Surviving Design

Join Melissa Guerra, Timm Dolley, and Melody Smith as they discuss the age-old question: Should we add fuel or water to the fire during an interior design project? During construction, egos, ideas, and personalities can clash. When is the right time to incite or defuse a situation? Is there a right time? When should your voice be heard? When should you keep quiet? Learn all about how we handle the...

Join professional interior designers Melissa Guerra, Timm Dolley, and Melody Smith as they discuss red flags in projects and when to walk away from - or simply avoid - toxic clients. Just like personal relationships, you and your client will be together through thick and thin (sometimes for years depending on the size of the project). Make sure you're both ready for that kind of commitment! ...

In the first episode of Season 2, Melissa Guerra, Timm Dolley, and Melody Smith discuss the ins and outs of being savvy shoppers. As professional interior designers, we often look to our trade sources and showrooms for the best price, but what happens when clients find a better price online? How can designers compete in this ever-changing industry after online shopping exposed many of our sources?...

Join Melissa Guerra, Timm Dolley, and Melody Smith as they discuss the complexities of being professional interior designers and what the business is truly like behind the scenes. Spoiler alert: It is NOT for the faint of heart. During this episode we discuss how clients' anxieties during the project can transfer onto the interior designer and how overly controlling personalities can derail a...

Join Melissa Guerra, Melody Smith, and Timm Dolley as they discuss their different methods for inspiration when it comes to designing a room. Other topics range from picky clients to overpriced furniture manufacturers and everything in between (including BDSM)! Get ready to laugh and learn about the design industry, and join us in Surviving Design! Music Credit: Audiorezout

Join Melissa Guerra, Timm Dolley, Melody Smith, and our esteemed co-host Shelley McGrew, a marketing guru! Whether you're an established interior designer or just starting out, learn about the ins and outs of marketing and advertising and how to find the "secret sauce" that works for your business. Want to know more about social media marketing? Have you ever wondered about how and...

Join Melissa Guerra, Timm Dolley, and Melody Smith as they describe the sh*tshow that is the interior design industry during the holidays. So, you want a new dining table for Thanksgiving with custom chairs from Italy, and you want it here in a month? Forget it! You should have ordered in April! From discussions about unrealistic client expectations to the true meaning of Thanksgiving, laugh and l...

Join professional interior designers Melissa Guerra, Timm Dolley, and Melody Smith as they discuss how scope creep can have a negative impact on construction. From changes happening midstream to the overall chaos of adding and deleting scope from a project, laugh and learn about the behind-the-scenes issues that interior designers face in an often misunderstood industry. Honesty is always the best...

Join interior designers Melissa Guerra, Timm Dolley, and Melody Smith for a special spooky edition of Surviving Design. Dive into the dark side of design, from horror stories relating to clients, vendors, contractors, and more, get creeped out by all the things that can go wrong in the interior design profession - unless you're too spooked!  Music Credits: - Haunted Corpse - Little Debbie - L...

Join Melissa Guerra, Timm Dolley, and Melody Smith as they interview a special guest and architect, Noe Guerra (yes, Melissa's husband is an architect!). We talk about the kinks and language/terminology barriers that affect how architects, contractors, and interior designers communicate effectively on a job. Laugh and learn with us about the interior design and architecture profession, and le...

Join Melissa Guerra, Timm Dolley, and Melody Smith as they share stories about struggles with vendors. So you want to order a sectional? Good luck with getting your arms facing the right way. You want to order cabinets during Covid? Don't make us laugh! You want a modern glass toilet room? Good luck getting the glass guy to put in frosted glass to avoid feeling like your sh***ing in a fishbow...

Join Melissa Guerra, Timm Dolley, and Melody Smith as they discuss the elephant in the room: How much interior designers actually charge, and why "charging what you're worth" isn't always the best answer. From hourly to flat fees, procurement, project management and "unsexy" expenses, let's talk about the what's and whys of how interior designers charge, and...

Join Melissa Guerra, Timm Dolley, and Melody Smith as they discuss various mishaps with contractors and subcontractors. From underbid jobs to botched tile installations to sexism and everything in between, we'll give you a candid, behind-the-scenes look at what being an interior designer is actually like in practice. It's not all fun and games, and it's not all glamor that's fo...

Join Melissa Guerra, Timm Dolley, and Melody Smith as they candidly discuss how to manage client expectations during an interior design project. From contractor and furniture delays to difficult clients, cursed jobs, and everything in between, our goal is to help inform homeowners and business owners as to why they should hire qualified interior design professionals (it saves more headaches than o...

Join interior designers Melissa Guerra, Timm Dolley, and Melody Smith as they discuss why they joined the interior design industry (sadism?), how it differed from their expectations, and what they love most about the industry. We also spill the tea on a variety of topics related to the interior design industry with as much honesty, humor, and grumbling as we can muster. This industry is not for th...