This article explains what an interior design and FF&E service includes, how designers typically charge, and how procurement and delivery actually work in Greece, particularly for island properties. It also sets out our own approach to fees, which differs from much of the market.
FF&E stands for furniture, fittings and equipment: everything that makes a finished building a usable home, from sofas, beds and dining tables to lighting, curtains, rugs, tableware and appliances. On a villa or holiday home, FF&E is a project in its own right, with its own budget, programme and logistics.
Fineline Studio is an ARB- and TEE-registered architecture practice based in Athens, providing architecture, interior design and full FF&E procurement across Greece. Contact us to discuss your project.
What does the service include?
A full interior design and FF&E service typically covers:
- Concept and spatial design: how each room is furnished, laid out and lit, developed with mood boards and drawings until it is decided, not implied
- Custom joinery design: kitchens, wardrobes, headboards and built-in furniture, drawn in detail for fabrication
- Specification: a complete, priced schedule of every item, room by room, down to tableware if required
- Procurement: ordering, payment handling, and management of suppliers and lead times
- Delivery and logistics: consolidation, shipping, and the sequencing of deliveries to site
- Installation and styling: placing, assembling and dressing the property to completion
The last three are where furnishing projects succeed or fail, and they are chronically underestimated. Anyone can select a sofa; landing forty suppliers’ worth of orders on an island, undamaged, in the right order and before the first guests arrive, is an operations problem.
How interior designers charge, and how we do
The market typically charges for FF&E in one of three ways: a percentage of the furnishing budget, a markup on products purchased, or retention of the trade discounts that suppliers offer to professionals. Often it is a combination, and often the client never sees the underlying prices.
The difficulty with all three is the incentive they create: the designer earns more when you spend more, and the true cost of each recommendation is opaque.
Our approach at Fineline is different. We charge a fixed design fee, agreed at the outset, which does not change with the amount spent on furniture. The fee is divided across the three phases of work, with roughly 20% for the concept, 50% for sourcing and specification, and 30% for delivery and styling, invoiced as each phase begins.
Clients pay suppliers directly, and all trade discounts secured through our supplier accounts are passed on in full. This means the supplier’s actual price and the discount obtained are both visible, and the client pays the net amount. Our compensation is the design fee alone, so our advice carries no incentive other than the quality of the result; we earn the same whether you choose the expensive lamp or the reasonable one. In practice, the discounts passed on often offset a meaningful share of the fee itself.
Site visits and travel are charged separately, at a per-visit rate with travel at cost. An island project therefore pays for its ferries transparently, rather than through a padded design fee, and a mainland project does not subsidise them.
What does the fee come to?
The fee reflects the work involved, so it is driven by the size of the property, the number of distinct spaces to be designed, and the depth of the scope, rather than by the furnishing budget. As an indication, design fees for a pure FF&E scope, where kitchens, bathrooms and built-in joinery are already in place, typically start from around €70 to €90 per square metre of furnished internal space. Small projects carry a minimum fee, as the fixed work of sourcing and coordination does not shrink with the floor area.
Fees rise where the scope deepens: custom joinery design, lighting design, coordination of fixed elements, or several properties each requiring a distinct design language. Similar or repeated units are priced with the repetition in mind; a second villa sharing core selections with the first does not double the fee.
What does furnishing cost?
As a rough guide for a quality pure FF&E package in Greece, with kitchens, bathrooms and built-in joinery already in place, allow €300 to €450 per square metre including VAT and mainland delivery. Where the scope extends to custom joinery, lighting and fixed elements, budgets rise meaningfully from there. A 120 m² holiday apartment might therefore carry a pure FF&E budget of €36,000 to €55,000, and a large villa with a fuller scope considerably more. Custom joinery, outdoor furniture and lighting are the items that move the total most. For rental properties, we specify for durability and ease of replacement as much as for appearance; a beautiful chair that cannot survive a season of guests is a bad specification.
A good FF&E schedule mixes sources deliberately: bespoke pieces from local workshops where they earn their place, well-made standard items where they do not, and vintage or antique pieces that give a property a settled character that catalogue furnishing never achieves. This mix is also usually the most economical route to a distinctive result.
Procurement and island logistics
Furnishing an island property is an exercise in programme management:
- Lead times on furniture commonly run 8 to 16 weeks, and longer for custom pieces, so ordering starts months before the property is ready
- Consolidation matters: grouping deliveries to a mainland warehouse and shipping in planned loads costs far less, and breaks far less, than forty separate couriers attempting an island address
- Ferry schedules and seasons shape the plan; a delivery window missed in autumn can slide months
- Installation is a scheduled operation with the right people on the ground, not a stream of boxes left at a gate
We have procured, shipped and installed complete FF&E packages for island villa projects, and this logistics discipline is a core part of the service rather than an afterthought.
Contact us if you are furnishing a property in Greece. A short conversation about lead times now can save your opening season.
Interior design with your architect
Where we are also the project’s architect, the interiors are not a separate exercise applied at the end: joinery is coordinated with walls and services while they can still move, lighting is designed with the architecture, and the FF&E programme is built into the construction programme so the property completes once, properly. Where the building work is by others, we provide the interior and FF&E service on its own, most often for owners preparing a property for rental or sale.
How the process works
- Brief and budget. Use, guest capacity, rental strategy if any, and a realistic total.
- Concept. Room-by-room design, materials and the custom/standard/vintage mix agreed.
- Specification. The complete priced schedule, with supplier prices and discounts shown.
- Procurement. Orders placed against the agreed schedule; we manage suppliers and payments.
- Delivery. Consolidation, shipping and site logistics, sequenced with the building programme.
- Installation and styling. The property handed over complete, photographed and ready.
FAQs
Do you only provide FF&E for your own architecture projects?
No. We provide interior design and FF&E procurement as a standalone service, most often for holiday homes and rental properties.
Why a fixed fee rather than a percentage?
Because a percentage rewards spending. A fixed fee, with all trade discounts passed on and every price visible, keeps our advice aligned with your budget rather than with the invoice total. The fee is sized on the property and the scope, not on what you spend.
Can you work with what we already own?
Yes, and we prefer to. Existing and inherited pieces are surveyed at the start and worked into the scheme; reuse is part of how we design.
Fineline Studio provides interior design and complete FF&E procurement across Greece and the islands. Contact us for a free introductory consultation.