G: Tell us about your business
St James Design Interiors are what we believe is a new approach to build and design serving residential and commercial sectors. We renovate homes and commercial buildings and also operate a property maintenance service throughout London. For many years, we only specialised in bathrooms, wet rooms, kitchens. Over the past few years, however, we have been appointed to carry out a range of diverse and challenging projects, including fashion studio interiors, commercial retail installations. We are working alongside some great craftspeople, so will be offering handmade bespoke furniture for our customers in the near future too.
I started 12 years ago as a self-employed tiller and very quickly enjoyed working for myself. I soon found that I had an eye for design. When I was working with other contractors I saw a real lack of care for customers and their homes. I could not believe that a tradesman would see it as a rule of thumb to put down their tools at 4 ‘O’ clock. All I could see was that they saw it as a job and did not have a passion for their work. I felt that I wanted to bring a more personalised approach to match my customers’ inspiration and so started a company that could respect their needs and go beyond their expectations.
G: What is unique about what you do?
We take on a project as if it was our own home and treat it with the utmost respect in doing so. Communicating consistently with customers is vital for any project to start and end with ease. We utilise modern technologies so our customers can stay in touch and be involved in their project wherever they are in the world via virtual meetings, so they can review work as it progresses. We also constantly update them daily with any challenges or advice that we have. One element of feedback we often receive is that our communication between us and our customers is very thorough and greatly appreciated.
It’s not abnormal for us to be working late at night or during weekends, as we make that possible to fit all our customer’s needs. Over the past years we find our customers are working longer hours and it’s not always convenient to speak between the hours of 9 to 5.
G: What would you say has been your most memorable experience while developing your business?
My most memorable experience was having the opportunity to work for Kanye West last year; we worked on his fashion house based in Clerkenwell and on the strength of completing the renovation of his studio, we became the first point of call for any maintenance issues. That was really exciting.
G: Why do you choose Shoreditch to run your business?
One of our most successful projects was being appointed last minute to transform a very large studio with only 48 hours to complete. We worked through the night with a team of painters and the job was a huge success. I have to say, I think our strength is in how our team work together and we consciously work to keep that close bond and respect each other to always deliver.
Shoreditch is pretty central and just one of the areas that we cover, but it stands out because it is an area full of creative people and it is forever changing. It is definitely one of our favourite areas to work because it throws up some particularly creative challenges.
G: What are your favorite places in Shoreditch?
I think Shoreditch is great for the young and anyone who is entrepreneurial or in any way creative. It is full of alternative dining venues and has some really edgy night life, which I like. Some of my favourite places here are: Shoreditch House, Pizza East and Tram Shed. It’s not for no reason that these are some of the most popular places in London… and they are just a few.
G: What does the future has in store for your business?
Recently an exciting project that we worked on became the winner of the ‘Sleep’ Award held at the Business Design Centre in London. We were appointed by Netherlands based Cullinan Interiors to contribute to the creation of a showroom for a 5 star hotel. We really enjoyed working with them and expect good things to come for the future.
We have had a lot of interest by European companies that would like to work with us, so we look forward to the New Year and the possibilities that may arise. The future of our business is to listen to our customers even more and keep evolving with them. We want to continue getting positive results from their feedback. My aim is to always bring new ways of offering building and maintenance services for our customers in London or beyond. We want to continue to find joy in our projects and keep the love of transforming someone’s home.
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