ISEEK Job Highlight: Interior Designer

Andrea Langworthy

The Journey

Interior designer Jeanette Croatt believes we all have a vocation in life. Hers is helping people.

“That is the number one thing you [need] in this business,” says Croatt. “If you don’t like to help people, you won’t be successful.”

Initially, Croatt wanted to cut hair. She attended a two-year barber college but learned she is allergic to many hair products. Next, she chose the field of home decorating because, “I knew I loved to be creative.”

Croatt says her mother was creative, also.

“I was raised on a farm and we had no money but she could always make something out of nothing,” she recalls. “She was extraordinary at making things. If she wanted a window, she would make a hole in the wall and put in a window.”

Croatt says she is like her mother in that way.

“I have a vision of how something should look,” she says. “When I meet with people I say, ‘I see it.’ They ask, ‘How do you know how it will look?’ and I tell them I see it every step of the way.”

The Work

“A lot of facets to my career,” Croatt says, “have been building blocks. You just add more and more.”

Croatt got her start at Sears where she worked in the custom decorating center. “I spent six months of hard training learning about window treatments. I knew [Sears] had the best course on how to do window treatments.” For the two years she was with Sears, she also got experience working with customers.

“Then I worked for an independent designer,” says Croatt. “She had all the leads so I went here and there measuring windows.” It was during this time that Croatt got on-the-job training. She learned about flooring by watching and making mental notes. She also mastered the other side of window treatments, paying close attention to how they were installed, “because I wanted to know all about it.”

When she wanted to learn about furniture, Croatt took a job at the downtown St. Paul Dayton’s store where she continued her own design education, even learning how pieces were made.

She also learned the art of selling and how to read people, and especially, how to listen to customers.

“We talked about people’s personalities and how to cater to the buyer by giving the person a chance to talk to us,” Croatt remembers. “The person who taught us was so good.” Croatt stayed at Dayton’s for about a year but was happy to go when she got a new offer.

“I loved the education,” Croatt says, “but furniture was boring.”

Croatt next gained skills at a carpet store, where she enhanced her knowledge of flooring and then was able to integrate all of her experience when she received an offer from the owner of Abbey Decorating to set up a new store in Apple Valley, she jumped at it.

“They wanted to bring in more design, so I got certified as a wallpaper consultant and could sell wallpaper,” Croatt says. She says her focus changed while she was at Abbey.

“I started working with builders — from the shingles all the way down to the floors,” Croatt explains. “In one of the big boom years, I worked with 500 new homes: ordering, measuring, doing work orders and making sure it all got installed in the right room.”

After 16 years with Abbey, Croatt was hired by a builder who wanted a design gallery.

“I got to name it, design it, and work with all the vendors,” Croatt recalls. “I twisted their arms and learned to negotiate and ran the design gallery and managed a staff.”

Unfortunately, the building business slowed down – “People stopped walking through the door,” Croatt says - and her services weren’t needed. So she relied on the skills she’d learned at Abbey when she had worked with a builder on a $3 million project. “They needed help from construction to placing the last accessory in place.” That project gave her the experience she needed to do more start-to-finish work.

Croatt admits there is a downside to her business; especially, now that she is self-employed.

“Every day, I am unemployed and I have to sell myself to prospective clients,” she explains. “You have to have a family that supports you … because there are no guarantees. I contract with someone and when that ends, I have to start over.”

In the early years, working for others, she had some unsettling situations when she called on clients in their homes. Many calls were at night and she didn’t know who she might find on the other side of the door. Today her business is all referral.

“The design field is not an easy job,” she says. “It is not a 9-5 job. If you work for somebody as a designer and have floor hours, it is never 9-5. You have to be able to work when people are available. I’ve worked 6 days a week from 9-6 and after that, doing all the background work, I kept working until near midnight.”

There is no typical day for a designer and no two days are alike. “I have my own window treatment business and my husband [who is retired] is the installer.”

Some days, the couple go on calls together. Other days, she drives north of the Twin Cities to check the progress on a project — a second home for a client, a farmhouse being built on his grandparent’s property – and go on shopping trips with the client to furnish the interior.

The Rewards

“Success is seeing that finished product,” says Croatt. “Having the client totally love it and still love you. The satisfaction of a job well done is so rewarding. It’s just seeing the client happy; not even the monetary part of it.”

Having an entrepreneurial spirit is a big part of interior design.

“Design is a career where you can own your own business,” Croatt says. “I worked for other people at first to learn the business but today, the only thing I ever sell anybody is myself and the rest is just helping people to make their home their dream home. You get to know a client so you can get right into their head. You work with people and they trust you. You are putting a home together for people and you become their best friend. I have people I did business with years ago and when they call me to help them again, I know exactly what they’re thinking.”

Croatt says there are financial rewards if you are willing to put in the long hours and put the customer first. “You can work hard and make well over a $100 thousand a year,” Croatt says, “but if you’re not going to work hard, you may not be able to buy gas.”

According to information provided by Occupational Employment Statistics (OES), hourly wages for Minnesota interior designers range from $15.63, in the southwestern part of the state, to $25.99 in the seven-county area of the Twin Cities. Those earning in the upper 10 percent bracket can make more than $40 an hour.

Benefits are determined by who you work for — yourself or someone else. Going out on your own would be different than working for the Design Studio of Macy’s or Gabberts where medical and dental insurance are offered. Those designers work on commission and are not given paid vacation time, which is generally true of most design studios.

For more detailed wage information in interior design careers, visit the ISEEK site link: http://www.iseek.org/careers/careerDetail?oc=100109

Your Decision

Croatt says there any many avenues to pursue in interior design, ranging from online study, vocational school or a four year college. She suggests membership in a design association like the one she belongs to, International Furnishings and Design Association (IFDA). Membership allows a consultant to attend conferences and training sessions. Training is also offered by vendors who sell products such as flooring, window treatments, and lighting. Croatt feels training is important because products are constantly changing.

It helps to keep up-to-date by reading industry magazines, too.

“Follow the trends,” she recommends. For example, she suggests reading Architectural Digest magazine, which is mostly about the East and West coasts. “In a couple of years, though, the trends will hit the Midwest and you will be ready,” she advises.

“There will always be a need for design professionals,” Croatt says. “People want someone to help them decide what’s best for them in their home.”

Rather than customers going to a builder, Croatt sees a future with design consultants advocating for a customer, every step of the way. From choosing a lot to finding a builder to selecting the light switches, Croatt believes this process gives the client more input and choices.

“Twenty years ago, people would have said, ‘No grandma is going to decorate my house,” Croatt says. “But I have seven grandchildren and I’m doing it.”

She has no plans to retire, either.

“All through life,” Croatt says, “you have a challenge and then you retire and you have no challenge?”

Currently, she is taking classes to get her real estate license so she can help her clients more. Jeanette Croatt is proof that interior design is a career that can sustain life long interest, with new styles and trends always emerging.

Do you love creative work, and enjoy the challenging of pulling together a room or planning a design style? There are many ways to get started in the field of interior design, whether you plot out your own path of experience or take a formal program. (More information on interior design programs in Minnesota can be found at the ISEEK site: http://www.iseek.org/education/fieldOfStudy?id=251300 ). With creative instincts and a desire to help people visualize their ideal homes, perhaps a career in interior design is just the blueprint you need for your dream job.