A fixed design fee, and the trade discount passed to you.
A whole house is usually nine to fourteen months from first meeting to handover.
Three stages, and you can stop after the first
Survey and brief. Two to three weeks: a measured survey, how you actually live, and an honest conversation about the budget.
Concept. Four to six weeks: layouts, materials and two schemes to react to. This is where most of the thinking happens.
Detail, tender and site. Drawings a builder can price accurately, then weekly visits through to the snagging list everyone underestimates. Structural and building work is carried out by a QBCC-licensed builder we work alongside — our fee is for design and coordination, not construction.
Fees are published
Our day rate and our typical project fees are on the services page. A designer who will not tell you a number until they have qualified your budget is pricing you rather than the room, and you can feel it later in the invoice. Publishing it means we lose some enquiries early, which is the point.
Your budget is the brief
We design to what you have said you will spend, not to what a moodboard could look like with no limit on it. Presenting a scheme you cannot afford wastes everybody’s time, and a brief without a real number in it is not a brief.
We will tell you what not to do
Sometimes the useful answer is paint and better lighting rather than a renovation. It is a smaller job, it is a smaller fee, and it is often the right one — and a studio that only ever recommends the bigger job is optimising for itself rather than for your house.
Four things in every project
Regardless of size, and included in the fee.
A written proposal
Scope, deliverables, the fixed design fee and a realistic timeline. Nothing starts until you have agreed both.
Decisions as they arise
A renovation generates decisions daily and delays compound. On a managed project we are the ones fielding them.
The itemised invoice
Trade price and retail price shown side by side on everything specified, so the discount is visible, not just promised.
Everything handed over
Drawings, specification and a shopping list at handover, whether you engaged us for design only or the whole project.
Asked at first meetings
If yours is not here, phone and ask. We answer these ourselves.
Are you QBCC licensed builders?
No — we are interior designers, not builders, and we do not do building work. Any structural or renovation work is carried out by a QBCC-licensed builder we work alongside; our fee covers design, specification and site coordination.
Does the budget conversation have to happen at the first meeting?
Yes, or close to it. A brief without a number is not a brief. We would far rather hear an uncomfortable figure early than design a scheme you cannot afford.
Where does the money go furthest?
Lighting, almost always. If a room feels wrong and you cannot say why, it is nearly always the lighting, and it is also the cheapest thing on the list to fix.
Can site decisions wait until the weekend?
Not always. A renovation generates decisions daily and delays compound, which is the entire argument for the management service — not the design itself.
Do you take a margin on furniture or trade purchases?
No. Every item is passed through at what we paid for it, shown next to the retail price on the invoice.
Can we start with just one room?
Yes — it is the least committing way to find out whether we are useful to you, and it is what most people do.
Book a consultation. If we are not right for it, we will say so on the call.
An hour, at your house, on the actual room. No obligation, and no proposal unless you want one.