Turnkey interior design — what it actually means

"Turnkey" is one of those phrases everyone understands differently. For one practice it means a design plus a shopping list. For another it means running the entire build through to the furniture being carried in.

For us it means the second.

Where the line runs

We take on everything except the decisions. Decisions stay with you, because it is your home — but everything needed to make those decisions possible, and then to make them real, is on us.

In practice: selecting every furnishing, placing orders, chasing deliveries, coordinating the trades, controlling budget and schedule. You move into a finished interior instead of spending six months on the phone to contractors.

What happens without it

The design ends and a task list begins that few people picture when signing: find a joiner, compare quotes, order the stone, check the right one arrived, book the fitting for a day when the electrician has finished and the decorator has not yet started.

Each of those is simple on its own. Together they are several hundred phone calls spread over months — a full-time job for somebody who already has one.

Who it is for

People without time. That is the most common reason and an entirely sufficient one.

Projects at a distance. We work from Warsaw but design across Poland and abroad — we have completed projects near New York and in Spain. On those, the client is not going to drive to site on a Wednesday because someone needs a grout colour approved.

Projects with a lot of bespoke work. The more joinery, stone and metalwork, the more junctions where something can go wrong — and the more it is worth having someone watch them professionally.

Who it is not for

If you have the time, enjoy the process and want to choose your own contractors, the standard option with supervision is entirely enough. There is no sense paying for work you would rather do yourself.

The same goes for a small renovation with a team you already trust.

What to settle at the outset

Three things that are either agreed at the start or never agreed at all:

• Who contracts the trades — the practice or the client.
• How payments for materials flow, and whether they pass through the practice.
• What happens if the build overruns — who carries the cost of extended coordination.

These are not questions born of mistrust. They are the questions that spare both sides a misunderstanding in month seven.