The contractor decides whether your design gets built or approximated. You can have a flawless drawing set and a poor contractor, and the house will be poor. The reverse is also true, and more common than people think.
Here is how to choose a contractor for interior work — how to find them, what to check, how to compare, and the contract terms that protect you.
Where to find candidates
From your designer. A practice that works regularly has three or four contractors it trusts and knows which suits which job. This is the most reliable route, and you should still ask why that contractor rather than another.
From a neighbour whose finished home you have actually walked through. Far better than a recommendation about a project you have only seen photographs of.
From your building or colony. Someone who has worked in your society already knows the lift rules, the debris route and the RWA, which saves real time.
Treat online directory listings as a starting point only. Placement there reflects marketing spend rather than workmanship.
What to check before shortlisting
Visit two finished projects, in person. Photographs are directed. Standing in a room tells you about joinery lines, how shutters close, whether tile joints are consistent, how a skirting meets a door frame. Open a wardrobe and look at the inside of the carcass.
Visit one live site. This is the most revealing hour you will spend. Look for: is it tidy, is material stored properly off the floor, are the workers using the right tools, is there a supervisor actually present, and is there a drawing on site that people are referring to? A site with no drawings pinned up is a site making decisions by memory.
Speak to a client whose project finished two years ago. Not two months. Joinery, waterproofing and finish problems surface in year two. Ask one specific question: what went wrong, and how did they handle it?
Check whether the team is in-house or subcontracted. Most contractors subcontract some trades, which is normal. What matters is whether the carpenters and the site supervisor are their own people, because those two determine most of the quality.
Confirm they are currently not overcommitted. Ask how many sites they are running and who will be on yours daily. A good contractor stretched across six projects will give you a poor result.
How to compare quotes fairly
The only way to compare contractors is to give them identical information. That means a drawing set and a written specification — not a conversation and some reference images.
With the same drawings in hand, insist every quote uses:
- The same area basis — carpet, built-up or super built-up, stated
- The same unit basis for joinery — shutter area or running feet, not one of each
- Named brands and grades for carcass ply, hardware, sanitaryware and fittings
- A written exclusions list
Then read the exclusions before the totals. A quote 30 per cent lower that excludes civil work, electrical and supervision is not cheaper — it is a different scope with the same cover page.
Be wary of the outlier. If one quote is far below the others on identical drawings, something is different: a thinner carcass, unnamed hardware, fewer coats, or an assumption that variations will close the gap later. Ask directly what makes it lower. A straight answer is reassuring; a vague one is not.
The contract terms that matter
Payment against deliverables, not dates. “20 per cent on completion of first fix” aligns everyone. “20 per cent on 1 March” does not.
Keep a meaningful final instalment payable after snagging is signed off. If almost everything is paid before handover, there is little incentive to finish the last five per cent — which is the five per cent you look at daily.
Retention. A small percentage held for the defect liability period is standard and reasonable.
A written variation process. Cost and time impact, agreed before the work is done. This single clause prevents most end-of-project disputes.
Defect liability period, with its duration and what it covers stated.
A programme, with stage dates, and a monthly update against it.
Who is responsible for debris removal, society charges and making good any damage to common areas. In Delhi colonies this is a real cost and a real argument if unassigned.
Labour and insurance. Confirm who is responsible for worker safety and site insurance. On any structural or multi-storey work this matters.
Warning signs
- No written quote, or a one-line quote with no breakdown
- Reluctance to let you visit a live site
- A large advance demanded before any work or drawing exists
- No named site supervisor
- Agreeing to every change instantly with no mention of cost or time
- Dismissing the drawings — “we will manage on site”
- Cash-only arrangements with no paper trail
- A timeline dramatically shorter than everyone else quoted
That last one is the most seductive and the most costly. A contractor promising half the programme is either not being straight or is planning to run too many trades at once, which reduces quality rather than time.
Managing the relationship
Agree a single point of contact on each side and keep instructions in writing, even brief ones on WhatsApp. Verbal instructions given to a carpenter on site are the most common cause of work built wrong and argued over later.
Pay on time. A contractor whose payments are delayed moves his best people to the site that pays promptly, and you will feel it in the finish.
Raise problems early and specifically rather than saving them for a list at the end. Something corrected in week three costs nothing; the same thing corrected at snagging means undoing finished work.
How we handle it
At Pochē Aesthetics we issue a full drawing set and a specification schedule before anything is tendered, so contractors price the same house and the difference between their numbers is genuinely the difference between them. We are happy to work with a contractor you trust or to help you appoint one, and we supervise against the drawings — which means someone independent of the contractor is checking the work for you.
If you are about to appoint one, talk to us first. See also how to read a quotation, designer versus contractor versus turnkey, and how to judge joinery quality.
About Pochē Aesthetics
Pochē Aesthetics — also written Poche Aesthetics — is a luxury residential architecture and interior design practice based in Greater Kailash, New Delhi, founded and led by architect Niyati Satsangi. Over more than twelve years the practice has designed private homes — farmhouses, villas, builder floors and apartments — across Delhi NCR and India, handling architecture, interiors, materials, lighting and styling as one connected commission, alongside select restaurant and commercial work. More about the practice.