After more than ten years working as a licensed interior designer in the Midwest, I’ve learned quickly that being an interior designer in Chicago isn’t about chasing trends or creating rooms that only look good in photos. Chicago forces you to design for reality—old buildings, unpredictable winters, strict condo boards, and clients who expect spaces to work hard every day.
One of my earliest Chicago projects was a condo renovation in a prewar high-rise. On paper, the layout seemed straightforward. In practice, the walls were out of square, the original plaster hid decades of patchwork, and the building limited construction hours so tightly that every trade had to be scheduled with precision. I remember standing on site with a contractor realizing that the custom cabinetry we’d planned would need to be re-engineered by an inch and a half to clear an unexpected column. Designers without real field experience tend to freeze in those moments. The job keeps moving only if you know how to adjust without compromising the design.
I’m NCIDQ-certified and have spent years working across residential and light commercial projects, but the credential matters less than judgment. I once stepped in after a homeowner had followed a designer’s recommendation for wide-plank flooring throughout a river-adjacent property. Within one season, cupping and gaps appeared because moisture conditions hadn’t been properly accounted for. Fixing it cost several thousand dollars and weeks of disruption. Since then, I’m firm about pushing clients toward materials that can handle Chicago’s humidity swings, even if it means steering them away from what’s currently popular on social media.
Another pattern I see often is designers over-styling spaces that need to be flexible. A family in Lakeview wanted a pristine living area with light upholstery and delicate finishes. I’d recently worked on a similar home and had watched those choices unravel fast—snow, salt, pets, kids. I advised them to shift toward performance fabrics and finishes that could be cleaned without panic. A year later, they told me it was the best decision we made together. Those conversations don’t always feel glamorous, but they’re the difference between a room that survives real life and one that constantly needs fixing.
Good interior design in Chicago is as much about coordination as creativity. You have to understand delivery logistics in dense neighborhoods, elevator reservations, union labor rules in certain buildings, and how to communicate with condo boards that can shut a project down if paperwork isn’t flawless. I’ve seen beautiful concepts fall apart simply because a designer underestimated those constraints.
If there’s one thing experience teaches you here, it’s that design decisions carry consequences long after install day. The strongest designers aren’t just talented—they’re practical, honest about trade-offs, and comfortable saying no when something won’t hold up. That kind of restraint only comes from time spent on job sites, solving problems that don’t show up in renderings.
