Interior Design Brief for Remodels: Questions, Checklist and a Filled Example (2026)

Start with what is wrong, not with style. These eight questions cover the brief well enough to decide the next step. The checklist in step 3 is where you record the answers in full; you do not need every section filled on the first visit.

Then say what you heard back to them and what you will check before proposing anything. Step 8 shows that read-back for the hall bath.

A brief records what the homeowner wants and why: the problems, who uses the room, what stays, how it should feel, the budget, the timing and who decides. You usually write it from the conversation, and the homeowner reads it and confirms it before design starts. Four other things get confused with it.

The brief ends where a want becomes a chosen answer or a promise to do specific work. "Keep the plumbing where it is" belongs in the brief. Whether that is possible is decided on site and in design. If you are drawing layouts and pricing options without a design agreement, the brief has already run into unpaid design.

This grouping is ours, not a standard. Most of the questions come from the National Kitchen and Bath Association (NKBA), which publishes its own intake forms: a kitchen survey from 2008 and a bath survey from 2020. We added the checks a remodel needs. K and B mark where NKBA's kitchen or bath form covers the section.

Accessibility sits in People and decisions for an ordinary remodel. If staying in the home as they age is the reason for the project, give it its own page. The Americans with Disabilities Act generally does not apply to an ordinary private home, so plan to the household's needs and check local rules.

The twelve sections hold for every room. The follow-ups change. A kitchen brief asks how people cook. A bath brief asks who uses each fixture and whether people need the room at the same time. A whole-house brief asks which rooms are in, and how the household lives through the work.

A single budget number leaves too much open. Ask about money on the first call, before time goes into design, and show what similar jobs of yours have cost. Then write down four things.

If the answer is "not sure," do not invent one. Describe the same room at two or three levels from your own past jobs and ask which is closest. Keep three things apart: the homeowner's reserve, your estimate of the work, and allowances, which are named amounts for selections not made yet. An allowance is not a place to park an unpriced item.

A large image board is hard to read when nobody has said what they like about each picture. Our approach for a first meeting: three to five photos they love, with one line each on what it is about that photo, a couple they dislike, three words for how the room should feel, and anything it must not look like. Houzz suggests a fuller version, 10 to 20 liked images with notes, for homeowners who want to go further.

You do not need to tag every note. Tag the items that change the design or the price: structure, fixture locations, budget limits, access needs, what must stay, and expensive wishes. Give each one two marks.

"Warm modern" is a direction. "Keep the tub" is a must-have. "Double sink if it fits" is optional, and the tape measure decides it, which is the next step.

Two kids, 6 and 9, plus guests use this bath. The family wants to keep the layout, with the tub across the far end. What bugs them: no storage, a loud fan, dark grout. They want to keep a tub and would like a double sink if it fits. Here is the brief as it stands after the first meeting.

This layout, measured

The existing layout in Quick Clamp: 60 x 96 in, a 60 x 30 in tub across the end, the toilet 15 in from the tub, a 36 x 21 in vanity, the door on the long wall. The dimension notes were added for this guide. Recreated from the app with demo data.

For this layout the 2024 code clearances settle it: 15 in from a fixture's center to a wall or tub, 30 in between fixture centers. Two sinks beside the toilet need 90 in of wall past the tub; there are 66. NKBA's preferred spacing needs more. A vanity on the opposite wall, facing the toilet, leaves 60 - 30 - 21 = 9 in between them, against the 21 in the code requires. The 60 in end wall could hold two sinks at the bare code minimum, but the door swings into that corner here. So the double sink comes off, and the storage complaint gets the space: a 36 in vanity with drawers and a recessed medicine cabinet, with a cabinet over the toilet or a tub-wall niche to check if the surround is being rebuilt anyway.

On budget, two benchmarks bracket the range without settling it. Houzz's 2026 study puts the median major remodel of a primary bath under 100 sq ft at $18,000, from homeowner reports. Cost vs. Value's 2025 midrange bath, a modeled 5 x 7 ft room with every fixture replaced, is $26,138 nationally. $18,000 to $24,000 is plausible for this kind of job, but it is not a price until the scope is settled (existing tub or new, how much tile, the floor) and the walls are opened or inspected.