Clara Bee has a unique range of skills and experience within the team. These are essential to support clients in what is a fast changing, and often challenging market.
Following an initial consultation where your ideas, budget and timings are discussed in some depth, clients will receive a detailed proposal, setting out our recommendations on the specific services you will need to make your refurbishment project happen.
Interior Design
A fully bespoke design service providing everything you need to create your new look.
Your Design Lead will guide you through the process – from taking your initial brief, to supplying a vision for the refurbishment and all you need to implement it – keeping you informed as the vision develops. So you can relax and know you are in good hands!
The service includes a presentation of an essential package of mood boards and samples (for each room, or area in scope), sourcing lists for featured products, paint schedules (for colours selected), and budgetary estimates.
This service works across all size of project, from single rooms to full house refurbishments and extensions. Check out our portfolio for some examples.
Fees are project specific and are set following a complementary initial face to face (or Zoom if preferred) consultation. Contact us for more details.
Colour Consultation
Choosing colour can be a bit like marmite – you either love it or you hate it!
At a set cost (based on the number of rooms), our Interior Design team will visit the space and take a brief. You will then receive a Colour Palette with paint finishes specified for all areas of walls, woodwork, units and ceilings. Clara Bee work with a number of different suppliers – many sustainably produced, such as Coat Paints.
Project Preparation
Getting a large construction project, like an extension or update to the layout, up and running can be stressful as well as time consuming. Especially if you haven’t done it in a while.
Our Project Preparation service provides you with full access to Clara Bee’s experience of delivering successful refurbishment projects for clients in your area. See Projects.
Billed hourly, this is a consultancy service, helping you to navigate the process of gathering all the necessary components required for a successful project. No matter where you are with your plans so far.
We work alongside you to help prepare all the details of the project, while developing this in line with your preferred budget. Our aim is to get you through the process of defining a project that you feel confident to invest in. Our portfolio of projects include: See Projects.
Homebuying Consultation (pre-purchase)
Should I, or shouldn’t I….buying a new home is going to change your life. So, choosing the right property can feel like one of the most stressful decisions you have ever faced.
There is some comfort in having an impartial and knowledgeable person alongside you. We can review the potential and help advise on the likely cost to realise some of that potential. It can help relieve some of the stress!
Clara Bee offers a consultancy-based service to help with this process. It is offered for a set fee. We provide access to an experienced professional from our team who will meet you at the property you are interested in purchasing, prior to any offer.
We will listen to your ideas and requirements, and we will help you to identify latent potential by providing practical suggestions and ideas for extending and improving layouts.
The findings following this visit are captured in a brief report. This will help you make informed decisions on your next steps.
Getting a Refurbishment Project Started
When clients have a clear vision of what they want, the excitement is hard to ignore! You will want to get work started as soon as possible.
Following the design process, you will have everything you need to implement the project and realise your exciting new look. But as we all know, life takes over sometimes, other priorities fill your time, and projects drift.
Sometimes it is not what you know but who you know. As a supplier in the local home refurbishment market Clara Bee regularly commissions work with hundreds of local ‘reputable’ specialists, trades and suppliers. We are experienced buyers of these services and products.
Clara Bee’s range of follow-on services are designed to minimise the stress of getting a home refurbishment project up-and-running. Selecting reputable contractors and trades, navigating any compliance requirements linked to the works, through to buying all the beautiful things you see on the mood boards that deliver the ‘Wow!’ into your new home.
At the end of the design process, your Design Lead will sit down with you to discuss any plans you have for implementation. This provides a realistic assessment of the likely challenges that lie ahead and gives clients the opportunity to sanity check their plans.
Contracting and Implementation
A home refurbishment project is typically a significant investment for any family. Balancing the cost of implementation whilst keeping a handle on the purse strings can be a difficult challenge in itself.
Our Contracting and Implementation services provide clients with full access to the all the tradesmen and suppliers we have used successfully over the last decade to deliver a successful portfolio of projects.
Breaking a project down into a list of work ‘requirements’ and then engaging the right contractors to deliver them, is not as straightforward as it seems.
Our Implementation service will set your refurbishment project up for success. Experience counts in this fast-moving market. Many of the Contractors and Suppliers we work with refuse to work with residential clients, for a variety of reasons. They are far more comfortable working with Developers and Architects who understand the challenges and complexities of the work they are asked to price and deliver.
Like most project management services, the fees are linked to the size of the project and will represent a percentage of the overall cost. This can be estimated from the outset, but is developed as each contract is confirmed. This gives you full transparency on our fees, prior to starting any work.
Sourcing Products
One of the more exciting aspects of upgrading your home is buying a whole load of new things to put into it.
Mood-boards will suggest various products and components that form the vision that the Designer has considered and shared throughout the design phase.
But buying tiles, wallpaper and fabrics are not like buying goods from a supermarket. Supply chain challenges, and even the complexities of the transaction itself, can take much of the fun out of this process. In addition when contractors need materials for installation, and they are not there, costs can result.
As a trade supplier, Clara Bee is often able to source products and services at a discounted rate. By making these transactions on our client’s behalf, we are often able to achieve a good saving from the retail prices clients are able to source themselves.
With the Clara Bee Sourcing Service, items identified are purchased by us, on your behalf. This takes much of the hassle out of the process. It removes the need for clients to find the item at the right price from a reputable supplier, make the transaction, and check that it has been delivered to the right location. This way, clients retain a direct link to the suppliers (should there ever be any issues with their product in future).
Clara Bee charges a 10% (net) sourcing fee on these transactions. That said, the fees for this service are often negated by the trade discounts achieved by our team, which are then passed on to our clients. Thus, this service typically pays for itself.
Implementation
After the Design Process has been signed off, the Design Team will meet with you to discuss our Implementation Service and how it works.
Should you wish to proceed with our help, we will then agree the scope of the works to be carried out, collect accurate contractor quotes, set up a holding account to facilitate supplier and contractor payments, devise a schedule for the contractors, and purchase new additions for your home on your behalf (through the holding account). Our Design Team will manage the implementation process so you don’t have to!
Clara Bee, supporting every aspect of your refurbishment.
