If you've never worked with an interior designer before, it's easy to picture the job as picking pretty things: a sofa here, a paint color there. In reality, the work starts long before any furniture gets chosen, and it goes much deeper than aesthetics. Here's what an interior designer actually does, and how to know when it's time to bring one in. It Starts With Understanding You Before any design decisions get made, a good interior designer needs to understand how you actually live. That...

A behind-the-scenes look at what actually happens in a Buddy Warren Home design consultation and why it's the smartest first step before you redesign your space. If you've spent any time scrolling design inspiration lately, you already know the problem: everything starts to look the same. The same TikTok design trends. The same Pinterest boards. The same kitchen layout copy-pasted from someone else's home into another. An interior design consultation isn't about handing you a trend report....

Unlike a suburban home renovation, you can't simply knock out a wall and put in a bigger window to make your apartment brighter. Enlarging a window opening means altering structural masonry, which brings in engineering review, architectural drawings, and a level of legal red tape that most co-op boards, condo boards, and city agencies are reluctant to approve. For most owners, that path is neither fast nor realistic. On top of that, plenty of NYC apartments, especially those on lower floors,...