It is not dangerous to appoint anyone to design what you want. Just communicate with them.
For example if you don't like dark colours, doesn't fancy too modern, wanted to have a comfort home yet in style and etc. An interior designer will ask you questions and provide feedbacks and ideas.
An interior designer should ask for a budget before designing anything because there's no point giving false hope to client who cannot afford to achieve what they want. As a client, you need to be frank, communicate and listen. As an interior designer, he or she has to come out with solutions and ideas to achieve the desire design. I personally will tell my client if the budget is durable or not.

Hi Sir,
For a professional interior designer, RM3k is almost impossible for any house...
May i know what is ur house size/ single/double story?
semi d? bungalow? all have different charges..

RM40k is almost built up 7000sqf price as we done before...

like ID adrien said, try to look on their portfolio, choose the one you like, and ask what is the things they provided..

Hi, maybe they just provide you layout and some 3d only?
or you get the price from freelancer??

try to ask for detail of the jobscope

RM3k to RM40k is a HUGE price difference.

for 4,300 sqft I would expect the price range to be more like RM10-20k.

That is based on the quotes I got for a 2,200 sft Duplex Condo that ranged from Rm4k - RM9k.

Regarding Rm3K freelancer - I'm assuming your using the term "freelancer" to mean someone who works by day as an ID for a company and is doing some personal jobs on the side in their own time. This is correctly known as "moonlighting"

The correct meaning of freelancer is someone that is working as a self-employed professional without any ties to another company.

A few things to bear in mind with this "moonlighting" proffesional.

1)  They are actually stealing business from their employer. Most employment contact bar this type of activity and courts will take the employers side when push comes to shove on this issue.

Imagine if your employees were also actually your competitor, is that very nice for the employer?

The reason I mention this is it shows the moral and ethical values of the person. So don't be surprised if when you are dealing with them they short change you or cheat you. either in $$$ or in not giving what they promised.

2) If/When something goes wrong, there is no superior or company to complain to, that moonlighter might just stop taking your calls and then what do you do?

3) the moonlighter often doesn't have the time or full resources that a professional freelancer or company has to dedicate to your project.

Now to address the RM40K quote? are they on DRUGS?
Ok lets assume their not crazy or on drugs, maybe they are including other services or items that the others arnt.

Eg they might be providing
1) Organising of contractors or trades workers.
1) supervision of certain parts of the reno
2) supplying some carpentry items.
Generally you only get what you pay for.

In Business a common practice in assessing quotes is to throw away the cheapest quote (assumption is they are cutting to many corners or it will be low quality) and the highest quote (assumption is they are overcharging or you dont need rolls royce quality) and then start negotiating with the 3-5 other vendors that have quoted in between the lowest and highest. Negotiation is on both price and quantity/quality of what is offered compared to other quotes.

Just a General Observation about ID costs.

I have seen ID quote ranges like RM X k for 1200sft condo and RM 2X k for 2200sqft.

But IMHO the price shouldn't be linearly increasing with Sqft, and here  is why.

1200sft has Entrance, Lounge, Dinning, Kitchen, 3 Bed and 2 Bathrooms.

2200sft has Entrance, Lounge, Dinning, Kitchen, 4 Bed and 3 Bathrooms.

So only adding 1 extra bedroom and 1 bathroom yet the price quoted by almost all ID was double the 1200sft price.

The Larger Condo has  Entrance, Kitchen, Lounge, Bedroomsand bathroom that are about 1.5-2 times larger than the smaller condo and in my opinion it shouldn't cost twice as much to ID a bedroom or lounge that is twice as large, there really isnt that much more work involved just more open space.

Just my 2 cents worth on ID pricing.

It would make more sense to price based on the number of rooms not the total sqft.

eg Price = A x Qty x Entrance + B x Qty x Lounge/living rooms + C x Qty x Kitchen + D x Qty x Bedroom + E x Qty X Bathroom.

Where A thru E are variables that reflect the complexity of each room type.

Cheers

You can afford a 4,300sqft Superlink (Im assuming if that is in/near KL that must have cost around RM1-2Million) but you cant afford Rm40k to make sure its perfect?

Hmmm the two phrases that come to mind are "Penny wise, Pound Foolish" and "maybe you cant afford NOT to spend RM40k ".
BTW 40k on a Rm1-2Mil peroperty is only 2-4% which is less than you would have spent on lawyers and stamp duties etc. I know out of Lawyers, Govt and ID who I would rather give my money to.

Of course if you can get the same thing for RM15k or Rm20k then its foolish to spend the Rm40k, but are you really getting the same thing?

I also think 40k is expensive, but before you put a limit on your budget you should think about the fact  that the "design" and "quality of the reno" will make your 4,300sqft home somewhere in the range Average - Good - Great - Perfect and you will have to live with the rest for the next 10-20 yrs.

We all want perfect but often we are only wanting to pay for average. At the end of the day you need to balance Quality & Quantity vs Cost and we all have different expectations.

To use an analogy; Some People will settle for nothing less than Rolls Royce and are happy to pay for it, others think Mercedes is the perfect option, others think Toyota is perfect quality vs cost option, others are more than happy with Proton.

Cheers

My experience of engaging an ID, they did not charge me a fee for ID if i opt to engage them as the main con.

IMHO，

"Many rumors said that, engaged ID must be expensive" - this is for ancients story.

If you wanted to spend 100k for your home, take out and 5% for your ID. it just RM 5k.

FOR the 95K, I think you will fully utilise it . WHY?

1st,Because ID already take profit on it. So they will bring you more choices. Because no matter which choices it is, they already gain their core profit. Others is a bonus.

2nd,Some ID will teach you a lil bit of cost calculating . So when you know the cost bottom line of the contractor. You can easily gain some discount from them.

Example,

Interior Wall Painting including plastering. Not skim coating.

Materials =10 tins Pentalite RM 90-150 / 5 liter(2 tins per room,4 tins for living hall and kitchen),3 tins Maxilite for Ceiling RM less than RM 80 per tong/ 18L .1 tong patty filla RM 80 also. Totall up RM 2,000 +-(Assume 1500+240+80)
Manpower = 2 foreign worker (2 FW RM 60 each, it takes 5 days.) so is RM 600 *Earliest can be 4 days gao dim.
Overhead =RM 200 for those acc like paint container,roller, brush + petrol.
Profit = RM 1000(35% profit)

So Total Cost here is RM 2,800.00 , Profit RM 1,000,00 . Total Amount would be RM 3,800.00 . Normally market price is around 3800-4500.

If When Invoice out, is RM 4000. and you expect to get 5-10% discount (Remember, if 100k, each contractor discount 10%, already 10k .)

So you already know the cost is 2,800. You direct bargain to him said. RM 3,600,I wanna discount  400. Thats all. So it still within their 30% profit. Both win win situation.
*Please bare in mind, not every interior designer able to help you on this. This require some on site experience and professional skills.
** Some ID more powerful, might teach you better skills to maximise out your budget. I had learn some, that some skills are even more SHOT TO KILL!!!

of courses.

but still the words, it not a compulsory .

Hi again Irenelck,

how did your ID sourcing work out? I'm interested to her your tales of final selection of your ID and the end result.

Cheers