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I bet this have happened to you before: you go holiday in a 5-star resort and you fell in love with their interior design. So you tell your husband/wife "dear, let's have this for our new house yah"... Then you get a few quotations and wonder why the prices can vary so much.
Sounds familiar?
Ok, now we have a situation. Your heart is in love with that hotel's design but your brain prefer to engage the ID with the lowest price. This is what I call a mismatch of expectation and... this is a major, major trap.
That's because, in interior design, we can "make up" the property or do a proper "plastic surgery" to achieve a certain look. Prices can be very different depending on these factors:
Interior Design
Whenever design is involve, there will surely be more material wastage and more skillful workmanship needed. Interior design objective is not to have things done in the most economical wall and material saving way. If you want ordinary things, you don't need an interior designer, plus he or she surely cannot match the price quoted by others (contractors, Indonesians, fabricators).
Material and Hardware
Some home owners (eg first time homeowners or property investors) are ok with using entry level material such as wallpaper. However, if you're building your bungalow or upgrading to a bigger house, you need to consider using better materials such as stone or veneer to match your property.
You can achieve marble effect by using wallpaper or you can use laminated panels or you can use authentic marble. Authentic marble can be locally sourced or imported. Professional installation charges for marble alone is a few times more expensive than wallpaper price. The end prices are vastly different, so is the end result.
You have picked a great design, but without good hinges and hardware, your cabinetry will start to give way after 6-10 years. At Spazios, we only offer imported Germany hinges or good quality local hardware. Nothing lower than that. This is something you can't see yet it is very important to give it due consideration at the point of renovation. A good interior design will highlight these to you, run you through the pros and cons and propose a personalized solution for your needs.
Workmanship and Detailing
There are many ways to execute a design idea. Some ways are more straight forward, don't require much details but the end result is "rough". Some ways are more elaborate, require more intricate detailing but produces a "fine" workmanship. Needless to say, skillful installers are needed to achieve this result.
Why we are so particular about workmanship and detailing? This is because the final appearance can tell people whether you really know how to appreciate the finer things in life or you are just going with the cheapest method of renovation. Think of it as your personal branding.
Besides, we only employ old local sifus so they can do a good job for our customers. No banglas or indon for fine jobs.
Level Of Service
There are many types of installers in the market. Some just want to complete the job fast and move on to another job (great if you want to let out unit or move in urgently) while some will take some time to fine tune and perfect his craft. The question is: how particular are you? If you are concerned about the little details (most of our customers are), we recommend the latter.
The level of service of an interior designer can be different also. Do you require an interior designer to shop with you? Do you need an dedicated site supervisor to manage your project? The more service you require, the less issue you need to handle yourself and hence, the more you will have to pay.
At The End Of The Day....
Coming back to the hotel design that you saw. Will you get that same outcome "in your head" with that cheaper quotation? Are your interior designer on the same page as you in terms of expectation, quality and workmanship?
Eventually, you need to ask the right questions as to find out what is included and what is not when you look at interior design quotations. Always go for Value when you hire an interior designer, and not Price. Price is what you pay but Value is what you get.
