Fees

If you are looking at this website you are potentially about to make one of the biggest investments in your lifetime. Wouldn’t you want to start by getting the best designer possible for an affordable price ?

Why risk frustration and heartache in order to save a few dollars on an average draftsman or designer. Not only will mistakes get made, but you will spend a long time in a house that doesn’t excite you or worse, it doesn’t work.  Whether it’s your first home or your last home, you need it to be designed properly with style and get the maximum resale possible.  98% of homes in Australia are poorly designed, they either don’t flow well, are too hot in summer or too cold in winter, or are plain and ugly.

You need your house to function properly, capture the views to maximum extent, capture the breezes, be warm in winter, cool in summer, look and feel awesome. You’d be surprised how much the feel of a house can affect your emotions. After all, you spend a large portion of your life in your home.  Ask any of my clients how their home makes them feel and you will probably get a different answer every time, but it will always be positive.

Some of the priorities which many designers (especially male designers) don’t think about are:  to be able to get the groceries from the garage to the kitchen, without doing a marathon, can you get the wet clothes from the laundry to the clothes line with ease, undercover? Do you have to run to the clothes line every time it rains? Garbage chutes, laundry chutes, recyclables? Disabled access, ramps versus stairs, is the garage too skinny? Can you get through doors with groceries, small children?  All these questions are often dismissed or forgotten by less experienced designers and draftsmen.

We are not architects and we are not draftsmen.  We are experienced building designers which falls between the 2 categories and are therefore more affordable than architects, but much more experienced in design than draftsmen who mostly just draw up your ideas and often aren’t good at design.

We calculate our fees based upon the expected complexity of the project and how much time I expect it to take.  The fee varies according to the slope of the land, expected budget, the complexity of the project, the shape of the land, renovation, extension or new, the extent of design services required etc. We taylor make our fee proposal to suit your requirements and although I do not normally base my fees on percentages, our fee often falls between 4% and 8% of expected construction.  We are very good value for the excellent top end service and design experience that we provide.

Our fees are staged so that you have complete confidence along the way, and if you have any issues at any stage it can always be resolved before much money is spent.  If after any stage you wish to stop work for any reason, you are free to do so.  The stages are explained in detail in our quote and also our E brochure, but briefly:   Stage 1: Sketch design,  Stage 2: Design Development ie 3D,  Stage 3: (sometimes optional) DA documentation & submission,  Stage 4: BA documentation & submission to private certifier, Stage 5: (Optional) Extra detailing and Interior Design.  Depending on the project sometimes only 3 stages are required and the fee is reduced accordingly.

If you want a house that will be displayed in magazines or to win awards expect to pay a little more as: “Good design takes time – Great design takes a lot longer and the devil is in the detail” …