Begin With The Budget

Wouldn’t it be nice to have clients who say to you at the beginning of their project—“Don’t worry about the budget”?

Not going to happen. Today everyone is super conscious about where they spend their money, and, more important, how you the designer is going to spend their money.

The process of putting together a budget is extraordinarily useful for my clients and takes both the future anxiety and the rueful “unmet” expectations out of the decorating picture. But in making their own budgets, many clients (and designers, for that matter) leave out a number of costs, hidden and obvious, that often lead to great disappointment, and frustration.Curiously, one of the most obvious omissions is that of sales tax. Though I often hear complaints about our sales tax, depending on where the project is, I have encountered other U.S. state sales tax, and European VAT taxes, as high as 20 percent for some purchases, which makes our 8.625 percent in Suffolk County seem more than acceptable.

The second most egregious omission is not accounting for freight charges, which used to be fairly minor but now can climb to between 10 and 20 percent of your purchases. Before you or your designer purchase that stunning credenza from a California-based vendor, to be shipped to your East End home, be sure to verify the shipping charge up front, because you may be in for a very unpleasant surprise. Recently we priced a very reasonable lighting fixture from overseas and were hit with an additional 43-percent freight charge. So careful attention to this is surely paramount. In fact, buying and budgeting “local” could mean extraordinary savings.

Frequently forgotten in the design budget are the costs to restore and rewire those great vintage lamps you found at the shop in Palm Springs, or your old chandeliers. Sometimes these items need to be updated to secure U/L approval or your electrician cannot install it. Along with these costs, other left-out budget items are the cost to refinish, restore and repaint furniture. Having a local restorer give an estimate is well worth the time, especially if the cost exceeds your budget constraints. You might decide that a new acquisition would be a more reasonable choice in the long run.

For second homes, buyers forget how much it took to outfit their first home. My mother used to call this “setting up housekeeping.” For instance, the bedroom budgets don’t merely include carpets, headboards, mattresses, window treatments, lamps and side tables. Inadvertently overlooked are the pillow forms and cases, duvets, bedspreads, sheets, throw pillows, dust skirts, lampshades, mirrors and, oh yes, artwork! What seem like “incidentals” are the accessories that help pull the overall design together.

The kitchen budget does not just include the breakfast table, chairs, lighting and bar stools. The kitchen requires flatware, utensils, drinking glasses, plates, and place mats, towels, food processors, pots and pans, etc. The list goes on. Often these items are pushed aside when considering the budget.

And may I again bring up the subject of artwork! Of course I would always prefer that this be collected over time while meandering through ArtHamptons or our fabulous galleries on the East End. But to be fair to my clients who possess no artwork, and are moving into beach homes with expansive walls, I must include some budget numbers for art, including the cost for framing. Art is subjective, and good art is expensive. Framing, no matter what, is expensive. So to be fair and inclusive, there should always be a line item in the budget for framed art.

For those of us who did not inherit Downton Abbey, complete with leather-bound filled libraries, side tables groaning with beautiful bibelots or bedrooms stocked with every comfortable accoutrement, one must also budget in the cost of accessories. Accessories are often gathered up as we go, bought at antique shops, discovered at yard sales and even bid on at auctions. But many clients are too much on the go and can’t stop to “smell the accessories”!

So accessories must be added to our budget. Coffee-table books, picture frames, flower vases and the unique collection of oddities that make a house a home must be tallied up into that total budget number. Only then will you capture a realistic view of what my mother would quote as “going to housekeeping.”

Perhaps all this budgeting seems daunting, but in reality is it quite freeing. To know what your costs are going to be saves the headaches of Mr. Blandings in the film Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House," and allows one to prioritize and edit. It is always surprising how much goes into making a house your home. It would be so much easier, I suppose, just to inherit Downton Abbey, with everything down to the napkins and candlesticks. Oh, but then there is the upkeep!

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