Join professional interior designers Melissa Guerra, Melody Smith, and Timm Dolley as they explore the collaborative process with clients during the construction and furnishing phases of their homes and offices. Text messages at all hours of the day and night? Check. Spinning in circles on which throw pillow to choose? Check. Making unrealistic demands and having over-the-top expectations? Check. Is it collaboration or exploitation of your time and attention? Join us in Surviving Design as we teach industry pros and newbies about the various ins and outs of the design industry. From funny stories to horror stories, we've pretty much seen in all, but have you HEARD it all? Get ready to laugh and learn, and let's start Surviving Design!

Join professional interior designers Melissa Guerra, Melody Smith, and Timm Dolley as they discuss the elephant in the room: PRICE! You've heard it before. Sometimes you have to "fake it to make it" or sometimes you need to pick up work to pay the bills until you get to that "top tier" level of design where clients are literally beating down the door. Newsflash: It doesn't always work that way. Sometimes you lower your fees to gain a project only to find the client never quite respects you. Sometimes you ignore that gut feeling, and you take a job that lasts more than two years, and you're having to deal with clients you can't stand (and their feelings towards you might be mutual). In this industry, it's important to know your value because at the end of the day construction is complex, and the time it takes to build something beautiful costs money. Period. Don't undercut yourself - or our industry - by taking peanuts when you're worth the whole circus. Get ready, and let's start Surviving Design!

Join professional interior designers Melissa Guerra, Timm Dolley, and Melody Smith as they discuss a huge elephant in the design community: Taking credit for other people's work. Architectural Digest received a huge backlash when interior designer Timothy Corrigan noted that one of his projects for a famous celebrity (in which he did a lot of the work) was eventually taken over by another designer who took credit for the entire job. Social media is even worse with burgeoning interior designers stealing images from various sources and posting said work as their own. It's a complicated industry, and plagiarism unfortunately occurs more often than not. What should you do if another designer steals your work? Who actually owns those images after all? Laugh and learn with us, and let's start Surviving Design!

Music Credit: Audio Rezout

Join professional interior designers Melissa Guerra, Melody Smith, and Timm Dolley as they discuss the latest High Point Spring market. This episode is all about furniture and design trends, funny stories, and the highlights of market, including excessive amounts of food and alcohol, but if you're going to get interior designers to show up to anything, there better be food and drink!

Music Credit: Audiorezout

Join professional interior designers Melissa Guerra, Melody Smith, and Timm Dolley as they discuss the ins and outs of the interior design industry, especially as it relates to the "tricks of the trade" and lessons learned by making mistakes. After all, you don't know what you don't know, and many important lessons in life are learned by doing - even when it's wrong! Laugh and learn about the design industry, and avoid some future mistakes by learning what to avoid in the first place!

Music Credit: Audiorezout

Join professional interior designers Melissa Guerra, Melody Smith, and Timm Dolley as they discuss the pitfalls that design school and your mentors never taught you. As the old expression goes, "You don't know what you don't know," and this episode is full of stories about design projects that started off strong only to end up in ugly disputes between the homeowner and contractor and/or a host of other problems that most designers never get to see - and hopefully never will! Think you have what it takes to be an interior designer? Think those staged photos on Instagram are anything like real life? Think again. The reality of the design business is way more complicated than you can imagine. Get ready to laugh and learn, and let's start Surviving Design!

Music Credit: AudioRezout

Join professional interior designers Melissa Guerra, Melody Smith, and Timm Dolley as they discuss how the rules have changed when it comes to being in a client's home alone. Cameras, microphones, and other technologies are slowly seeping in, and even when you think you're alone, someone may be watching! Laugh and learn with us about the industry as we share true stories about installations, messy jobsites, subcontractors who leave their "results" in clients' bathrooms, and other mishaps that happen to the best of us!

Music Credit: Audiorezout

Join professional interior designers Melissa Guerra, Melody Smith, and Timm Dolley as they take you behind the scenes in the design industry. This episode is all about receiving and delivery nightmares.

Just when you thought you were safe! The client approved the design. You've placed your purchase orders, and - as fate would have it - you're fighting with your receiving warehouse or the showroom you purchased from because the item arrived damaged. Whose fault is it? What do you do? And, more importantly, how do you rectify it?

Laugh and learn with us, and let's start Surviving Design!

Music Credit: Audiorezout