Interested to know what others think about this as well - i know the least that we can do is have a floorplan ready, have a rough idea on the preferred theme and have a budget.

Have you tried qanvast or atap those kind of platform?
Or would it be better to just contact the preferred IDs straight and proceed from there?

Is now a bad time to proceed with any house reno work if I haven't started anything?
I've been getting news about understaffed design firms (not enough designers and project managers), insufficient labour at contractor side as they rely alot on foreign workers and last but not least the ever increasing material cost. In addition to that, most firms are still catching up on their mco backlogs I believe?

For some reason, 4 out of the 5 ID I've contacted so far via WhatsApp hasn't got back to me with any reply. Literally no response at all as if they are no longer in business. No news from Qanvast matched IDs as well.
The only one that got back to me was honest enough to admit that they're currently quite busy and will not be able to do anything until November. Feels like they're overwhelmed with work and has no time to take on more projects.

try googling for "Japandi"
not sure if it's what you want

Oooh that translate directly to Italian minimalism