If you run an interior design studio in the Great Lakes region, managing projects across Chicago, Minneapolis, and a secondary lake home can quietly drain your time and your margin.
Alcove at a glanceKnow where every item stands from selection through install.
Most studios already manage these dual-property clients long before a dedicated system enters the picture. You might find yourself juggling a Lincoln Park townhouse renovation alongside a summer home build in Lake Geneva—or a North Loop loft in Minneapolis while furnishing a retreat on Gull Lake.
Keeping track of which spec belongs to which address—while using the same client contact and billing details—gets messy. When you rely on spreadsheets, emails, and shared folders to keep the two properties distinct, a single misplaced cell can lead to a delivery truck showing up at the wrong destination three hours away.
The dual-property reality: City home vs. lake house
Alcove at a glanceTrack client approvals and decisions in one place.
For Great Lakes studios, the two-home client is a highly recognizable pattern. These clients expect a cohesive experience from their design team, but their properties demand entirely different functional requirements, design aesthetics, and logistical planning.
The challenge is not just about selecting different styles of furniture. It is about maintaining a single, unified client relationship while completely separating the physical locations, budgets, and procurement pipelines.
When you manage these dual projects out of a single spreadsheet or a generic project management tool, the lines inevitably blur. A purchase order meant for the city residence gets grouped with lake house items—or a client gets confused by a combined proposal and holds up approvals for both properties. To protect your studio’s efficiency, you need a workflow that treats these properties as distinct physical destinations under one client umbrella.
The freight variance trap: Shipping to Lincoln Park vs. northern Wisconsin
Shipping a custom sectional to a Lincoln Park townhouse with a dedicated loading dock is entirely different from coordinating a delivery down a winding, unpaved gravel road in northern Wisconsin.
To protect your margins, you cannot apply flat-rate freight assumptions across urban and remote properties. You must calculate landed costs based on local receiving realities.
Let’s look at a realistic example with a $12,000 custom sofa from a trade vendor like Vanguard Furniture:
- Scenario A (The Chicago Townhouse): The sofa ships from the manufacturer in North Carolina to a commercial receiver in Chicago.
- Vendor Freight: $450
- Receiver Fee: $150 (receiving, inspecting, and deluxe prep)
- Local Delivery: $250 (standard white-glove delivery with elevator access)
- Total Landed Shipping Cost: $850
- Scenario B (The Lake Geneva Home): The same sofa is ordered for the vacation property. Because there are no commercial receivers with loading docks near the lake, the item must go to a regional receiver in Milwaukee, who will then coordinate a long-distance box-truck delivery down a narrow, tree-lined gravel driveway.
- Vendor Freight: $550 (extended zone shipping)
- Receiver Fee: $180 (extended storage and inspection)
- Local Delivery: $600 (long-distance delivery, difficult access surcharge)
- Total Landed Shipping Cost: $1,330
If your studio uses a standard 10% freight estimate across the board, you would charge the client $1,200 for shipping. In Scenario A, you cover your costs and retain a small buffer. In Scenario B, you are out of pocket by $130 because of the remote delivery realities. Multiplying this variance across an entire home of furniture can quietly erase thousands of dollars of your hard-earned design margin.
Managing duplicate specs without losing your mind
It is incredibly common for dual-property clients to fall in love with a specific product and want it in both homes. They might request the same high-performing outdoor lounge chairs from Blu Dot for both their Minneapolis patio and their lakeside deck—or want the same durable performance fabric on their family room sectionals to handle kids and dogs.
If you are copying and pasting cells across separate project files or spreadsheets, you run a high risk of ordering the wrong quantity, applying the wrong sales tax, or missing a critical backorder update from the vendor.
Instead of duplicating the work, the most efficient workflow relies on a centralized product library. You source the spec once, save it to your library, and then assign it to different project locations with clear, independent tracking. This ensures that if the lead time on that performance fabric jumps from 8 weeks to 16 weeks, you can update the spec in one place and see the impact across both active purchases instantly.
Keeping client approvals clear across two active projects
When a client receives a single invoice or proposal containing items for both their city loft and their lake cabin, confusion follows. They delay approvals because they cannot easily visualize which piece goes where—or they worry that a high-end light fixture meant for their primary residence is accidentally being sent to the cabin.
[Client Portal]
├── Chicago Condo Project (Active)
│ └── Living Room Specs -> Approved & Paid
└── Gull Lake Cabin Project (Active)
└── Porch Furniture Specs -> Awaiting Review
Presenting proposals and collecting approvals through location-specific portals allows clients to review and pay with absolute clarity. They can see exactly what is headed to the city and what is destined for the lake. This separation prevents them from approving a piece meant for the lake house for their city home, keeping your procurement timeline moving forward without unnecessary back-and-forth emails.
How Alcove keeps multi-location logistics organized
Most studios already organize projects across pins, spreadsheets, and trackers long before a system enters the picture. Alcove lets you bring that work forward through imports and tools you already use, instead of forcing you to start from a blank file.
Instead of juggling multiple software accounts or messy workarounds, Alcove lets you organize your work by project location under one shared client context. You can clip products from vendors like Room & Board or Blu Dot using the Chrome Clipper, assign them to specific properties, track separate freight costs, and sync everything cleanly to QuickBooks Online.
Alcove’s multi-location capabilities allow you to keep separate shipping addresses, local tax rates, and receiving warehouses tied to specific properties—while maintaining a single, unified view of your client’s overall investment.
So you can spend more time on design decisions and less on copying cells and chasing vendors.
Price with clarity. Install with confidence.
See how Alcove can help you manage your multi-city projects and protect your margins at alcove.co.
FAQs
How do you handle sales tax when purchasing for a client with homes in two different states?
Sales tax is determined by the point of delivery. For a client with a primary home in Illinois and a lake house in Wisconsin, items shipped to the Wisconsin property must be taxed at the local Wisconsin rate. Alcove allows you to set tax rates at the product and project level, ensuring your financial records sync accurately with QuickBooks Online without manual recalculations.
Should I use the same receiving warehouse for both urban and remote lake-house deliveries?
Usually, no. It is typically more cost-effective to use an urban receiver near your main studio for the city residence, and a regional receiver closer to the vacation property for the lake house. This minimizes long-distance freight fees and ensures the local delivery crew is familiar with navigating narrow, unpaved lakefront roads.
Can I share a single portal with a client who has multiple active projects?
Yes. With Alcove, you can give your client access to a portal where they can toggle between their different properties. This keeps their approvals, comments, and budget visibility organized by location, preventing them from approving a piece meant for the lake house for their city home.
See how Alcove does this
See how Alcove keeps your multi-city specs, approvals, and freight organized in one place. Learn more at alcove.co.
