Our Fees Explained
Design Fees
Our design fee covers all creative work across two phases: Design Concept and Design Detail. Rather than charging a flat percentage of your project budget, we build our fee around time: breaking the scope into specific tasks, estimating what each requires, and sense-checking the total against the scale of your project.
You’ll see the full fee before any work begins. It won’t change unless the scope does.
Handling Fees
When we procure furniture, fixtures, finishes, or soft furnishings on your behalf, we charge a 15% handling fee on the gross cost of those items. We pass on 100% of any trade discounts, which typically range from 10 to 25%. Sometimes the discount outweighs the handling fee; sometimes it doesn’t. Either way, you’ll see every figure clearly itemised.
We act as your agent, not as a reseller. Orders are placed in your name, invoices are addressed to you, and funds transferred to us for procurement are held in a dedicated account, ringfenced for your purchases. Nothing is ordered until funds are received.
Project Co-ordination Fees
During the build, installation, and aftercare stages, we can take on a coordination role: attending site visits, liaising with your contractor, tracking lead times, and resolving emerging issues. This is charged at our standard hourly rate and is always agreed in advance. It’s a separate service from your design fee, and you’ll only be charged for it if and when it’s needed.
Where we coordinate specialist tradespeople such as joiners, kitchen suppliers, or fabricators, a 15% coordination fee applies on the net cost of their works. You appoint and pay these suppliers directly. We do not charge a coordination fee on your main contractor’s works.
What We Procure
Our procurement service typically covers fixtures such as lighting and sanitaryware, hard finishes including tiles, paint, wallpaper, and ironmongery, and furniture, window treatments, and decorative accessories. We don’t usually procure building materials, as these are supplied by your contractor.
How We Invoice
We invoice before work begins or procurement is placed. For smaller projects, this typically means one invoice per design phase. For larger projects, we can split fees into monthly instalments. Handling fees are invoiced at the same time as procurement funds are requested, so everything is aligned. Payment is due within 7 days of invoice.
Practical Things
Custom and made-to-order items are typically non-refundable. Lead times for these pieces are usually 6 to 14 weeks, sometimes longer. We’ll flag this clearly at the point of approval and keep you updated if anything shifts. For larger or complex orders, we may recommend consolidated delivery via a receiving warehouse, allowing for quality checks before items arrive on site. This is quoted separately when relevant.
Once goods are delivered to site or storage, responsibility transfers to you or your contractor. We’d always recommend checking that your contractor’s insurance covers incoming goods and materials.
