Services

We offer a full spectrum of residential interior design and decoration services in Chicago which range from picking paint colors to designing the floor plans and complete interiors of a new home.  Refer to the links on the right for a full list of our services.

Habitar Design and Stratagem Construction can manage all aspects of home renovation and construction with extensive expertise in tile, custom cabinetry, stone work, electrical, HVAC, plumbing, roofing, water-resistant block coatings, drywall, cement foundations, sound proofing, and deck and garden construction.

Please contact us for further information.

Habitar is unique in being able to provide in-house construction services. Our craftsmen are our own giving us unparalleled ability to take our designs from concept to completion in a smooth, hassle free process with certain results.

Habitar Design has proven experience helping sellers increase their home value with strategic furniture staging, accessories, and touch up work. Our partners at Stratagem Home Builders bring valuable real estate experience when your goal is to sell. For the new home buyer, or the real estate investor, Habitar can help you realize the potential of your new a property. Purchase with confidence, knowing that your vision is achievable and affordable.

Hear from our customers.

Space Planning and Furniture Layout

Once we understand your goals, laying out furniture is the next step. Every room presents its own challenges (dimensions, window location, traffic flow) and every piece of furniture has its own demands. A television, for instance, requires seating for viewers. Marrying the demands of your space, furnishings and goals is what space planning is all about.

The process begins with measuring your space and drawing a plan either by hand or with computer assistance. After this, we inventory your furniture, photo graphing and measuring it and evaluating the pieces with you regarding their future use. Next we create one or more drawings showing furniture layouts in the room and review these with you. With your feedback, we create a final furniture plan and create renderings as needed. There renderings allow us to provide options for additional features such as accessories or built-ins.

This helps our clients decide what pieces they need and what pieces they should keep.

Floor Plans and Façades

What can you do when the kitchen is too small or when the house you’re considering buying has too many bedrooms but lacks a family room? This is where Habitar Design and Stratagem Construction provide unparalleled assistance. With years in the development industry, we understand the structure behind the walls and the general costs of construction. In addition, we understand what changes will add value at the time of resale.

To create a floor plan, we begin by measuring your existing space accounting for mechanical and structural elements that may or may not be movable. After discussing your goals, and aware of your budget and the structural and mechanical restraints of the space (plumbing, heating, electrical), we create exploratory room layouts. While it’s not easy to discuss exact numbers we can provide guidance to the approximate costs and relative costs of different plans. With your approval, we create final drawings and if you require, specify everything down to the electrical and plumbing locations. The plans can serve for permitting by your contractor if the scope of work is limited or can be used as a basis to create architectural plans.

Similarly, it might be time for a facelift on your property. We start by examining architectural plans or by conducting a site visit during which we measure and examine the structural and mechanical components of your existing front façade. With these in mind, we create a preliminary study for your approval. After modifications, we prepare drawings specifying the materials and details necessary for your contractor to complete your front façade. These plans can used to guide your architect. In addition, we can prepare renderings that can be used as marketing or informational tools.

On the left is a rendering of a modern façade designed for a building in Lakeview, Chicago. The building's façade was converted to match the Arts and Crafts style of the surrounding community.

Kitchen and Bath Design

Kitchens and baths are more than a sum of their parts, more than good fixtures, vanities, and counter tops. A good design balances concept and function and finds harmony between its parts. Components don’t just match, they work together to create a whole.

A complete bathroom includes a layout and specifications of all components such as tile, plumbing fixtures, flooring, vanities, cabinetry, counter tops, and hardware, right down to the grout color and access panel to the whirlpool.

Kitchen specifications are similarly detailed calling out appliances, electrical outlets, lighting locations and fixtures, plumbing fixtures, countertops, back splashes, flooring, cabinetry and hardware etc.

Among the issues we consider in designing and remodeling a kitchen are:

Stone Countertop Selection-- Does granite, a quartz composite stone such as Silestone and Ceasarstone, or a marble or limestone surface best serve the client's aesthetic, functional and budgetary needs?

Backsplash Selection-- Stone slab vs stone tile vs stainless steel mosaic vs glass mosaic.

Cabinet Selection and Design--Cabinet Materials (wood, composites, stainless steel, aluminum),Cabinet layout or custom cabinetry design.

Decisions, decisions, decisions… Whether it’s for new construction or remodeling, when your contractor turns to you for answers, you can turn to us for flooring, paint colors, windows, cabinets and countertop specifications. We can choose from a selection supplied to us or we can provide a broad range of materials from local suppliers that are available to you.

Whether it’s one piece or a whole household or whether it’s from West Elm or from the Merchandise Mart we can help.

We can design and custom build cabinets. We also build custom bookshelves, custom kitchen benches and tables, and custom furniture of every variety. In addition, we can create Semi-Custom built-ins by modifying and adding to standard cabinets. We work closely with several local cabinetry manufacturers.

Whether it's selecting curtains, shades, shutters or any other type of window treatment, we can assist you to make it right for your space.

We can design closets using commercial available materials or can create fully custom closets to fit your exact needs.

Fireplaces are often the centerpiece of a room. We can design and build fireplaces in any style and meld them into built-ins to create unique custom looks. We work closely with local suppliers to provide the latest in fireplace technology.

Deck and Garden design meld trellises, brick patios, plant selections, and areas for seating, grilling and other activities. They can be one of the most comforting and pleasant areas of your space.

Habitar Design and Stratagem Construction can manage all aspects of home renovation and construction with extensive expertise in tile, custom cabinetry, stone work, electrical, HVAC, plumbing, roofing, water-resistant block coatings, drywall, cement foundations, sound proofing, and deck and garden construction.

Habitar Design has proven experience helping sellers increase their home value with strategic furniture staging, accessories, and touch up work. Our partners at Stratagem Home Builders bring valuable real estate experience when your goal is to sell.

For the new home buyer, or the real estate investor, Habitar can help you realize the potential of new a property. Purchase with confidence, knowing that your vision is achievable and affordable.

Sometimes you just have to see it. Our 3-D rendering system lets us take your space and build anything from bay windows to built-ins.

Initial Consultation

The initial consultation is the first step in any major interior design project. Our initial consult has two phases, a one-hour meeting and a survey. Here are some of our goals:

1. Understanding your style preferences, your likes and dislikes. Perhaps you like a mid-century modern design but your husband prefers Martha Stewart Park Avenue. Knowing your preferences hones our thinking and lets us narrow the search so you have fewer choices to make. We can learn how to assist you. For many of our projects the process of design begins with helping our clients better understand what they like. That is why we can come armed with magazines, photos, and samples and encourage our clients to explore as we work together to determine their stylistic preferences.
2. Understanding how you want to use your space. Perhaps Sunday afternoon is your time to bake and you’ve dreamed of a befitting Baker’s Kitchen adorned with Hafele Hardware to lift your heavy mixer. Just downstairs, your partner and ten friends raise the roof every third play and steel into your Zen-like kitchen to grab beers from the refrigerator. A good interior design should offer solutions to this like a retractable kitchen door to dampen sound and a wet bar with ample room for beer and ice. Understanding how you want to live is key to adapting your space to accommodate it.
3. Understanding how you make your decisions. If choice is paralyzing, you may prefer fewer choices and strong recommendation from us. On the other hand, you may love making choices and only want our help in a supportive role. Either way, the key to successfully working together is to know how you like to work so we can tune into it. It’s also important to understand the dynamics of decision making – do you like to make decisions quickly? Are you and your partner joint decision makers? Understanding your process helps us tailor our process to you.

4. Understanding your budget and the relationship between cost and getting the perfect choice. A dining room chandelier may cost $300 or $13,000. Our goal is to create a design that you can implement which means the design has to fit your budget. There may not be funds to accomplish everything you had hoped for but proper planning gives us the best chance to optimize the use of your funds.
5. Understanding your priorities and schedule. If you leave town every spring for two weeks of skiing that might be the perfect time to remodel the kitchen which means the time to start preparing is in the fall. Knowing your specific needs helps us plan to meet them with the smallest impact on your lifestyle.
6. Do we match? Your home is a statement of who you are. The better we can understand one another, the better we can interpret your vision. Interior design requires a great deal of trust and the first meeting is your chance to determine whether the relationship feels right to you.

A one hour initial consultation with our Senior Designer is $125, Associate Designer is $100. This includes creating a proposal, itemizing your specific design goals and estimating the cost of your project.

The Contract

After our initial visit our designer will create a contract reflecting your projects objectives. Each item you requested will be listed with an estimate of the hours required to complete it. A range is given. A sum of the line items is provided to give an estimate of the total hours needed to complete your project. Ninety-percent of the time our actual hours for design fall within our estimate range. However, sometimes a client may determine what they like very quickly, spending fewer hours than anticipated. This will result in savings. Similarly, some clients grow very passionate about the design process as they understand it better and require more time and services. When projects take longer, they are billed more accordingly.

Our designers will do everything to stay within the range and will tell you when you are heading beyond the contract range and guide you to complete the project within the estimate. It is not always possible nor is it always desired. Design work is one of the least expensive parts of a project, however, it has one the largest impacts. Less expensive materials when properly utilized as a result of good design will look better than more expensive materials in a poor design. The cost of design work often gives pause to our customers but they rarely regret the expenditure when they see the results.

The contract is returned to you for your review at which point you may add or eliminate services. In fact, you may adjust the services at almost any time during the process as we work on an estimate basis. We are extremely flexible and top goals are keeping our clients 100% satisfied and creating stunning design that makes our clients happy everyday when they enjoy their beautiful homes.

Click here to view a sample contract (Coming Soon)

Deliverables

Deliverables vary from project to project. They may include:

1. A complete set of floor plans
2. Elevations and renderings
3. Specifications for all materials including flooring, tile, cabinetry, plumbing fixtures, lighting, all trim, and hardware
4. Purchasing list for furnishings
5. Post-design consultations with outside contractors when Stratagem Construction is not the general contractor
6. Additional construction management services by arrangement (to oversee outside general contractors).

Purchasing Services

To busy to do your own purchasing? It can be a lot of work. We can do your purchasing for you.

Set Up

Once the furnishings have arrived, we can set them up for you. We can install artwork and window treatments and arrange furnishings and decor. All you have to do is pick, approve, and give us a set of keys; we can do the rest.

Construction

Our sister company, Stratagem Construction, can meet any construction need. With an in-house wood shop we can create custom built-ins or cabinets specifically designed for you. We do complete home renovations in Chicago including kitchen renovation, bathroom renovation, basement renovations, and complete cut rehabilitations. Stratagem provides carpentry, painting, flooring installation, custom closets construction, major heating and air conditioning, roofing, electrical and pluming services to our clients. Habitar can design the custom home of your dreams and Stratagem can build it with a commitment to quality and customer service that is unique in our industry.

Understanding Cost

The cost structure of interior design in Chicago is based on the amount of time needed to complete the design goals. In general, the more specific and complex the interior design needs, the longer they take to complete. For example, creating a contemporary entertainment-center takes less time than creating a similar built-in requiring a place for stereo equipment, a fold-out desk, office file cabinets, and additional storage.

Time Frame & Fees

While the design work for a complete home renovation may take 2 to 3 months, construction can often begin before work is complete.

We do our best to meet your needs and to give you a realistic idea of how long different parts of your project will take. Our staff includes a number of designers and their availability varies (though each and every one of them is excellent). You can work with whichever designer you choose, however, their availability will impact time frame for delivering the work. Small projects can often be delivered in several days or several weeks. More complicated project may take one or more months.

Here are some approximations of the time required for specific task

• Kitchen Interior Design in Chicago................................5 to 15 hours

• Fireplace Design in Chicago............................................3 to 7 hours

• Fireplace Built-in design Chicago.................................5 to 15 hours

• Entertainment Center Built-in Design in Chicago....….....5 to 20 hours

• Custom Entertainment Built-in Design in Chicago...........5 to 12 hours

• Bathroom Design in Chicago........................................3 to 12 hours

• Custom Gun Rack Design..........................................10 to 60 hours

• Custom Built-in Library Design..................................10 to 40 hours

• Complete Home Renovation in Chicago........................50 to 150 hours

Our pricing is based on the following fee schedule.

Fixed fees are applicable for projects with a clearly defined scope.

Services

• Space planning
• Floor plans & Facades
  
• Kitchen & Bath
• Finishes & Materials
  
• Furnishings
• Cabinets & Built-ins
• Window Treatments
• Closet Design
• Fireplaces Design
• Deck & Garden
• Home Remodeling
• Real Estate Services
• Renderings

The Process

• Initial Consultation
• The Contract
• The Time Frame
• Deliverables
• Purchasing Services
• Set-up
• Construction
• Fees