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Laura Ashley’s design service charges £100 for two rooms, then £50 per room thereafter (a non-refundable fee). Deborah Cox from its service has just redone a home for £25,000, including paints, carpets, curtains and furnishings, although she didn’t project-manage. “We design the house and do all the ordering, but leave the client to organise the actual painting and carpet-laying themselves,” she says. “We’re here to design — and to deliver the furniture.”

Rooms usually cost about £5,000, she estimates, for a total refurbishment: “It depends on the style: ornate classical might be more than contemporary minimalist.” Many clients look in the Laura Ashley catalogue for inspiration, and request replicas of rooms in there. “Others might only want partly Laura Ashley, which is fine, because we can work with their own pieces, too.”

Unlike Laura Ashley and John Lewis, Habitat’s designers will not just source furniture, but will project-manage a revamp, from flooring and curtains to putting the last knife in a kitchen drawer. For £200 for two rooms, then £100 per room after that, not only will they completely redesign a house, from picking paint colours and flooring to co-ordinating workmen, but ensure the sofas, coffee tables, bed linen and crockery you buy arrive at the right time. If furniture is in stock, and redecoration is minimal, the entire process can take just a month. A basic two-bed modern flat might cost from £6,000, Habitat suggests, from floors and curtains to furniture, sheets, crockery and cutlery.

Lombok, the Eastern furniture specialist, offers a similar service: £250 for up to two rooms, then £125 per extra room. It can deliver within four weeks, if products are in stock. Multiyork, which charges £200 for two rooms and has 60 UK showrooms, takes a little longer: because it specialises in bespoke furniture, pieces might take
8-11 weeks to deliver. Habitat, Lombok and Multiyork are happy to source products from other retailers, too.

Oka, the mail-order company, will redesign an entire house for no fee, provided the furnishings and paint are purchased from it. Oka doesn’t visit: clients must take plans into one of its seven showrooms, with photos or magazines showing the look they want, and staff will pick paint colours, furnishings and accessories, then arrange delivery, both in the UK and abroad.

It’s even worth seeking interior design advice on redecorating on a buy-to-let, says Sami Robertson of Knight Frank: “One landlord’s rent in Canary Wharf went from £380 to £450 a week once we’d redecorated.”

The key to furnishing rental properties is to keep them impersonal, says Roger Hollis, managing director of Roomservice Group, which specialises in furniture and redecoration for the investment market. “The decoration has to fit a purpose,” he states. “It has to be attractive and practical, but also be good value for money.” As well as providing a complete redecorating service (fees depend on the work required), his company sells packs, costing from £3,800 to £8,400, with furnishings for a two-bedroom flat. This not only includes basic furniture items, but a “homeowner’s pack” of cutlery, crockery, basic pans and bathroom accessories.

How much a landlord will spend will depend not only on his rental return, but where their investment is based. “Expectations in the north of England, for example, are not as great in the south,” Hollis says. “But neither are rentals as high.”

And for both owners and landlords there are companies such as Scheme & Co. For just £250 for up to two rooms, plus £125 a room, they’ll visit twice, prepare design and mood boards, and then project-manage. Commission is paid to them by the furnishing companies from whom they buy, hence the low fee. Furnishings, from wallpaper to beds and crockery, start from £3,000 for a one-bed flat.

“But we could create anything you want,” says Anne Donaghy, who set up the firm with two former colleagues from Laura Ashley. “With our retail background, we know all the stores, and where to buy the best value-for-money furnishings for our clients — from a quality perspective, as well as a design one.”

STYLE FILE

Alison Henry, 0800 731 0299, www.alisonhenry.com
British Interior Design Association, 020 7349 0800, www.bida.org
Habitat, 020 7631 3880, www.habitat.net
Helen Green, 020 7352 3344, www.helengreendesign.com
Joanna Wood, 020 7730 5064, www.joannawood.co.uk
John Lewis, 08456 049 049, www.johnlewis.com
Laura Ashley, 0870 562 2116, www.lauraashley.com
Lombok, 0870 240 7380, www.lombok.co.uk
Multiyork, 0800 040 7171, www.multiyork.co.uk
Oka, 0870 160 6002, www.okadirect.com
Roomservice, 020 8397 9344, www.roomservicegroup.com
Scheme & Co, 01444 240 260, www.schemeandco.com

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