What type of clients does Wendy Combs Studio work with?

We work with homeowners who want a thoughtful, elevated home and appreciate having a clear design direction. Most of our clients are busy professionals or families who want a trusted guide to help them make confident decisions and create a home that feels warm and grounded.

What interior design services does Wendy Combs Studio offer?

Our two main services are Signature Design Immersion and Full-Service Interior Design. A Design Immersion is a focused, 1-3 day in-home session that brings clarity and direction to your project. Full-Service Interior Design is a comprehensive design experience for both furnishings and renovation projects.

What is a Design Immersion consultation?

A Design Immersion is a high-touch, 1-to-3-day in-home experience where we spend dedicated time together walking through your space, talking through your goals, and creating a complete design direction in real time. You walk away with an online personal design studio containing all design choices, curated selections, and any drawings or concept renderings.

How much does an interior designer cost in Portland, Oregon?

At Wendy Combs Studio, design fees are structured as a flat fee paid in installments. You can expect to spend roughly $3,000 to $5,000 per room for design fees. Furnishing a home with a designer starts at a minimum of $20,000 to $30,000 per fully designed room, with investment increasing based on size, quality, custom pieces, and the mix of furnishings. Interior renovation projects for kitchens, bathrooms, and multi-room updates usually begin around $100,000 depending on scope.

Where does Wendy Combs Studio work?

We primarily work with clients throughout the Portland metro area, including Lake Oswego, West Linn, Dunthorpe, the West Hills, and close-in Eastside neighborhoods like Irvington, Eastmoreland, and Laurelhurst. We also take on select projects throughout the United States when the fit and timing are right.

What styles does Wendy Combs Studio specialize in?

We lean toward warm modern interiors with clean lines, natural textures, layered materials, and a collected feel. We tailor every project to reflect each client's tastes rather than following a template or trend. Whether eclectic, classic, or a blend of contemporary and vintage, our expertise is in creating polished yet livable homes.

How does Wendy Combs Studio charge for interior design?

We structure design fees as a flat fee paid in installments based on your particular scope of work. Every project is unique, so we begin each full-service design project with an in-home consultation to develop the scope and calculate the fee. This avoids the mystery of hourly billing and surprise invoices.

How do I know if I need a Design Immersion or Full-Service Interior Design?

Design Immersions are best for homeowners who want a focused, in-home design experience where we solve the right problems, make key decisions together, and create a clear direction. Full-Service Design is for homeowners who want a complete, end-to-end experience where we create the full vision, develop all furnishings and decor, provide renovation design, and handle procurement and installation.

Do You Need a Full-Service Interior Designer or Something Else?

Apr 23

Written By Combs

"Interior designer" covers a lot of ground. More than most people realize when they start looking into it. Full-service design. Consultations. Design intensives. Hourly advice sessions. It can be hard to know what you need, and easy to assume you need more or less than you do.

What is a standard interior design consultation?

A consultation is typically a single meeting, usually one to two hours, online or in your home. The designer walks through the space with you, offers observations and direction, and you leave with notes and a clearer sense of where to go next.

That works well when you have a specific, bounded question. What color should I paint this room? Does this furniture arrangement work? For that, a consultation is enough.

Where it falls short is when you need more than a nudge. When decisions have been stacking up, when the home doesn't feel cohesive, when you keep starting and stopping because you're not sure what to prioritize first.

What is full-service interior design?

Full-service design is for the homeowner who wants a designer fully invested in every layer of the project. The full creative vision, worked out completely. Whether it's a furniture refresh, a renovation, or a whole-home transformation, full-service means nothing gets skipped.

It's the right choice when you want someone to carry all the design decisions, when the scope is large, or when you want a high level of creative depth and intention brought to every detail.

Not every project needs that. And for a lot of Portland homeowners, what they need sits somewhere in between.

When you're somewhere in between

This is where most people get stuck.

You need more than a short conversation. You have real decisions to make and no clear picture of where to start. Maybe you just moved in and the blank slate feels overwhelming. Maybe you've lived there long enough that the problems have become invisible. You've stopped seeing them, but they still bother you. Maybe something in your life has shifted and the home needs to shift with it.

The Design Immersion: a different kind of engagement

The Design Immersion at Wendy Combs Studio was built for exactly this moment.

It's an intensive, in-home session, one to three days depending on your project, where we work through your home together in real time. Not a conversation about what could be done. A focused session that ends with a clear, actionable plan for your specific space and how you actually live in it.

We cover what's not working and why. We make the decisions you've been putting off. We establish a direction that holds across the whole home, not just room by room. You walk away knowing exactly what to do next, with confidence instead of more questions.

It sits between a standard consultation and full-service design: more depth than an hourly session, without the full investment of a complete design project.

How to know which one you need

A standard consultation is probably enough if you have one or two specific questions and just need an expert answer, or your project is small and contained.

Full-service design makes sense if you want a designer involved in every creative decision, you're doing a renovation or new construction, or you want a high level of depth and don't want to navigate those decisions yourself.

A Design Immersion is likely the right fit if your project isn't complex enough for full-service but too layered for a quick conversation, you've been in your home for a while and keep meaning to address it, you just moved in and feel overwhelmed by where to start, something in your life has changed and the home needs to catch up, or you want to stay involved but need a clear framework to work from.

A note on working with a designer in Portland

The right designer relationship shouldn't feel like handing over control. It should feel like finally getting clarity.

Wendy Combs Studio is a boutique interior design studio in Portland, Oregon, offering full-service interior design and one- to-three day Design Immersions. Learn more about Design Immersions>

Combs https://www.wendycombs.com