What exactly is the difference between DECORATOR, INTERIOR DECORATOR and INTERIOR DESIGNER?
Are the words SEAT BELTS and SAFETY BEALTS used interchangeably?
Thank you for help -:)

Decorator can be short for interior decorator.  That is someone to whom you pay alot of money to tell you what color paint you like and which style of furniture is compatible with your image and lifestyle.

A decorator can also be someone who decorates for a party, a dance, or some other function, usually assigned by the person in charge of the "decorating committee."

Informally, anyone who likes to decorate things.  "Sally is such a little decorator."

There are also cake decorators (a profession).

An interior designer is a very sophisticated interior decorator.  (Design is the latest upgrade in nomenclature; Interior decoration =interior design.)

"Seat belts" usually refer to safety belts used in cars, planes, or, sometimes, boats.  

"Safety belts" is a more general term which does refer to "seat belts" and can also refer to many different straps and harnesses that are involved in rescue, parasailing, or other extreme sports. These are also called "safety harnesses."

Sitran

PS And here is one that I wouldn’t have thought of right off! Safety belt, a belt made of some buoyant material, or which is capable of being inflated, so as to enable a person to float in water; a life preserver.

I would say that a decorator, of the interior kind, knows how to use a paintbrush. Whereas an interior designer tells the decorator what to paint and in which colour. Without qualification, ‘decorator’ means an interior decorator.

When I get into my car (seated on the right to drive) I always put on my seat belt. If someone called it a safety belt I would know what they meant, but it is not as idiomatic.

I would generally associate a safety belt with a safety harness - a strap to stop someone falling. The inflatable kind of ring that is left in a prominent place near water is usually called a life belt.

- Garzo.

I’d offer another refinement on interior decorator vs interior designer:

If the client wants a reading chair, a lamp, and an end table to hold it up, the decorator will find these items, at the upper end of the client’s budget.

The interior designer, on the other hand, will not stoop to using ready-made items, but instead "design" them him- or herself. If the designer is talented and not employed by a television producer, the results may be the contemporary equivalent of Frank Lloyd Wright, Charles Rennie Mackintosh or Gustav Stickley. Then again, the designer may hot glue some plastic milk crates together for "whimsical" seating, wire a light bulb to an "amusing" coffee mug, and drape a "vintage" scarf across a stack of "edgy/industrial" concrete blocks. The cost will be the same as for "real" furnishings…

The lowly interior decorator is starting to look a little more attractive, yes?
gailr  :D
whose childhood dream was to be an interior designer. or else an egyptian archeologist.

[quote author=gailr link=board=what;num=1087888999;start=0#3 date=06/22/04 at 11:20:01]Then again, the designer may hot glue some plastic milk crates together for "whimsical" seating, wire a light bulb to an "amusing" coffee mug, and drape a "vintage" scarf across a stack of "edgy/industrial" concrete blocks. The cost will be the same as for "real" furnishings…

In fact, the cost will probably be a lot higher than for real furnishings.