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my dear parkie cyber-siblings mark hughes refers to keeping to a 'professional level' and i'm afraid i'm going to take the bait with a little tale of my own history of 'professional' behaviour this is not directly pd related so consider yourself fore-warned! i have worked as an interior design consultant for approx 20 years during that time, i had plenty of opportunities to satisfy the curiosity of aquaintances, clients, whomever as to the differences between the terms 'interior designer' and 'interior decorator' there are many, but i will only address payment arrangements here in broad terms, in north america, the term interior designer has generally meant someone who was paid as a 'professional', independent, consultant for their time in providing advice to their client on an hourly basis the term interior decorator has generally meant someone who was paid a percentage of the cost of the goods sold to the client and therefore frequently had a 'bias' in terms of selecting products both ways of conducting business are legal and are the choice of the client, the general public however, if a designer/decorator were to accept a 'commission' from a supplier, otherwise known as a 'kick-back' ***without the prior knowledge of the client*** that monetary transaction constitutes frau and is illegal thus, in brief, my experience of 'professional' behaviour is that any monetary gain that is concealed, however clumsily, is suspect and unprofessional if one is operating an honest 'professional' business in the 'for-profit' market why conceal it? the stakes get a tad higher when the health and safety of the general public [us] is involved and thus the need for regulation and licensing by the government [us] if we don't like the regulations and licensing as they stand e.g. too much red tape, too slow, too complicated, etc etc we can seek to change them that is our right, and our responsibility, in a democratic environment i, for one, am grateful that those rules and regulations are in place and will remain cynical and hyper-vigilant to those who secretly pursue personal gain by side-stepping them your ever cynical and proud of it cyber-sis janet janet [log in to unmask]