This is our main service offering – we offer sanctuary experiences. We believe space and its usage is like a six-course meal. When we design, we consider your emotional and mental health in a space as well as whether it is aesthetically delicious. We consider texture and colour, height, flow and function.
Our Services
A consultation to gain a better understanding of you, your space, needs and wants.
A Do-it-Yourself Decorating Solution
For the finishing touches for a magazine-worthy finish.
Stylish solutions for your sanctuary spaces.
Specific safety solutions that will improve the flow and atmosphere of your office space.
Highly personalized service for your home or business needs.
An interior designer has the skills and professional education to design and draft new space plans — whether reconfiguring an existing interior space or adding square footage to a home — as well as develop lighting and electrical plans, select all interior finishes such as flooring, countertops, tile, paint colours, wall and window treatments, as well as specify plumbing, appliances, cabinetry and furnishings, to name a few.
When your project involves changing structural load bearing walls, or adding square footage, an architect and/or structural engineer will need to be part of your team. They’ll provide the necessary drawings and structural calculations required to pass building code inspections.
Based on the above, a remodelling project can be assigned to an architect or interior design depending on the associated risk.
We don’t subscribe to a just one particular design style such as modern, or traditional. As creative professionals we enjoy working on a variety of project styles from elegant farm-style kitchens, to soft-modern bathrooms, to traditional family rooms, to name a few. This keeps business fresh and interesting. As such, we are always seeking out new artisans and vendors to help create new, custom pieces for you that complement your personalized style that we co-create with you. We love for our interiors to enhance and reflect the environment of the space and we love to consider the style of house, the area and most importantly, the country where the property is. As we serve a mostly South African market, we love to take from and complement our African heritage and resources.
We’ll handle the shopping, ordering and delivery of finish materials, furnishings and fixtures, as well as coordinate and oversee the labour so you can spend more time enjoying family, friends, loved ones and outside activities. We are happy to bring design showroom selections to your home to make it as convenient as possible. We merely ask that you respect our professional time and communicate effectively so we can help you create your vision.
One of the joys of hiring a designer is that we handle the logistics of creating a look and bringing it to fruition, thus saving our client a lot of time and energy.
Hiring an interior designer is an investment in saving you time and acquiring the peace of mind that your project is being executed professionally, in a cost-effective manner and to your liking.
Currently, there is not one industry standard for how interior designers bill for their professional time, but there are four common formats – Hourly, Flat Fee, Cost Plus or Percentage Fee, a Mark-Up model and Rate per square metre.
Hourly billing means you are charged an hourly fee per exercise for the time it takes to complete your project, everything from conceptualization to sourcing and installation.
A Flat Fee arrangement means you are billed one flat fee for the design, execution and completion of your job. A Flat Fee billing system often takes a number of things into consideration such as resources required to do the project; location etc. A fee is often added for the installation and sourcing.
Cost Plus or Percentage Fee means a flat fee based on the percentage of the cost of your job is billed. The South African industry has been, for the last few years, regulated at 15 (fifteen) percent or more of project cost.
A Mark-Up model involves marking up the retail price of furniture items and often charging a smaller design fee.
A Rate per square metre attributes a certain rand price for each square metre of work. This format is often used for large scale fit-outs and includes elements such as design and drawings, sourcing, the complete fit-out etc.
When interviewing your prospective interior designer make sure you clearly understand their billing practices and frequency. It is also key to understand that designers work differently for various service offerings so perhaps an Hourly rate for styling and then a Fixed Fee for an additional services. Most designers also have a basic project value for work done and what this means is that they will not take on projects below a certain bracket as it could limit their creativity. Often in this case, designers will make alternative suggestions to achieve quality and functional spaces for their clients.
Buhle Bendalo Designs will work with you to develop a mutually agreeable Estimated Budget of Professional Design Time based on the size and scope of your project.
Often retail in-store decorators are primarily sales people with limited education in space planning and interior design. Interior designers are well versed in scale, proportion, space planning, colour theory and health and safety regulations.
Also, in-store decorators or salespeople only offer you product selections from their featured lines, within store whereas; professional interior designers have access to hundreds of trade-only vendors and manufacturer’s world-wide. Ensure that the skill-set your project requires is what you will eventually pay for.
We want to create beautiful and functional spaces for you. In an effort to do this, we advise our clients to develop a visual reference or a file of images or items that capture the feeling, colours, textures and functionality of what you’re trying to achieve. There are numerous sources from which you can draw inspiration such as art, travel, books and fashion. The more focused and meaningful images you show us, the easier it will be for our team to understand your preferences. This is really an area to enjoy – so have fun compiling your reference file and it will prove more valuable.
The next item that you must be prepared to discuss is your project budget. In short, what is the maximum amount you are willing to invest into your space? Rather than approach your project from a standpoint of how much you think it will cost, we have found it more effective to give thoughtful consideration to what you’re comfortable investing in your project. One of the best ways to arrive at a budget is considering some of your favourite stores; pieces and; their prices and then; your comfortable expenditure on those items.
Once you have determined your project budget, we’ll work with you to determine how your money should be allocated as far as interior finishes, fixtures, furnishings, labour, etc., as well as offer suggestions on how to maximize your budget while producing an excellent result.
Not disclosing your project budget from the beginning will only lead to an increase in delays in job completion, as well as create frustration as your designer may spend hours designing something beautiful, shopping for a unique piece of furniture, or bringing in qualified sub-contractors to bid work, only to be informed that it’s not within your budget and that re-selections need to be made which results in higher professional design fees. We have also found that when a budget is not disclosed initially, designers often work as-if on a retainer basis without being hired to do so.
Solidify a budget you’re comfortable with before your initial consultation and you’ll feel in control of the process, save time and money and assist us in working more effectively.
If you have not worked with an interior designer previously the five phases your project will move through may be unfamiliar. As such, we have prepared a general outline of the Five Phases of Interior Design and what you can expect to happen during those periods.
Please note: not all of these activities will pertain to your job as defined by its scope of work. This will be reviewed at your first meeting.
Yes, we can!
Wall colour, lighting, accent colours etc. are some of the most important aspects of a beautiful space. It often goes unrecognized how difficult it is to pick paint colours and it’s a process which takes hours, or often days, to contemplate. We are happy to come into your space and spend one to two hours walking through and understanding your space. At the end of the meeting, we will present you with a list of paint colours that would be great in your home as well as surfaces on which to use them. We are also happy to source and deliver the paint to your property and even, provide you with professional painting services so you remain rest-assured.
In creating flow or advising on a missing element, we are also happy to spend one to two hours in your home and present you feedback on suggestions. We are also happy to manufacture or source certain pieces we believe you may need.
Typically we do not go store-to-store to shop for individual pieces. In-store shopping greatly reduces the number of pieces available to you. It takes much longer to travel between stores, and many times the piece you want may not be on the showroom floor anyways. To recreate the shopping experience at home, we try to gather as many photos, specifications, and product samples as possible to help you make an informed decision. All of this information is presented in our design sheets.
Internally, our team does a lot of preparation prior to a shopping day and we spend days out of office putting together final designs and fabrics etc. for manufacture. We strongly believe our clients should not have to carry this load on themselves, as they hire us to diminish their responsibility in the process.
If you are not comfortable ordering the bulk of your furniture from a printed catalogue image and absolutely must see and touch most of furniture before buying it, let us know at the initial consultation and we will be sure to budget more time in our estimates to allow for in-person shopping.
Yes, we do. We began by purely styling homes around certain holidays or events for our design clients but as time proceeded, we began to offer this service as a stand-alone. We design and curate magical events and we love to do it. Anything from an intimate brunch to a fun-activity in your garden for your employees, we would love to be on your team.
We want to save time you and give you peace of mind by acting as your “go to” resource for everything related to the design, as well as the care and maintenance of your home, private office or alternative property.
From rug cleaning to re-finishing floors and re-sealing countertops to removing junk, we will keep your home or office looking fabulous and functioning well.
The simple answer to that is Yes. We are willing to travel to meet the needs of our clients. We are happy to travel to your location, just let our office know so we can assist you to take this next step.
No, they are not.
Television shows are highly scripted with lots of available resources behind the scenes. As such, television shows often do not capture the tremendous resources that go into our projects. Not only do they take longer than they appear to, on television, but they also cost more. On television, so little planning is captured on screen yet careful planning takes a lot longer than a day, often months depending on the size of the project. Unfortunately, projects are also not opportunities to sit by the pool and have cocktails, although we wish they were. They involve lots of late nights and running around which our clients do not see. They also involve issues, issues which are bound to occur whenever design occurs. Although we guide against this as much as possible, we are also aware that there often unplanned for delays in product delivery or manufacture or even, the proposed availability of a client.
We look forward to helping you achieve your goals. Please email our office to arrange your initial consultation. We’ll come to your residence or guest house or alternative property for a two-hour consultation to see your existing environment, as well as review your aesthetic and functional needs. We’ll ask a number of detailed questions, photograph your current space, and discuss your project budget and timeline. The fee for this consultation is R1899 (VAT exclusive) which is credited back to you if you proceed to hire us to create your vision.