When Themed Rooms Attack: Interior Decorating for Clients with Big Ideas

Suppose a couple enters your interior design firm and demands a tropical-themed dining room. They envision a tiki bar, surfboards, palm trees, festive fabrics, and if the fire marshal approves, a suckling pig roasting on a spit in the corner. What does a responsible interior designer do? You could swallow your interior design pride and give them exactly what they want, or you could do a little bit more work to create a room that captures your clients' desires without making you cringe.

Understanding Your Clients' Needs

First of all, you need to have a conversation with your clients to learn why they want a tropical dining room. Perhaps they've just returned from a Hawaiian honeymoon and want to remember the great time they had there. Maybe they are bored with the staid contemporary interior decorating in the rest of their house, and they want something really different. Possibly they like the bright colors of the tropics. Having this information will help you to figure out an interior decorating compromise.

Making an Interior Design Compromise

If your clients explain that they like the colors of the tropics, you might suggest an aqua and jade green scheme with dark tropical wood accents. By choosing furniture and fabrics that might show up in luxurious tropical homes rather than in seedy tropical bars offering $2 mai tai specials, you can give them a classy taste of the tropics. The trickiest part of your conversation is explaining gently why you will not design the kitschy theme room of your clients' dreams. While you cannot in good conscience support some of their more over-the-top ideas, you can work with them to create a room that will give them pleasure for years to come.

You might find that your most opinionated clients are your favorite ones. Even if some of their ideas do not fit with your interior decorating vision, it can be very satisfying and energizing to work with clients who have lots of ideas of their own.