The Frustrations Designers Face (So You Don’t Have To)

If you’ve ever waited on a contractor who didn’t show, dealt with a delivery that was weeks late, opened a box to find something broken, or felt ignored by a vendor after the sale — congratulations, you’ve had the same experience interior designers live with every week.

The difference? Designers don’t just live with it. We learn from it. Over and over.

The Unpolished Truth

• Contractors disappear. Schedules slip. It happens.

• Products break. Freight doesn’t care about your install date.

• Vendors vanish. Too many forget service is part of the product.

Designers see these patterns not once, but dozens of times. And in the process, we build something most clients don’t have the luxury of creating: a curated network of people and partners who show up, stand behind their work, and keep projects moving.

Why It Matters

When you hire a designer, you’re not just getting an eye for proportion or a knack for mixing textures. You’re inheriting a team — the contractors who actually arrive on Monday morning, the vendor who answers the phone at 5 p.m., the delivery partner who knows how to walk a marble table up three flights without leaving a mark.

That’s the hidden value: fewer headaches, fewer do-overs, and fewer nights staring at tracking numbers wondering when your sofa will materialize.

Acquired, Not Assembled

At VPI, we believe great design isn’t just about what you see in the finished room. It’s about the unseen: the frustration we’ve already endured, the lessons we’ve already learned, and the network we’ve already built.

We curate so our clients don’t have to. That’s the difference between something you buy off the shelf and something that’s been acquired, not assembled.