for 12, and silk curtains made to order. Mrs. Ellerby chairs the auction committee at her children’s school, and the committee has dinner at her house every autumn.

Leonie installs the room in the first week of October, between two other installations. The silk curtains are late from the workroom and will not come until November. The new chandelier also hums when it is turned down low. Leonie sends the final invoice with a note that the curtains will follow.

The committee dinner is on October 18. Twelve parents eat under a humming chandelier, beside bare windows, and Mrs. Ellerby tells them the room is not quite finished. One guest, Mrs. Bellamy, is about to redo her own living room, and she asks who did this one. “Leonie Pruett,” Mrs. Ellerby says. “It’ll be lovely once the curtains come.” The next week, Mrs. Bellamy hires the designer who did her sister’s house.

The curtains go up in November. Leonie sends nothing more after the last invoice. When the Ellerbys redo their library the next year, they hire someone else.

Suppose instead that Leonie asks one question when she orders the pieces in June. “When will you first have guests in here?” Mrs. Ellerby says the committee dinner on October 18. Leonie writes the date at the top of her schedule for the room.

In August, the workroom tells Leonie that the silk curtains will be late. She tells Mrs. Ellerby that week, and she has plain linen curtains made to hang until the silk ones come. On October 15, she comes back in the evening and turns the chandelier down low, the way it will be for dinner. She hears the hum, and her electrician changes the dimmer the next day.

At the dinner, Mrs. Bellamy asks who did the room. “Leonie Pruett,” Mrs. Ellerby says. “She asked me in June when we’d first have people in here, and it was ready to the day.” At school pickup on Monday, Mrs. Bellamy asks Mrs. Ellerby for Leonie’s number. Mrs. Bellamy calls Leonie that afternoon.

The silk curtains go up in November. While Leonie hangs them, Mr. Ellerby mentions that his father’s books in the library are coming apart. In February, Leonie sends him the name of a bookbinder who repairs old leather bindings. In May, Mrs. Ellerby calls Leonie about the library.

Leonie designed the same room both times. What changed was how the room looked on the night the guests saw it, and what Leonie did after the last invoice. In the first version, the guests saw bare windows, so Mrs. Ellerby’s answer was about the curtains. In the second, the room was ready for them, so her answer was about Leonie. Then Leonie kept in touch, and the library came to her too.

So have every room ready before its first guests, and keep in touch after the job. Here is why a finished home brings a designer work, and what four designers found.

Guests see a room on the night they come, not on the day you install it

Here is the course’s view of how a finished home refers a designer. Your work stays in the client’s house after you leave. The people who see it are the family’s guests. They might be parents at a committee dinner, friends at a birthday party, or a neighbor in for a drink. When one of them asks who did the room, the client answers in one sentence.

The client answers from what the guests could see that night. A late piece, a humming light, or a rug that slides becomes part of the answer. So the night that counts is the first one with guests, not the day you finish installing. That is the course’s reason for planning the end of a job around the client’s first gathering.

A guest who hears your name that way comes to the first call already trusting you.

The family itself also keeps needing a designer, for another room, a second house, or a house for a grown child. When that work comes, the family thinks of the designer it still hears from. That designer might have gone back after the install to fix what was not working. Or the designer might send something twice a year with nothing to answer, such as a bookbinder’s name.

One designer’s clients named her to friends, and another’s keep her to themselves

The two designers disagree, and the reason may be the kind of client each one works for.

Amy Lee McArdle is a designer in Palm Beach and New York. In 2025, Business of Home asked her and two other designers about the most unusual ways they have found clients. Her answer began with past clients, a professional golfer and his wife, who moved to Dubai. “When their friends were inquiring about an interior designer in the U.S., they mentioned us,” she said. Her firm went on to help those friends design their home, “a major project stateside.”

Tara Dudley is a designer in Las Vegas who works on high-rise apartments and large houses. In 2024, she told Business of Home’s 50 States Project that her best referrals do not come from clients. “They’re protective,” she said. Her clients “don’t really want to give your name to their best friends and have you taken away from them.”

Her interviewer said that clients in the middle refer a designer. Lower-budget clients and the most private clients at the high end are less inclined to. “It’s so true,” Dudley said. Her clients who buy a house from a builder, usually as a second home, are different. They “want to tell everybody they know about you.”

Dudley’s referrals come from the tradespeople on her projects, such as builders, audiovisual installers, and a drapery installer. “They’re the ones who are [on-site] all the time,” she said, “so people tend to ask them who they like to work with.” Those are the people around a house, who watch how you work.

A drapery installer worked with her on an installation in a San Diego high-rise. Then he referred her to a client in Las Vegas. Her firm did that client’s 15,000-square-foot house in Summerlin and 12,000-square-foot penthouse. “Now we’re doing work for their children, who are having their own kids!” she said. “That’s happened with many different clients over the years.”

McArdle’s clients sent their friends, and Dudley’s most private clients would not. Even so, the client the drapery installer sent brought Dudley two homes, and then work for the children. So keep in touch with every family you finish for, whether or not they pass your name on. A family’s next house is work it can give you without telling anyone.

A New York designer asked a new client who sent her, and she would not say

Wesley Moon is a designer in New York. In 2020, Business of Home asked him and six other designers about the most surprising way they met a client. A woman called Moon about her home in Connecticut. As the call ended, he asked who referred him. “I always like to know so I can thank whoever gave my name out,” he said.

She paused, and then she said, “I don’t know. I’m not sure. I guess I saw your work somewhere.” Then she changed the subject. At their first meeting, at her house, Moon got the job. As he left, he asked again whether she remembered how she heard of him. She avoided the question again. “So I let it go and we started working together,” he said.

A couple of weeks later, Moon stopped by the office of a longtime client, a well-known plastic surgeon on Park Avenue. Moon designed that office about a year before. His new client from Connecticut was sitting in the reception area. “She just said, ‘Well, now you know!’” Moon said.

The project “turned out great,” he said, and the two have gone on to do a lot of work together. He told the story with her permission. In his words, it “underscores how important privacy and discretion is to our clients.”

The client said she might have seen Moon’s work somewhere, and she was sitting in a room he designed. His conclusion was about privacy, and the step from there is the course’s own. Here is the step. Who sent a client can be private too, because it shows whom she knows and where she goes. So Moon asked, and then he let it go. A wealthy client expects you to keep her private life to yourself, and that includes the people in it.

An Arkansas designer keeps working for families after each project ends

Chris Goddard is a designer in Springdale, Arkansas. In 2025, Business of Home asked him and six other designers how they keep in touch with clients after a project ends. For his firm, he said, there is little difference between past clients and present ones. For most of its clients, it is “continually adding to room decor, updating or working on second homes.”

To stay connected, the firm offers what Goddard called a “concierge/turnkey service.” It takes care of each family’s holiday decor and the upkeep of their furnishings. It also keeps “an open line of communication for any of their household needs.” In his words, “no project is ever truly complete, and there is always another layer to update or add.”

Goddard’s service puts his firm back in the house each holiday season, and whenever the furniture needs care. So his firm is there when the family thinks of the next room. It also keeps the furnishings cared for, so the rooms still look the way his firm left them.

Not every family wants a designer in the house each year. For a family that does not, send something meant for them twice a year.

Why talking about a client’s room at her party goes wrong

Imagine a designer named Juliet Mortlake who has finished the Fairhursts’ drawing room. In June, Caroline Fairhurst invites Juliet to a summer party at the house. By the fireplace, a guest named Mr. Penhallow admires the linen on the sofas and asks Juliet about the room.

Juliet is pleased, and she is tired after a week of installations. “Thank you,” she says. “That linen is $400 a yard, and it took Caroline months to choose it. The sofas came six months late.” Mr. Penhallow laughs and asks for her card.

Later that evening, Mr. Penhallow tells Mrs. Fairhurst what the linen cost. Mrs. Fairhurst smiles and changes the subject. In the autumn, a friend asks her for a designer, and she gives another name. Mr. Penhallow does not call Juliet either. He does not want anyone to hear what his own house cost.

Juliet did good work on the room. Her mistake was answering a guest with the client’s prices and the client’s slow decision. The room belonged to Mrs. Fairhurst, and so did everything about it. When a guest praises a client’s room in front of you, give the credit to the client and stop.

The version that works hands the room back to Mrs. Fairhurst. “Thank you,” Juliet says. “Caroline knew exactly what she wanted for this room.” Mr. Penhallow asks for her card. Juliet gives it to him, and she goes back to the party. In the autumn, Mrs. Fairhurst gives Juliet’s name to the friend who asks.

How to let a finished home bring you the next job

1. When you order the pieces for a room, ask the client when guests will first see it, and for what. Write that date at the top of your schedule for the room. That is the course’s suggestion, because the guests see the room as it is that night. For example, a designer redoing a family room can ask, “When will you first have people over in here?”
2. When a piece will miss that date, tell the client the week you hear. Then fill the gap so the room looks finished on the night, with plain curtains or a rug from your own stock. For example, a designer whose rug is held up at the weaver can say, “Your rug won’t arrive until January. I’ll put one of mine down for the holidays and swap it when yours comes.”
3. A few days before the first guests come, visit the room at the hour they will use it. Set the lights the way they will be, and sit where the guests will sit. Fix whatever is wrong before the night. For example, a designer who comes by at seven in the evening might find that the dining chairs catch on the rug.
4. When a guest admires a client’s room in front of you, give the credit to the client. Say nothing about what anything cost or how the client decided. For example, a designer at a client’s holiday party can say, “Thank you. The Rushworths knew exactly what they wanted in here.”
5. When a new client calls, ask how they heard of you, as Moon does. If they avoid the question, let it go. When you know who sent them, thank that person in one sentence, and offer nothing in return. For example, a designer can ask, “Would you mind telling me how you heard of me? I like to thank whoever passed on my name.”
6. Offer each family a service of its own after the job, as Goddard does. It might be dressing the house for the holidays, or caring for the upholstery and rugs each year. Give it a fee of its own. For example, a designer can say, “Each December, I can come in for two days and set up the house for the holidays. That’s $3,500.”
7. Before the job ends, write down every room and house the family has mentioned doing later. Put them on the page you keep on the client. Then send the family something twice a year that is meant for them, with nothing to answer. For example, a designer who did a family’s townhouse might write down the attic playroom and the cottage in Maine. In March, she can send them the name of a carpenter who restores old cottages on that coast.

Next: The elective for interior designers ends here. The next is for trainers and wellness professionals, and it starts with what wealthy fitness clients are buying.