Design Services in Newcastle
I start by listening. Before I suggest changing anything, I want to understand how your home works and how you live in it. Where you come in with the shopping. Where the light falls in the morning. Where things end up when you put them down.
A lot of the people I work with are thinking further ahead than the next renovation. They want a kitchen they’ll still find easy to use at eighty, or they want to understand their plans properly before anything is built.
Most people come to me because they’re building a new home, renovating the one they’re in, or have one room that needs work. Read through the services below and see which one sounds like you. If you’re not sure, book an introduction call and we’ll work it out together.
Introduction Call
A free twenty-minute call. You tell me about your project, and I’ll suggest where to start.
Initial Design Consultation – $320
Ninety minutes at your home, or with your plans spread out on the table. We walk through together and talk about what you’d like, what isn’t working, and how big the job is.
Afterwards I’ll send you a written fee proposal setting out the design work and what it will cost. There’s no obligation to proceed past this point.
Every service below begins with this consultation. It’s how I get to know your home well enough to quote properly.
New Homes
If you’re building or buying off the plan, I work with your building designer or builder so the house is planned around the way you live, rather than around a standard drawing.
Checking the floor plan before it’s built: how you’ll move through it, whether your furniture fits, and what’s missing
Joinery and interior detailing
Materials, fixtures and lighting
Drawings and documentation for your builder
A lot of what goes wrong in a new build isn’t drawn wrong. It just isn’t drawn at all. The tap on the deck. A power point beside the bed for the lamp. Enough storage to keep your home feeling organised.
If you’re building somewhere else in Australia, we can do the consultation by video call.
Selections & Pre-start Schedule
You have a builder, a plan and a pre-start meeting coming up. Tiles, tapware, timber, stone, flooring, lighting. Suddenly there are a hundred decisions to make, and this is where a lot of costly variations begin. I help you make those choices early, and make sure they all work together.
Selections made before your pre-start meeting, not in a rush during it
A written schedule your builder and trades can order from
Supplier suggestions, with any trade discount passed on to you
Sample boards and paint colours where they’re useful
Renovating the Home You're In
You love your home, but it doesn’t work the way it used to. Usually that’s because your life has changed and the house hasn’t. You want it to suit you now, and in twenty years’ time.
A plan for the whole house, which you can build in stages or all at once
Thinking ahead: a shower without a step, wider doorways, a bedroom and bathroom on one level
Changes that work with what’s already there
Drawings and documentation for your builder and trades
Kitchen Design
A kitchen planned around how you cook. What you use most, where it’s kept, how far you have to reach for it. I start with the layout, then the joinery, then the finishes.
Concept design and materials
Working drawings and elevations your cabinetmaker and builder can quote from
A schedule of fixtures, finishes and hardware
Help comparing cabinetry quotes, if you’d like it
Most kitchen designers are paid when you buy their cabinetry. I’m paid to design your kitchen. The drawings belong to you, and you can take them to whoever you like for quotes.
Bathroom Design & Laundry Design
You use these rooms every day without thinking about them, and they’re the ones people most often wish they’d planned better. Where the towel hangs. Whether there’s a bench to fold the washing on. Whether the fan actually clears the steam.
Layout
Tiles, tapware, vanity, lighting and ventilation
The position and height of every fitting
A full set of drawings for your builder
If you’re planning to grow older in this home, the bathroom is where the early decisions matter most.
How it works
A free call. Twenty minutes on the phone.
The consultation. Ninety minutes at your home.
A fee proposal. The scope in writing, with a fixed fee for each stage.
Concept design. Layouts and materials, and my reasons for them.
Documentation. Drawings and schedules for your builder.
During the build. I’m available for questions and site visits when you need me.
Not sure yet?
Most people aren’t, and that’s fine. It’s what the introduction call is for.