Support Through the Build
Turning a finished design into a finished room.
A design is a set of
instructions, not a room
The day a design is handed over, nothing in the house has changed. What you have is a plan, a shopping list and a set of decisions, and between that and a finished room sits the part nobody photographs: ordering from eleven suppliers, chasing the one piece that has stopped, answering the tiler's question, and eventually putting everything where it belongs.
Plenty of clients do all of that themselves, and the design is written so they can. These services exist for the ones who would rather not, and each is optional, quoted separately and taken entirely on its own terms.
| You do not want to place and chase the orders | Complete Furniture Concierge. We buy on your behalf as your agent, with trade discounts passed on and invoices raised in your name. |
| There is building work and questions keep arriving | Post-design support. Your designer stays available through the build, on site or remotely, to keep the design intact. |
| Everything has arrived and the room still looks unfinished | Interior styling. Placement rather than selection, sold by the hour, once the pieces are in the house. |
What each one
actually does
Complete Furniture Concierge
We take the shopping list and run the whole ordering process: checking availability and lead times, pricing everything with the discount shown on each item, placing the orders once you approve, then tracking, chasing and resolving what goes wrong. Damaged deliveries and missing items are ours to sort out.
- We act as your agent, so every purchase invoice is raised in your name and the warranty sits between you and the supplier
- Trade discounts reach you in full rather than becoming our margin, from around five to forty per cent depending on the supplier
- Our fee is separate and visible, and you can estimate it yourself before speaking to us
- Storage, single-day delivery and assembly of most items are available as an add-on, agreed before the first order
Post-design support
Your designer stays available while the work is happening. Builders price the scheme and ask questions nobody anticipated. Walls come open and reveal a pipe where the vanity was going. Post-design support answers those, adjusts the design where site conditions force it, and gives your trades a decision rather than a shrug.
- On site or remotely, your choice, with on-site subject to where the property is
- Priced by the effort your project needs rather than sold as a fixed package
- Photographs and a written report after each visit, which is what everyone refers back to later
- This is a design role, not project management: your contract with your builder stays yours
Interior styling
The final layer, once everything has been delivered. What sits where, how objects group, what height the art hangs at, what goes back in the cupboard. It is the difference between a room that is furnished and one that is finished, and it is the step most people skip and then cannot work out what is wrong.
- In person where a designer can travel to you, or as a written placement guide for your rooms
- Also available as live video guidance while you place things yourself
- Works with what you already own, not only with what we specified
Two things you can look at
without speaking to anyone
Both of these sit alongside the furniture concierge rather than being services you buy. They exist so you can work out whether procurement is worth it for your project before you get in touch, which is a question we would rather you answered for yourself.
Procurement calculator
Put in your order value, how many items are on the list and how many suppliers they come from, and it shows the fee broken into its four components. It is an indicative estimate rather than a quote, and the exact figure is confirmed in writing before anything is ordered, but it means nobody has to ask us what it costs to find out.
Discounted supplier network
The shape of the network we buy through: what kinds of supplier we hold trade accounts with and roughly what the discounts look like across them. Discounts vary considerably by brand, which is why we itemise the saving on each piece in your proposal rather than quoting an average.
The most expensive words
on a project
They are "we will sort that out later". Every deferred decision on a renovation eventually gets made, and if it has not been made by you it gets made on site, at speed, by whoever is standing there with a deadline. Usually the builder. Usually the cheapest available option. Usually while you are at work.
Which socket goes where, how the tile meets the skirting, which way the boards run, what happens at the threshold between two floor finishes. None of these feel like decisions worth stopping for, and every one of them is either invisible when it goes right or permanent when it goes wrong.
This is the honest argument for having someone available during the build. Not because the design was incomplete, but because a building under construction generates questions faster than anyone can answer them from a distance, and the answers are cheap while the trades are still working and expensive once they have moved on.
The order they
usually happen in
On a renovation, post-design support starts first, because building work begins long before the furniture is ordered. Procurement runs alongside it, since lead times mean the sofa has to be ordered months before the room is ready for it. Styling comes last, once everything has arrived and the dust has settled.
On a project with no building work, there is no need for the first one at all. You go straight from the design to procurement, and then styling if you want it. That is the more common shape, and it is worth saying because people assume a full renovation is the standard case when it is not.
None of this is a sequence you are committed to. Take one, take all three, or take none and execute the design yourself. Our process page shows where each of these sits in a whole project.
What people ask first
Do I have to take any of these?
No. The design is written so you can execute it yourself, and plenty of clients do exactly that. Nothing about the design depends on buying anything here.
Do I need to have designed with you?
For procurement, no. Send us a list you have put together yourself or one from another designer and we will price it. Post-design support usually does follow a design we produced, because it protects a scheme we know the reasoning behind.
Do you manage my builder?
No. Your contract is with your contractor and the programme, the money and the workmanship stay their responsibility. We protect the design through the build rather than running the build. On a large or structural renovation you may need a project manager as well, and we will say so.
How much does procurement cost?
The fee is built from four things: a base fee, a handling fee per item, a handling fee per supplier and a fee based on the order value. The calculator will give you an indicative total before you contact us, and we confirm the exact figure in writing before anything is ordered.
Do you mark up the furniture?
No. We order as your agent rather than reselling to you, so invoices are raised in your name and the trade discount reaches you in full. Our fee for the work is charged separately and shown to you before anything is ordered.
Can you deliver everything on one day?
Yes, as an add-on covering storage, single-day delivery and assembly of most items. It has to be agreed before the first order is placed, because it changes where things ship to from the outset.
Which countries do these cover?
Procurement and styling guidance work anywhere in Europe. On-site work, whether that is a support visit or styling in person, depends on where the property is and who is available. Tell us the location and we will confirm before anything is agreed.