How Our Interior Design Process Works
Nine steps, and you
always know which one
Steps one to six are the design itself, and every package includes all of them. Steps seven to nine are optional, quoted separately, and taken by some clients and not others. Nothing moves forward without you approving it first.
Discovery call
A short conversation about the property, what you want to change and what you want to spend. We will tell you which service fits, or that a smaller one would serve you better. No cost, and no obligation to book anything afterwards.
Bring a budget range, even a rough one. People are often reluctant to say a number in case it limits what they are shown. It does the opposite: a designer working blind specifies to the middle of nowhere, and the budget changes the recommendation far more than the style brief does.
Choose your package and book
Room design is priced by room and by room type, so you know the fee before you commit. Book online, or ask for a custom proposal if the project covers several rooms.
Book when you are ready to engage, not the moment you decide to do it. The design runs as three consecutive weeks of collaboration, so if you are about to travel, waiting on a completion date or living somewhere else until the spring, you will get considerably more out of it by booking then. There is no advantage to buying early.
Send your measurements and photos
Accurate dimensions of the room, photographs from every angle, and any images that capture the style you are drawn to. This is the step clients most often underestimate, and the one that most affects how good the result is. We will show you exactly how to measure.
Measure the route in as well as the room: the front door, the hallway width, the turn at the top of the stairs and the lift if there is one. A sofa that fits the room perfectly and cannot get past the stairwell is one of the more expensive and avoidable mistakes in this trade, and it happens constantly in older European apartment buildings.
Kick-off call
Your designer talks through how you actually use the space, what is staying, what is going and what you are drawn to. Anything that needs adding, such as socket positions or kitchen support, is agreed here rather than later.
Tell your designer what you dislike, not only what you like. Negative preferences narrow a scheme far faster than positive ones, because most people can name three things they would never live with instantly and struggle for twenty minutes to describe their taste.
Your design is developed
Mood board, floor plan with furniture distribution, elevations where your package includes them, and the shopping list for your room. Around three weeks per room, opening at the kick-off call once everything in step three is complete.
Every product on your list is checked for whether the supplier will actually ship to your country before it goes on there. A shopping list full of pieces that cannot reach you is a common complaint about remote design, and it is entirely preventable.
Handover call
Your designer presents the finished design, explains the thinking behind each decision and talks you through how to bring it to life. You leave with everything you need to execute it yourself, and plenty of clients do exactly that.
This is the cheapest moment to change your mind, and the moment people are most reluctant to. Raising a doubt on the handover call costs a conversation. Raising it after you have ordered costs the furniture.
Buying everything on the list
Your designer shares your selection boards, and you mark the pieces you would like to buy. That is a shortlist rather than an order. We come back with a proposal, with our trade discounts passed on in full and invoices raised in your name.
A furnishing schedule is not an average of its lead times, it is the longest one. Nineteen pieces arriving in three weeks and one sofa quoted at fourteen means the room is finished in fourteen weeks, which is why lead times are confirmed before you approve rather than after.
Support while it is being built
If there is building work, your designer can stay available through it, on site or remotely, answering the questions that arrive once the walls are open and resolving what site conditions have made impossible.
Styling, once everything has arrived
The last layer: placing and arranging what has been delivered, so the room is finished rather than merely furnished. In person where we can travel to you, or as a written placement guide you work through yourself.
Three things, and the
first one matters most
- Accurate measurements of the room, including ceiling height and window positions
- Photographs from every angle, including the corners you would rather not photograph
- Images of interiors you are drawn to, and ideally a few you are not
The measurements are the foundation of everything that follows, because a plan drawn to the wrong dimensions produces a shopping list of furniture that does not fit. We will send you a guide showing how to measure properly, and your designer will check what you send before the design starts rather than after.
Three weeks
from both sides
Each room is booked with a three-week design window, opening at your kick-off call once your measurements, photographs and brief are complete. Inside it we commit to delivering your design. That is our side.
Your side is that the three weeks are continuous collaboration rather than a credit you can spend whenever it suits. Your designer will be working on your room across those weeks and will need answers from you inside them, sometimes the same day: which of two layouts you prefer, whether a piece is within budget, whether the wall is coming down. A design cannot advance while it waits on a decision, so a fortnight of silence does not extend the window, it consumes it.
Which is the honest reason we ask you not to book until you are ready. If you buy a package and then go quiet for two months, what you have bought is not preserved intact for your return, because the designer whose three weeks you booked has been holding time for a project that was not moving. If something unavoidable comes up mid-window, tell us and we will work out the sensible thing to do. What does not work is silence.
Larger rooms, open-plan spaces, multi-room projects and anything structural need longer than three weeks, and your designer will agree a realistic window with you before starting rather than discovering it halfway through.
The brief is worth more
than the budget
Clients often arrive apologising for their budget, as though a smaller number will produce a worse room. In practice the budget mostly determines which pieces get specified. What determines whether you like the result is how well your designer understands how you live in the space.
Which side of the sofa you sit on. Whether anyone actually eats at the dining table. Whether the room has to work in the dark for half the year. Whether you are tidy or whether you need somewhere to put things down. None of that appears on a floor plan and all of it changes the design, which is why the kick-off call runs longer than people expect.
What people ask about
the process
How long does the whole thing take?
The design itself is three weeks per room from the kick-off call. Add the time it takes you to measure and send photographs at the start, and the answer for most single-room projects is four to five weeks from booking to handover. Whole-home projects run in phases and are scheduled with you upfront.
Is the three-week window flexible?
It is three consecutive weeks of collaboration rather than three weeks of design time you can draw down whenever you like. Your designer needs answers from you across those weeks, so the window cannot be paused for a month and resumed. If your circumstances are about to change, book when they have settled rather than before. If something unavoidable comes up once you have started, tell us early and we will work out what is sensible.
Are 3D renders included?
No. Packages include 2D visuals: mood boards and floor plans, with colour plans and elevations on the higher tiers. Photorealistic 3D rendering is a separate service you can add if you want to see the room in three dimensions before committing to it.
Can I do everything online?
Yes, and most clients do. The whole process is designed to work remotely, which is what makes it practical across Europe. Site visits are arranged case by case depending on where the property is, and are never assumed.
What if I do not like the design?
Tell your designer at the handover call rather than afterwards. The call exists for exactly that conversation, and it is far easier to adjust a scheme at that point than once you have started buying against it.
Do I have to buy through you?
No. The shopping list is yours, with a photograph, a price and a link for every item, and you are free to order everything yourself. Procurement exists for people who would rather not, and it is entirely optional.
Do you carry on after the design is delivered?
Only if you want us to. Steps seven to nine are separate services, quoted individually. Some clients take all three, many take none, and nothing about the design depends on buying any of them.
What if I am not sure which package I need?
That is what the discovery call is for. It is free, and we would rather spend ten minutes working it out with you than sell you more than your project requires.