How to Choose an Interior Designer in Central Florida
Maybe you've saved plenty of rooms you love, but you're not sure how to bring those ideas into your own home. Or you know exactly what needs attention: a kitchen that feels closed off, a living room that never quite comes together, or a newly built house that still needs personality.
Choosing an interior designer in Central Florida starts with finding someone who understands what you want your home to feel like and how you need it to work. Look for relevant projects, a clear explanation of the services involved, and a person you feel comfortable making decisions with.
You'll be working together on details you live with every day. Understanding how a firm listens, plans, and carries a design through to completion can make that choice feel much clearer.
At Moxie Design Group, we're a luxury interior design firm based in Longwood, serving homeowners throughout Orlando and Central Florida. Here's what we recommend looking at as you get to know a design firm and decide whether it's the right fit for your home.
Start with what you want your home to do
Before you start comparing portfolios, think about what you want to change. You don't need to arrive with a finished vision. A few honest observations are enough to begin a useful conversation.
Maybe everyone gathers in the kitchen, but the layout makes it difficult to cook and talk at the same time. Perhaps you love your dining table and want the rest of the room to feel more connected to it. You might be moving into a larger home and wondering how to furnish it so the rooms relate to one another.
Write down what's working, what's frustrating, and what you'd like to keep. That helps a designer understand the level of support your project needs. Our interior design services are organized around three different starting points.
Refreshing a room
A focused update may involve furniture placement, color guidance, lighting, or a new direction for pieces you already own. If a room feels almost right, an outside perspective can help you see what's missing and what deserves to stay.
Moxie's Refresh services include options such as color consultation, space planning, virtual design, and guidance for updating an existing space.
Furnishing and finishing a home
When you're furnishing a room more completely, the decisions need to work together. The scale of a sofa affects the layout. Lighting changes how the room feels in the evening. Artwork, rugs, and window treatments help establish its character.
Our Redesign services can include space planning, furnishings, lighting selections, ordering, delivery coordination, and white-glove installation, depending on the project.
Planning a renovation
Kitchens, bathrooms, and larger remodels bring another layer of decisions. Layouts, cabinetry, appliances, fixtures, and finishes influence one another, making it helpful to develop them as a coordinated plan.
Moxie's Renovation services focus on the design planning and selections involved in these projects. When you're speaking with a firm, ask how its work fits alongside the responsibilities of your contractor, builder, or other project professionals.
Read the story behind the portfolio
Beautiful photographs are a good place to start. As you browse an interior design portfolio, look for the story behind each room. What did the homeowner need? Which details were chosen for a particular reason? How did the designer make the home more comfortable or useful?
Try to find projects with a scope similar to yours. A completed kitchen renovation can tell you something different from a beautifully furnished bedroom. You can also ask the designer to walk you through a project and explain their contribution.
These three Moxie projects show how different priorities can guide the work.
Greystone in Heathrow
For Greystone's interior design, the homeowner wanted comfortable places to entertain and relax, with a masculine character that still felt warm and welcoming.
Layered lighting, rich wood tones, and illuminated built-ins helped establish that feeling. The poker room took a moodier direction, while a separate family lounge provided a more relaxed place to settle in. The kitchen supported gathering with counter seating and a beverage station.
As you look through a project like this, consider how the rooms serve different moments in the homeowner's day. When choosing a luxury interior designer, ask how they would translate your routines into the layout and details of your home.
North Shore in Palm Coast
The North Shore kitchen and bathroom renovation involved a second residence near the coast. The homeowners wanted a brighter interior that felt more connected to its setting.
Moxie developed the renovation design concept, with construction completed by the project trades. The kitchen layout, cabinetry, appliance selections, and blue, white, and gold finishes were considered together. The primary bathroom received custom cabinetry, a round tub, and an open shower.
This is a helpful example to keep in mind when discussing a renovation. Ask how the designer coordinates selections and communicates design decisions to the people carrying out the work. Those connections matter as much as any individual finish.
Vetta in Bella Collina
At Vetta, the architecture of a newly built home was already established. The homeowners needed help furnishing and finishing the spaces so they felt complete.
Moxie provided furnishings and installation for the living room, primary bedroom, office, and dining room. Paint, custom trim, and ceiling paneling added character to the bedroom, while existing elements such as the flooring informed the selections.
If you're moving into a new home, this is the kind of scope to ask about. Find out how a firm coordinates rooms and handles the steps between choosing furnishings and placing the final pieces.
Look for experience that relates to your project
A designer's background can help you understand the kinds of decisions they're comfortable guiding. Ask about projects that resemble yours, what their role involved, and how they worked with the client and other professionals.
Relevant experience may mean coordinating cabinetry and fixtures for a renovation, furnishing several rooms so they feel connected, or helping a client preserve meaningful pieces within a new design. Ask for examples that speak to your priorities.
Moxie's founder and principal designer, Sueann Badillo, brings nearly a decade of interior-design experience spanning residential interiors, furnishings, kitchen and bathroom design, space planning, and renovation selections. She is also a member of the American Society of Interior Designers and the National Kitchen & Bath Association.
Professional affiliations, client references, and specific recognition can add context to the work you see. Moxie's awards and recognition include recognition in the Interior Design Firms category of Guide to Florida's 2025 Best of Florida awards.
When you speak with a firm, ask whether it can share a relevant client reference. Learning how the team communicated and responded to questions can help you picture what working together might feel like.
Understand what happens between the first conversation and installation
Interior design includes a great deal of work that isn't immediately visible in a finished photograph. The Council for Interior Design Qualification's explanation of interior design describes work including space planning, material and furniture selection, lighting, and collaboration with other professionals.
For your project, the useful question is which services the firm will provide and how the work moves forward. Ask the designer to explain the process in everyday terms, including what you'll review and where your input is needed.
Getting to know your home
The early conversations should cover how you use the space, what you want to improve, and the pieces or features that matter to you. Photos, floor plans, and inspiration images can help, but so can a simple explanation of why a room feels awkward.
The designer should be able to connect those observations to the proposed scope. You should understand which rooms are included and what the team will help you decide.
Seeing the direction before moving forward
Ask how ideas will be presented. Depending on the project, that might involve space plans, material samples, furniture selections, or renderings. These tools can help you understand proportions and relationships that are difficult to picture from a collection of separate images.
It's also helpful to know when you'll give feedback and approve selections. You should feel comfortable saying that something doesn't feel right and explaining why. That conversation helps the designer understand your preferences more clearly.
Coordinating the details
Once selections are approved, ask who handles ordering, tracks delivery dates, and coordinates installation. If the project includes construction, clarify how the designer communicates with the professionals involved.
White-glove installation should have a clear meaning for your project. Ask what the team handles on installation day and how the room will be finished. The written scope should make those responsibilities easy to understand.
Bring a designer into the conversation early
For a renovation or a newly built home, it helps to involve a designer while the important decisions are still being developed. Furniture layouts can inform lighting placement. Appliance selections affect cabinetry. A room's intended use can influence storage and circulation.
Giving those decisions time to develop together can make the overall direction clearer before work begins.
The 2026 U.S. Houzz and Home Study found that kitchen renovations averaged 9.5 months of planning and 5.8 months of construction among surveyed homeowners. These national Houzz-user findings cover 2025 projects and exclude additions. They show how substantial the planning stage can be; your own timeline will depend on the work involved.
Tell the designer about any move-in date, family event, or other timing consideration early. Ask which decisions need to happen first and what could affect the schedule, including custom pieces, product lead times, and coordination with other professionals.
Pay attention to how the designer listens
Your first conversation should leave room for you to explain your home in your own words. You might love hosting a full dining table but want a quieter corner for reading. You might need furnishings that suit life with children or pets. Perhaps there's an inherited piece you want to build around.
Those details give a designer something meaningful to respond to. Pay attention to whether they ask follow-up questions and help you describe what you're drawn to, especially if you don't know the design terminology.
As we explain in Moxie's design approach, "Our approach starts with how the home needs to work." That means considering the layout, how rooms are used, and what the client wants to keep as the design develops.
We work with each client's budget to help achieve their goals, drawing on a variety of partnerships and vendors to offer options for their home.
You should also feel comfortable with the way the team communicates. Ask who your main contact will be, how updates will arrive, and what happens when a selection needs another look. Some homeowners enjoy being involved in many decisions; others prefer to review the key choices and let the team manage the details. Talk about what feels right for you.
Questions to ask before hiring an interior designer
You don't need to turn the first conversation into an interview. A few thoughtful questions can help you understand how a designer approaches the work and whether your expectations line up.
Have you completed projects similar to mine in scope and complexity?
How will you get to know the way we use our home?
Which services and deliverables would be included in our project?
Can you work with furnishings or features we want to keep?
How will we see the design and approve selections?
Who handles ordering, deliveries, and installation?
How do you coordinate with our builder or contractor?
Who will be our main contact, and how will we receive updates?
Listen for answers you can follow. A useful conversation should help you understand what happens next, what the designer needs from you, and how you'll work together. It's completely reasonable to ask for an example or have a term explained.
Common questions about choosing an interior designer
Do I need to know my design style before getting started
You can begin with ideas, even if they don't fit neatly into a named style. Save a few images and note what you like about them: the colors, the sense of calm, the lighting, or the way the furniture is arranged. Those observations give a designer a useful starting point and help explain your preferences more clearly than a style label alone.
What should I bring to the first conversation
Bring your priorities, photos of the space, and any floor plans or inspiration images you have. Mention pieces you want to keep and any timing considerations. You don't need to solve the room before asking for help. Knowing what feels frustrating, unfinished, or hard to use is already useful information.
Can an interior designer work with furniture I already own
Yes. Moxie can incorporate existing pieces into a new direction. Let the team know which items have meaning or are working well for you. Their dimensions, finish, and condition can help guide decisions about placement and the furnishings, color, or lighting that will work around them.
How can I tell whether a designer is the right fit
Look for relevant work, a process you understand, and communication that feels comfortable. You should be able to explain what matters to you and ask questions freely. A good first conversation should give you a clearer sense of the design help you need and how the firm would approach your home.
Start a conversation about your home
If you're considering interior design in Orlando or elsewhere in Central Florida, we'd love to hear what you have in mind. Whether you're updating a room, furnishing a home, or planning a renovation, we can talk through your goals and help identify the level of design support that makes sense.
Get in touch with Moxie Design Group to start with a free discovery call. Bring your ideas, your questions, and the things you wish worked better. That's a useful place to begin.
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