Date: 1 June 2026
Participant: Tom Bakker-Sharma (37, urban planner) and Priya Bakker-Sharma (35, communications manager)
Location: Diemen, the Netherlands
Format: Joint couple interview, virtual
Interviewer: Research interviewer (on behalf of Everyday Living Interiors)
Duration: Approximately 23 minutes
Interview type: Qualitative evaluation — v2 website concept
Note: This is the couple's first encounter with Everyday Living Interiors. They have not seen the website or any previous version.
Introduction
Interviewer: Thank you both for taking the time to speak with me today. I'm conducting research on behalf of an interior design service, and I'd love to get your honest perspectives — both of you, individually and together. There are no right or wrong answers here. I'm genuinely interested in your reactions, even if they're negative or uncertain. Critical feedback is just as valuable as positive feedback. I'll start by asking you a few questions about your current living situation and how you think about your home. Then I'll walk you through this service's website and ask for your reactions. The whole conversation should take about twenty to twenty-five minutes. Does that sound all right?
Tom: Sure, yes. That works.
Priya: Absolutely. And you want us to be honest? Because we might be too honest. We have opinions.
Tom: She means we have different opinions.
Priya: That's exactly what I mean.
Interviewer: Different opinions are exactly what I'm hoping for. Really, the most helpful thing you can do is be completely honest — I'm not the person who created this, so you won't hurt anyone's feelings.
Section 1: Context setting
Interviewer: So, tell me a bit about your current living situation — your home, who you live with, and how you generally feel about the space you're in.
Tom: We're in a newbuild apartment in Diemen. About ninety square metres. Open plan living and kitchen, two bedrooms, a small study. We bought it two years ago. We live there with our daughter Anika, who's three. And, um — the honest version?
Interviewer: Always the honest version.
Tom: The honest version is that our living room has been half-furnished for eleven months and we have a cardboard box as a coffee table.
Priya: It's not a coffee table. It's a shipping box that Anika draws on. We just also put our mugs on it.
Tom: It functions as a coffee table.
Priya: It functions as a monument to our inability to agree on furniture.
Interviewer: Eleven months is a while. When you walk through your front door at the end of the day, what's the first thing you notice?
Tom: Space. Empty space. Which, honestly, I don't mind as much as Priya does. I find it calming.
Priya: And I find it depressing. I walk in and I see potential that's just sitting there. White walls, no personality, no warmth. Anika's room is done — we managed that because it was about her needs, not our taste. But the rest of the flat feels like we're still camping.
Tom: We have a dining table.
Priya: A temporary IKEA dining table that you bought twenty-two months ago saying, and I quote, "this will do for now."
Tom: It is doing for now.
Priya: Tom, Anika learned to walk in that apartment and we still haven't bought a sofa.
Interviewer: What happens when you try to make decisions together about the space?
Priya: Do you have three hours?
Tom: We try. We genuinely try. But I look at something and think, yes, that's clean, that's nice, that's functional. And Priya looks at the same thing and says it looks like a dentist's waiting room.
Priya: Because it does. Tom's taste is — how do I put this lovingly — aggressively grey. He wants everything grey, white, or beige. Clean lines. Negative space. Which is fine in a museum, but we have a toddler and I want to actually feel something when I'm in my own living room.
Tom: And Priya's taste is —
Priya: Beautiful.
Tom: — very colourful. She wants pattern, texture, cultural objects, warm lighting, cushions on every surface. Which I respect, genuinely, but when I imagine it all together I feel... claustrophobic.
Priya: And that's where we get stuck. Every time. He wants less, I want more, and we end up buying nothing.
Interviewer: How much time and energy do you typically spend thinking about this?
Tom: More than I'd like to admit. We probably have the furniture conversation every two or three weeks. Sometimes it's productive. Sometimes it ends with one of us saying "let's just keep the cardboard box."
Priya: I think about it every day, actually. I browse Made.com, I look at textiles, I save things on Instagram. I grew up in a house that was warm and full — my mum's living room in Leicester has these gorgeous pieces from India, patterns everywhere, photographs, it's alive. And then I come home to our white box in Diemen and I think, this is not who I am.
Interviewer: Have you ever considered getting help? A designer, a service, even a friend with good taste?
Tom: We've discussed it. Briefly. My assumption was it would cost several thousand euros.
Priya: My concern was different. I was worried a designer would come in and just default to the Dutch minimalist thing — because that's the dominant aesthetic here — and Tom would be happy and I'd be living in someone else's idea of a home. Again.
Interviewer: What do you mean by "again"?
Priya: I just mean — when you're the immigrant partner, the person who moved to this country for love, there's already a constant negotiation between adapting and preserving. I adapted a lot. My work, my social life, my daily rhythms — it's all very Dutch now. And I'm fine with that. But my home is the one place where I need to see myself. Both of us. Not just the Dutch half of this family.
Tom: And I hear that. I really do. I just — my brain processes visual calm as safety, and I can't override that any more than she can override wanting colour.
Interviewer: When you hear the words "interior designer," what comes to mind?
Tom: Expensive. Probably someone who'll impose a style on us.
Priya: Someone who'll walk into our flat, see the cardboard box, and quietly judge us.
Tom: And charge two hundred euros an hour for the judgement.
Priya: I also think female, to be honest. And probably someone who works with big budgets, detached houses, the kind of project where someone's spending fifty thousand euros on a kitchen renovation. Not a young family in Diemen arguing about sofa colours.
Tom: Yeah. Interior design feels like it belongs to a different income bracket.
Section 2: Concept presentation
Interviewer: I'd like to tell you about a service called Everyday Living Interiors. It's run by a woman named Sara de Abreu, based in Diemen, near Amsterdam. Let me walk you through what you'd see if you visited her website.
The first thing you see is a photo of a real, lived-in kitchen — wooden cabinets, a table with a half-drunk coffee and children's schoolwork, and in the background a living room where someone has clearly put thought into how things are arranged, but it's not staged or perfect. It looks like a real home.
Over this image, a large heading reads: "Your home should support your life, not compete with it." Below that: "Practical, affordable interior design for real homes and real budgets. Based in Diemen. Serving Amsterdam and beyond."
There are two buttons: "See services and pricing" and "Not sure where to start?"
Scrolling down, you come to a short section on a warm grey background. The heading says: "Wherever you're starting from, that's okay." And below it, a paragraph that reads: "Some people come to me because they're excited about a new home. Others come because they're stuck — because their space feels wrong and they don't know why, because they've just been through a big life change, because they're embarrassed about how their home looks, or because they and their partner can't agree on anything. None of that is unusual, and none of it is a problem. I've helped people start from all of those places. Yours is valid too."
Next comes a section called "What I can help you with," showing four services with prices clearly listed:
The Room Reset — eighty euros. A virtual consultation where you send photos of your room beforehand, meet online for sixty to ninety minutes, and receive a written follow-up with layout suggestions, colour guidance, and product recommendations.
The Thoughtful Edit — one hundred and fifty euros per room. Sara comes to your home and transforms your space using only what you already own. You receive before-and-after photos and a written guide explaining what was changed and why. Amsterdam area only.
The Design Roadmap — from two hundred and fifty euros. A complete written plan including a moodboard, colour palette, floor plan, lighting recommendations, and a shopping list with links and price ranges at different budget levels.
The Living Space Plan — from five hundred and forty euros per room. Full interior design from concept to completion, including 3D visualisations, sourcing, and styling support.
Below the services it says: "Extra time if needed: forty euros per hour. All prices include VAT."
Then there's a section specifically for couples. The heading reads: "Do you and your partner have different styles?" It says: "You're not the first couple to disagree about the coffee table. Or the curtains. Or everything. Design disagreements are one of the most common reasons people reach out to me — and they're one of my favourite projects. I help couples find a shared language for their home, where both people see themselves reflected. No compromises that make everyone equally unhappy. Real solutions that honour both of you."
Below that is a "Not sure which service is right for you?" section with three simple paths: "I just need a push" points to The Room Reset at eighty euros. "I want to use what I already have" points to The Thoughtful Edit at one hundred and fifty per room. "I want a full plan" points to The Design Roadmap from two hundred and fifty. And: "Still not sure? Send me a photo of your space and I'll tell you where I'd start. No obligation."
The portfolio shows before-and-after transformations of real homes with visible budgets — for example, "Family living room, budget under two hundred euros" or "Studio apartment, existing furniture only, zero euros spent" or "A couple who loved minimalism and maximalism equally." You can see the messy, cluttered "before" next to the transformed "after."
In the About section, Sara shares that she's always made beautiful spaces, even when she had no money. She says: "I know what it's like to start over in a new country, to furnish a flat on a budget, to make a rental feel like home. I know what it's like to look at a room and feel overwhelmed, or stuck, or secretly embarrassed. And I know that sometimes the hardest thing about your home isn't how it looks — it's what it represents."
She also explains her approach: she starts with how you live, not a style. She works with what you have. She explains every decision — she never says "trust the process." And she specifically mentions working with couples with different tastes as one of her favourite challenges.
The contact page has a form, email, and WhatsApp options, plus a "Just want a quick opinion?" option where you can send a photo of your space and get Sara's honest first impression for free.
At the very bottom of every page: "Whether you're starting from scratch or building on what you've already created — you belong here."
That's the full website. Take a moment to let that settle.
[Pause — eight seconds]
Priya: Wait. Did you say — did you say "disagree about the coffee table"?
Tom: She literally said the coffee table.
Priya: She has a whole section for couples who can't agree?
Interviewer: I did. That's on the homepage. What's going through your minds?
Section 3: Initial reactions and belonging
Priya: Okay, I need to — I'm sorry, I need to start from the couples section because that is — Tom, when has a design website ever said that?
Tom: Never. I've looked at maybe ten or fifteen design websites, and not one of them has acknowledged that two people in a home might want completely different things.
Priya: "No compromises that make everyone equally unhappy." That is literally — that is literally our life. We've been trying to compromise for eleven months and we've ended up with nothing, which is its own kind of equally unhappy.
Tom: I also noticed — she said "the coffee table." We have a cardboard box. It felt like she was talking to us.
Interviewer: What else stood out to you — positively or negatively?
Tom: The pricing. Immediately. Eighty euros. I was expecting her to say — I don't know, five hundred for a consultation? When you said eighty euros for a sixty- to ninety-minute session with a written follow-up, my project manager brain went: that's good value.
Priya: I had a slightly different reaction. My first reaction was the photo on the homepage — a real kitchen with coffee and children's schoolwork. That's what hooked me. Because most design websites show these perfect, sterile spaces and I think, cool, but where do the children live? Where is the actual life?
Tom: The Diemen thing too. She's in Diemen. We're in Diemen. That's — she probably knows our building type. The newbuilds. The floor plans.
Priya: Oh, I didn't even think of that. She might literally know our apartment layout.
Interviewer: How does this compare to what you expected when I said "interior design service"?
Tom: It's completely different. What I expected was a portfolio of beautiful rich people's homes, a "contact us for a quote" button, and the quiet implication that if you have to ask the price, you can't afford it.
Priya: I expected to feel excluded. I expected to see a lot of Scandinavian minimalism presented as the default, and nowhere that acknowledged someone like me, who wants something different, something warmer, something that doesn't look like it belongs in a Dutch design magazine.
Interviewer: And did you feel excluded?
Priya: No. And I'm a bit surprised by that. The "wherever you're starting from, that's okay" part — the line about partners who can't agree on anything — that actually... it actually named our situation. Nobody names our situation. People just assume couples agree, or that one person decorates and the other goes along with it.
Tom: Or they assume you compromise, which is what everyone tells us to do. Find the middle ground. Beige is the middle ground. Beige is the colour of compromise nobody wanted.
Interviewer: Based on what you've heard, who do you think this service is designed for? Describe that person — or people.
Priya: Honestly? Young families. People in their thirties, maybe forties, who own or rent a normal apartment — not a canal house — and want it to feel like home but don't have a massive budget or a clear vision. People who are stuck, for whatever reason.
Tom: I'd say the same, but I'd add: people who thought interior design wasn't for them. The website seems designed to catch the people who would normally click away in five seconds because they assume this world isn't theirs.
Interviewer: Do you see yourselves as those people?
Tom: Yes. Quite specifically, yes.
Priya: It's almost uncomfortable how specifically yes.
Interviewer: The tagline is "Your home should support your life, not compete with it." What does that mean to you? Does it resonate?
Tom: It does. I think — for us, our home has been competing with our relationship, in a way. The apartment is this unfinished project that represents a disagreement we haven't resolved. Every white wall is a decision we haven't made. It's become this thing that hangs over us.
Priya: I read it slightly differently. For me, "your home should support your life" means that the space should work for how we actually live — with a toddler, with two careers, with our mess and our food and our rituals. Not how a magazine thinks we should live.
Interviewer: Can you think of a moment when your home felt like it was competing with your life rather than supporting it?
Priya: Every Sunday afternoon when we try to "deal with the flat" and end up frustrated. That's supposed to be family time but instead it turns into this low-grade conflict about sofas or paint colours.
Tom: There was a specific moment — maybe three months ago? We had friends over for dinner. Another couple from Diemen. Their flat is really nicely done. And I saw Priya looking around our living room while they were there, and I could see she was — not embarrassed exactly, but self-conscious. And I felt responsible. Because part of the reason it's not done is me. My inability to say yes to anything that isn't grey.
Priya: I wasn't embarrassed. I was sad. Because I could picture what the room could be, and there it was, still empty.
Section 4: Value, clarity, and pricing
Interviewer: Looking at the four services — The Room Reset, The Thoughtful Edit, The Design Roadmap, and The Living Space Plan — can you tell me in your own words what each one involves?
Tom: The Room Reset is basically a consultation. You show her photos, she looks at your room, and gives you a plan. Eighty euros. Very structured — you get a written document after. The Thoughtful Edit is more hands-on — she comes to your home and rearranges what you already have, which is interesting but maybe less relevant for us since we don't have much to rearrange. The Design Roadmap is the full plan — moodboard, colour palette, shopping list, floor plan — essentially a blueprint you can execute yourself. And The Living Space Plan is the full service, where she does everything start to finish.
Priya: I'd add that The Thoughtful Edit is specifically about working with existing furniture, which is a lovely concept but Tom's right, we'd need the version that helps us buy things too. The Design Roadmap sounds like the one for us. A shared plan we can both follow, that we can implement over time.
Interviewer: Is there anything about these names or descriptions that confuses you?
Tom: No, actually. They're clear. I like that they escalate in scope and price. It feels logical. Room Reset is a push, Thoughtful Edit is a reshuffle, Design Roadmap is a plan, Living Space Plan is the whole thing. The names are perhaps slightly — what's the word — precious? But the descriptions clarify them.
Priya: I had one moment of confusion between The Room Reset and The Design Roadmap. But the deliverables cleared it up — Room Reset gives you suggestions and recommendations, Design Roadmap gives you an actual document with a moodboard and shopping list. That distinction matters.
Interviewer: The website lists specific deliverables for each service — a PDF plan, a shopping list, before-and-after photos. Does knowing exactly what you'd receive make a difference?
Tom: Enormous difference. I am the person who needs to know what I'm paying for. If a website says "you'll leave with clarity and direction," I close the tab. If it says "you'll receive a PDF with a floor plan, a colour palette, and a shopping list with links," I think: okay, that's tangible. I can evaluate whether that's worth two hundred and fifty euros.
Priya: For me it's slightly different — I care less about the deliverables and more about the process. But knowing what you receive does build trust. It says: this person has done this before, enough times to systematise it.
Interviewer: The prices are visible on the website — eighty euros for The Room Reset, one hundred and fifty per room for The Thoughtful Edit, from two hundred and fifty for The Design Roadmap. What's your reaction to those prices?
Tom: Honestly? Relief. I assumed an interior designer would cost a thousand euros minimum for anything meaningful. Two hundred and fifty for a full plan with a moodboard and shopping list? That's less than the sofa we can't agree on.
Priya: My first reaction was "that's suspiciously affordable." Which is interesting because I just said I expected to feel excluded by high prices, and now that the prices are low, my brain immediately went to "is it any good then?" Which is probably unfair.
Interviewer: That's interesting. Can you say more about that?
Priya: I think there's a — I don't know — a conditioning thing. We've been told that good design costs a lot. So when someone offers good design at a reasonable price, there's a millisecond of "what's the catch?" But then I read the rest of the website — the portfolio, the reasoning she provides, the deliverables — and the catch seems to be that she simply charges fairly.
Tom: I'd rather have the prices visible and cheap than hidden and unknowable. The transparency itself builds trust. If she'd said "contact for pricing," I would have assumed it was expensive and moved on.
Interviewer: Before I walked you through this website, if someone had said "interior designer," what price range would you have assumed?
Tom: Two to five thousand euros.
Priya: At least a thousand for anything beyond a quick chat. Maybe two thousand for something serious.
Tom: So eighty to five hundred and forty is in a completely different universe to what we expected.
Interviewer: The Thoughtful Edit says Sara transforms your space using only what you already own — no purchases required. How does that land with you?
Priya: It lands beautifully for someone who has furniture. For us, it's less relevant because our problem is that we have almost nothing. But as a concept, I love it. It challenges the assumption that you have to buy your way to a nice home. And it tells me something about her philosophy — she sees value in what people already have, she's not just going to push products.
Tom: I'd be curious about it for Anika's room, actually. We furnished it, but it was done quickly. I could see someone coming in and saying, actually, if you move this here and that there, it works much better. A hundred and fifty euros for that? Yes, that's reasonable.
Section 5: Emotional resonance and personal connection
Interviewer: The website has a section near the top that says "Wherever you're starting from, that's okay" — and mentions people coming from shame, life changes, embarrassment, or disagreements with a partner. How do you respond to that?
Tom: At first I thought it might be a bit — overwrought? Like, do you need to acknowledge all of that? But then I thought about us. About the eleven months. About the cardboard box. About the fact that I'm a competent adult who can manage urban planning projects for the entire municipality of Amsterdam but cannot choose a coffee table with his wife. And I thought, actually, someone naming that as a normal thing? That is useful. That is more useful than another beautiful portfolio image.
Priya: I had a much more immediate response. I teared up a little, actually. Not in a dramatic way, just — nobody acknowledges the partner thing. Nobody. Every design website, every magazine, every Instagram post assumes a single vision. And we've been stuck for almost a year because we don't have a single vision, and we felt like that was our failing. Hearing someone say "none of that is unusual, and none of it is a problem" — that felt like permission to ask for help.
Interviewer: Does that feel genuine or performative?
Priya: Genuine. Because she doesn't dwell on it. She doesn't turn it into a therapy pitch. She just names it, normalises it, and moves on. If she'd spent three paragraphs on it, I'd have found it manipulative. The brevity makes it believable.
Tom: Agreed. It's matter-of-fact. Like a doctor who says, "This is common, we see this all the time." That's reassuring because it's clinical, not emotional.
Interviewer: Sara shares that she knows what it's like to feel overwhelmed, stuck, or secretly embarrassed about her home — and that "sometimes the hardest thing about your home isn't how it looks, it's what it represents." How does that land?
Priya: That line — "it's what it represents" — that hits something. Because our living room doesn't just look unfinished. It represents a disagreement between us that we haven't resolved. It represents the fact that my aesthetic identity, my cultural identity, has not yet found a place in our shared home. That's not a decorating problem. That's a — I don't know — a life problem that happens to express itself through furniture.
Tom: For me it's slightly different. What our home represents is my paralysis. My inability to make decisions that aren't based on spreadsheets. Knowing that Sara has felt something similar — that she's been overwhelmed or stuck herself — makes me think she won't judge me for having a cardboard box as a coffee table.
Interviewer: Does it matter to you that she's experienced constraint herself — limited budget, starting over in a new country — or does that just feel like marketing?
Priya: It matters enormously to me. She moved to the Netherlands from Portugal. I moved here from England. I know what it feels like to build a home in a country that's not where you grew up. There's a translation process — not just language, but aesthetics, food, how you use space. The fact that she's been through that tells me she might actually understand why I want an Indian textile on the wall and why that's not just decoration to me.
Tom: I'm more neutral on the personal story — I don't need to know a designer's biography to trust their work. But I notice that Priya responded to it strongly, and if the website needs to convince both of us, that matters. The personal story gets Priya in the door. The deliverables and pricing get me in the door. We both end up in the door.
Interviewer: The website also shows design reasoning in its portfolio case studies — explaining why a shelf was moved, why certain colours work together, what spatial principle was applied. Does that affect how you perceive Sara's expertise?
Tom: This is actually the thing that would convince me most. If I can read a case study and see her explain that rotating a sofa ninety degrees opens a sightline to the window and makes the room feel a third larger — that's spatial reasoning I can evaluate. That's not "trust my taste," it's "here's why this works." As an urban planner, that resonates. Design reasoning is transferable. I can assess whether she's rigorous.
Priya: For me, the reasoning serves a different purpose. It tells me she thinks about why things work, not just whether they look nice. If she can explain why a certain textile works in a certain room, she can also explain why my grandmother's throw works — not just tolerate it as the cultural partner's contribution, but actually integrate it into a design logic. That's the difference between a designer who accommodates diversity and one who designs with it.
Interviewer: You mentioned the couples section earlier as something that really stood out. Can you say more about that? Does it feel directly relevant to your situation?
Priya: It's the most relevant thing on the entire website. "No compromises that make everyone equally unhappy" — I want that framed on our wall. On our very bare wall. Because that's what we've been trying to avoid. We've been so afraid of beige compromise that we've ended up with nothing instead.
Tom: I noticed something specific in the portfolio description — "a couple who loved minimalism and maximalism equally." That's us. That is specifically, precisely us. If I could see that case study — what the room looks like, how she bridged those two aesthetics — I think that would be the single most convincing thing on the website. Not for whether she's a good designer in general, but for whether she can solve our problem.
Priya: And the fact that she calls it one of her favourite kinds of project? That changes the power dynamic. We're not coming to her with a problem she has to manage — we're coming with something she actually enjoys working on. That makes me feel less like a difficult client and more like an interesting one.
Section 6: Barriers and action
Interviewer: Imagine you've just finished browsing this website on your phone. What would you do next — and be honest. Would you book a service, send a photo for a quick opinion, save the website for later, or close the tab?
Tom: I would not close the tab. I would save the website and bring it to Priya. I'd say: look at this, she's in Diemen, she works with couples, the prices are transparent. What do you think?
Priya: And I would say: let's send her a photo. Today. Before we overthink it.
Tom: Which is probably what would happen. I'd want to research a bit more. She'd want to act immediately. We'd meet somewhere in the middle and probably send a photo within a week.
Interviewer: What's the single biggest thing holding you back, if anything?
Tom: For me, it's wanting to see the couples case study in detail. I need to see the proof that she can actually bridge two different styles before I commit. The concept is right, the pricing is right, the philosophy is right — but I need the evidence.
Priya: For me, honestly, very little is holding me back. Maybe just the coordination of — we'd need to do this together, and finding time when we're both available and in the right headspace is hard with a three-year-old. It's not a website problem, it's a life problem.
Interviewer: Is there anything the website could add or change that would move you from "maybe" to "yes"?
Tom: The couples case study being fully fleshed out. With the before and after. With the reasoning explained. If I could see a room that started as two competing visions and ended as something both partners genuinely liked — not tolerated, liked — that would move me to yes.
Priya: I'd love to see — and this might be too specific — but I'd love to see an example where someone's cultural objects, things from another country or tradition, were integrated into the design as a feature, not an afterthought. The portfolio description mentions a couple where "minimalism and maximalism" met. I want to see that. I want to see my situation reflected in someone else's result.
Interviewer: Would you share this website with someone else? Who, and why?
Priya: Oh, immediately. My friend Noor — she and her husband have the same problem, except they've been in their flat for three years. I'd send it with the message: "Look. Someone who gets it."
Tom: I'd mention it to colleagues at work. Not as a direct recommendation maybe, but if someone mentioned struggling with their apartment, I'd say: there's a woman in Diemen who does this, the prices are on the website. The fact that prices are visible means I can actually recommend it. If I had to say "contact her for a quote," I'd feel embarrassed recommending something I don't know the cost of.
Interviewer: The website has a low-barrier option: "Send me a photo of your space and I'll tell you where I'd start — free, no obligation." Does that change anything for you?
Priya: That changes a lot, actually. Because the hardest part for a couple is: who initiates? If I book a consultation, it feels like I've decided for both of us. If I fill in a contact form, same thing. But sending a photo with a "what do you think?" — that feels lighter. That's something I could do on a Tuesday evening and show Tom the response when it comes back. It starts a conversation without committing to a direction.
Tom: From a practical standpoint, it also solves our service selection problem. We don't know if we need The Room Reset or The Design Roadmap. Having her look at our space and tell us where she'd start removes that decision from us. Which is helpful, because we're demonstrably bad at decisions.
Interviewer: Would you actually use that option? What would stop you?
Priya: I would use it. Within a week. The only thing that would stop me is the self-consciousness of sending a photo of our cardboard-box living room to a professional designer.
Tom: But the website already addressed that. "Wherever you're starting from, that's okay." If she means that, then a cardboard box should be okay too.
Priya: That's true. She kind of pre-empted the shame spiral.
Interviewer: Is there anything about your home, your life, or your relationship with design that this website still does not acknowledge — something that, if it did, would make you feel more seen?
Priya: I think — the one thing I'd add is something about cultural aesthetics specifically. The couples section is wonderful, and it clearly speaks to people with different tastes. But "different tastes" could mean one person likes mid-century modern and the other likes Scandinavian. Our difference is cultural. It's Dutch minimalism versus British-Indian warmth. Those aren't just preferences, they're identities. If the portfolio or the about section mentioned working with mixed-culture households, or showed a home where different cultural aesthetics coexist — not as a footnote but as a design feature — that would make me feel very, very seen.
Tom: For me — and this is minor — I'd appreciate some mention of the newbuilds. Diemen is full of them. They all have similar layouts, similar challenges. If the portfolio included a Diemen newbuild, I'd think: she literally knows our floor plan. That would remove the last bit of uncertainty about whether she can help with our specific space.
Interviewer: If Sara could add one more thing to this website that would make the difference for you, what would it be?
Tom: A detailed case study of a couple in a newbuild — specifically showing how she navigated two different styles within one of those open-plan layouts. That one addition would turn me from "very interested" to "booking."
Priya: For me it would be — and maybe this exists and I missed it — some way to understand how the process works when there are two of you. Do we both do the consultation? Does she talk to us separately? Together? How does she handle it when we disagree in the room? I'd want to know the mechanics of the couples process, not just the philosophy.
Closing
Interviewer: If a friend asked you "What is Everyday Living Interiors?", how would you describe it in one or two sentences?
Tom: An interior design service for normal people. Transparent pricing, real homes, and she actually specialises in couples who can't agree — which is more people than you'd think.
Priya: She's an interior designer in Diemen who gets that your home is emotional, not just aesthetic. She works with real budgets, explains her thinking, and she's one of the only people I've ever seen acknowledge that two people in a home might have completely different visions.
Interviewer: On a scale of one to ten, how likely would you be to recommend this website to someone you know who's struggling with their home?
Tom: Nine.
Priya: Nine as well.
Interviewer: What would move that to a ten?
Tom: Seeing the actual result. The couples case study. Once I can point to a before-and-after and say "look what she did with two different tastes," it's a ten.
Priya: Knowing that she's worked with mixed-culture households. The moment I can say "she helped an Indo-Dutch family" or "she designed around pieces from another culture" — ten, immediately.
Interviewer: And for yourselves — on a scale of one to ten, how likely are you to actually take action after seeing this website?
Tom: Eight. Which for me is high. I'm usually a four on action scales because I need to research everything seventeen times. But the prices are there, the deliverables are there, she's local, and the couples thing — that removes the biggest psychological barrier.
Priya: Nine. I'm ready. I've been ready for eleven months, I just didn't know this existed.
Interviewer: What would move that number up?
Tom: For me, from eight to nine: seeing the couples case study. From nine to ten: Priya saying "let's do it."
Priya: For me, from nine to ten: Tom saying "let's do it." Which is funny because apparently we're both waiting for the other person to say go.
Tom: Maybe that's actually the insight. We don't need more information. We need one of us to just decide, together, to send the photo.
Priya: So... should we send the photo?
Tom: Ask me after this interview.
Priya: I'm asking you now.
Tom: Fine. Let's send the photo.
Priya: [To interviewer] Did you just witness us make our first furniture-adjacent decision in eleven months?
Interviewer: I believe I did. Is there anything we haven't talked about that you'd like to add?
Tom: One thing. The fact that she explains every decision — "I never say trust the process" — that's important to me. Because when you're a couple, "trust the process" means one person is being asked to accept something they haven't understood. Explanation is how you bring two people along. If she explains why a colour works, we can both evaluate it on its merits, not just react from our opposing instincts.
Priya: I want to add something about the "you belong here" line at the bottom of every page. I — as an immigrant, as someone who moved countries, as someone who is constantly navigating between two cultures — the word "belong" carries a lot of weight. It's not just about design. It's about someone saying: your situation, your complexity, your mixed-up life — it has a place here. That's a small line on a website, but it did something.
Interviewer: Thank you both so much for your time and your honesty. Your feedback is genuinely valuable and will help shape how this service evolves. I really appreciate you sharing your perspective — both perspectives.
Tom: Thank you. This was actually useful for us too.
Priya: Genuinely. We might have just accidentally resolved an eleven-month stalemate. So thank you for that.
Tom: The cardboard box won't know what hit it.
Post-interview notes
The belonging verdict: Both Tom and Priya feel strongly that this website is for them — more specifically for them than any design service they have ever encountered. The couples section is the decisive factor. Both gave a 9/10 on recommendation likelihood. Personal action scores of 8 (Tom) and 9 (Priya) are high, particularly for Tom, who self-identifies as cautious and research-driven.
The pricing reaction: Tom assumed two to five thousand euros for an interior designer. Priya assumed at least one thousand. Visible pricing at eighty to five-forty was met with relief (Tom) and a brief quality concern (Priya) that was resolved by the portfolio descriptions and deliverable specificity. Both strongly agreed that transparent pricing builds trust and enables referral — Tom specifically noted he could not recommend a service without knowing the cost.
The emotional section: "Wherever you're starting from, that's okay" resonated with both, but through different channels. Priya responded emotionally, particularly to the partner-disagreement line. Tom initially found it potentially "overwrought" but revised his opinion when he reflected on his own situation. The brevity and matter-of-fact tone were identified as key credibility signals — both said longer emotional messaging would have felt manipulative.
The couples section: This was the strongest single reaction point in the interview. Both identified it as the most relevant element on the website. "No compromises that make everyone equally unhappy" was quoted back verbatim by both participants. The portfolio line "a couple who loved minimalism and maximalism equally" was identified as precisely their situation. Priya's observation that Sara frames couples work as a favourite challenge (not a difficulty to manage) changed the anticipated power dynamic from "problematic client" to "interesting project."
The Diemen connection: The local connection registered immediately and powerfully. Tom's instant reaction — "she probably knows our building type" — reveals that geographic proximity functions as both a practical advantage and a trust signal. Both participants specifically requested a Diemen newbuild case study as a conversion driver.
The deliverable clarity: Highly important for Tom, moderately important for Priya. Tom explicitly stated he would close a tab that described outcomes as "clarity and direction" but would engage with "PDF, floor plan, colour palette, and shopping list." The deliverable specificity also served as an authority signal for Priya, indicating professional systematisation.
The authority balance: The warmth-authority combination works for this couple precisely because each element speaks to a different partner. Sara's personal story and emotional intelligence speak to Priya. The spatial reasoning, explained decisions, and structured deliverables speak to Tom. Neither element undermines the other; they function as dual entry points for a dual audience.
The portfolio: The couples case study is the single most requested addition. Both want to see a detailed before-and-after of two competing styles bridged. Tom needs this as proof of methodology. Priya needs it as proof of cultural sensitivity. The portfolio description "minimalism and maximalism equally" was identified as precisely their situation and would be the most convincing single element.
The action barrier: The primary barrier is now interpersonal logistics, not website content. Priya is ready to act; Tom needs to see the couples case study in full. The free photo-opinion option was identified as particularly valuable for couples because it circumvents the "who initiates" problem — sending a photo is lighter than booking a consultation and doesn't force one partner to commit for both.
The referral test: Both would actively recommend: Priya to a friend in an identical couples situation, Tom to colleagues if the topic arose. Both rated 9/10 for recommendation. The visible pricing was specifically identified as an enabler for referral — you cannot recommend a service if you cannot state what it costs.
Remaining gaps:
1. Cultural aesthetics — Priya wants explicit acknowledgement that mixed-culture households bring different aesthetic traditions, not just different preferences. A portfolio example showing cultural objects integrated as a design feature (not tolerated as an exception) would be transformative.
2. Couples process mechanics — how the consultation works with two people, whether they meet jointly or separately, how disagreements are navigated in practice. The philosophy is clear; the logistics are not.
3. Diemen newbuild case study — both want to see Sara's work in their specific building type. This would function as the ultimate local-trust signal.
Notable moment: The interview itself functioned as a decision catalyst. The couple made a real-time agreement to send a photo of their space to Sara — their first joint furniture-adjacent decision in eleven months. This suggests that the act of encountering the website concept and articulating their reactions broke a psychological stalemate. The website's normalisation of their situation may be as therapeutically useful as it is commercially effective.