Recommendations for reasonable interior designer/decorator/builder in BKK?

[USAStan]

I am closing on a new, 80 square meter, 2 BR/2BA condo in EKkamai, BKK.

 

I have good design sense, but need help with actually realizing my vision for a renovation. 

 

Wishing for: new kitchen, wall treatments, renovate bathroom, add closets, wall treatments, electric shades, all furniture, etc etc.

Mid to higher range renovations, definitely not highest end. 

 

Any recommendations for reasonably priced contractors who "do it all"?  Need help with all steps of renovation including finding the construction, people, etc.

 

Got some quotes from ex pat guys but thinking maybe local firms are better/more reasonable. 

 

Thank you.

 

S

[OneMoreFarang]

Maybe I have the right guy for you. Currently he is renovating my apartment from scratch.

He is the contractor, Thia, and he organizes all the working teams i.e. for tiles, plumbing, etc.

 

I don't want that he gets distracted now with a new project. He should finish my place in a month or two and if you are then still interested send me a PM maybe start of December this year.

 

I spend my time thinking about what I want and looking for the right guy/company. What I didn't think about in advance, but what I now think is very important, how good those contractors are in accepting criticism. We can all aim for perfection, but it's unlikely we get it. For me, I accept that there will be mistakes. The important part is that the contractor listens and accepts (reasonable) critic and fixes the issues. It seems many contractors and workers don't like that at all. And then you could be in a situation that the current worker does not want to repair what he did wrong, and a new worker (team) is not willing to continue a half-done project.

 

Good luck! You need it.

[OneMoreFarang]

6 hours ago, USAStan said:

reasonably priced contractors

I learned that my idea of "reasonable" was way below what I had to pay.

Even many not so qualified people asked for money which I thought was far above any reasonable level. So, by now I adjusted my sense of what I think is reasonable.

[BostonJoe]

9 hours ago, OneMoreFarang said:

I learned that my idea of "reasonable" was way below what I had to pay.

Even many not so qualified people asked for money which I thought was far above any reasonable level. So, by now I adjusted my sense of what I think is reasonable.

Can you elaborate on what you thought was responsible and how far off most of us Frangs are 

   

[OneMoreFarang]

14 minutes ago, BostonJoe said:

Can you elaborate on what you thought was responsible and how far off most of us Frangs are    

First, I thought about the fact that it seems many workers work for minimum salary. I think that is 300B per day. I think most of them never work alone so let's say a 3-person team on minimum salary would be 1,000B per day.

But obviously most of us don't want untrained people. We want people who know what they are doing. So maybe let's double that to 2,000B per day.

And then, at least in my case, I don't hire these workers by myself. They are hired by a contractor. And obviously that contractor wants to make money. And the contractor is responsible for bad work. I.e. one team does a bad job with the plumbing. And then? They still want money, and the contractor has to hire another team and buy new material to get things done.

So, what does the contractor charge? Maybe double of what he pays? That would be 4,000B per day for the customer. Obviously, he does not charge per day. He guesstimates how much time is needed. etc.

I don't want to go too much in detail about what I pay. But it's more than the above calculated amount. And that is only for work without any material.

 

Do I pay too much? Maybe, I don't know. Until now I am mostly happy with the work and the timing. If they continue like that then all will be done with little delay - maybe one month late.

 

I think we all have to ask ourselves: how much am I willing to pay (extra) for the peace of my mind. Do I really want to argue all the time for paying 100,000B or 200,000B less?

[OneMoreFarang]

1 hour ago, CharityWhitney said:

If you have no experience in the design field, do not even try to do it yourself, as developing a good interior design is very difficult. It is better not to save money and ask for help from an experienced specialist.

The only little problem is of course if you have no experience how will you find an experienced specialist and be able to judge if that is really an experienced specialist? 

[OneMoreFarang]

11 minutes ago, CharityWhitney said:

On 10/7/2022 at 11:13 PM, CharityWhitney said:

If you have no experience in the design field, do not even try to do it yourself, as developing a good interior design is very difficult. It is better not to save money and ask for help from an experienced specialist.

Today it has become much easier to solve problems because you can always find information online.

I agree with @CharityWhitney that there should be at least one person with a good feel for design who understands the principles.

I didn't hire an interior designer because I don't want to have a design apartment like for a catalog - if that makes sense. But it still should look nice.

Recently I looked for bathroom tiles. I found tiles which I like. But then I thought I want only part of the wall with those tiles. But what to do with the other part of the wall? Other tiles? Which tiles?

What my design experienced (but not interior design architect) project manager told me was the following: I selected already the "main" tiles which will bring a certain look for the bathroom. Now I should make sure that any other tiles don't add another design feature. The additional tiles should somehow be non-intrusive, not with big pattern or something like that.

We walked through Boonthavorn with a sample of my main tiles to find something fitting - and finally we found it - with almost no pattern.

I would never have done this myself in that way and I certainly would have selected something which doesn't really fit together.

I write this just as a small example. I am pretty sure things like that can't be easily learned from the internet - even after a lot of reading and watching videos.