Top Rated Interior Design Agencies

Interior design is the process of shaping interior décor, including everything from wall coverings and flooring styles to furniture choices, accessories, lighting and so on. This could be for a home, an office or any interior space, with interior designers frequently employed to shape the feel and ambience of hotels, business foyers and reception areas, homes for sale or just help property owners create the living space to suit their tastes and needs.

With this in mind, we think of defining “Full-Service Interior Design” as follows:

Here, the interior design office will not only create looks for each space, but source the paints, materials and furniture, and usually install them too, covering every aspect of turning one or more interior spaces into the perfectly designed environment that fits a specific need.

Interior decorators and designers use creative flair along with specialised knowledge to create amazing spaces. Interior decorators work on dressing an interior space using paint, furnishings, and floor and window coverings. Interior designers specialise in using interior spaces effectively for the desired purpose.

Depending on the project, a designer may work from a style brief, for instance within a hotel or business, or work with a homeowner to understand your tastes and develop an interior look to fit. While we think often think of interior design as decorating, as that is the most obvious visual difference an interior designer can make, they also focus on practicality for a space. A dining room requires a dining table, a hotel reception needs a reception desk, a living area needs comfy seating and so on.

The goal for the interior designer is to create an interior space that is both easy to use for its intended purpose and visually appealing too, whether that be to the owner's tastes or to fit into a corporate brand.

Look around the room you are in. Everything in the space, from floor to ceiling including all finished, materials and furniture is interior design. It makes sense if you think about it, to get a cohesive look in any interior space a designer needs to influencer everything, even the wall, floor and ceiling finishes are backdrops to the rest of the design.

So, while we think of the main 'design' points of a room as the furniture, art and other accessories. Interior designers are also concerned with every aspect of the design process including layout, area restrictions, time restraints, and budget. Interior decorators work on dressing an interior space using paint, furnishings, and floor and window coverings.

Yes, a decorator is solely concerned with the finish of the space, the coverings for walls, floors and ceilings and other aesthetic choices are their speciality. In contrast, interior design is the art and science of understanding people's behaviour to create functional spaces within a building, while interior decorating is the furnishing or adorning of a space with decorative elements to achieve a certain aesthetic. In short, interior designers may decorate, but decorators do not design.

Interior designers are able to bring together a complete design, mastering every aspect of a space to create a cohesive finish, while decorators master one aspect of the interior finish process.

An interior designer is creating an interior environment to suit not just your tastes, but the functionality of the room. A decorator is highly skilled in applying finishing touches to any interior space, but they do not deal with any other aspect of the room. In many cases, once they have selected the appropriate wall or ceiling finishes needed, an interior designer will use a decorator to complete that aspect of the design, but it remains just a part of the tasks that an interior designer is responsible for.

As with all creative services, the answer to this question depends on the scope of the project and the work needed to bring it to completion. Having said that, Australian interior designers charge between $100 to $400 an hour, depending on the state and the project. That cost doesn't include any chosen furnishings, however designers can often source these at lower than store prices, giving a saving on the overall purchase price.

Some interior designers charge a per room rate, rather than hourly costs, which is best for your needs will depend on the project. In terms of furniture prices, most quality designers will ask you to budget $150 per square foot for appropriate furniture for a given space, although this can be considerably higher if antique or specialist furniture is required.