Helping people renovate and remodel their homes isn't a science: It's an art, and one that requires an experienced, expert eye and a dedicated team to nurture an intangible vision into a fully realized dream come true.
It's also a gift to share with others.

"I'm able to detect what a customer likes from the moment I walk into their home, especially if they have lived there for a little while," says Guy Ndandji, owner of F+S Kitchen and Bath Design in Voorhees. "By the end of the conversation, I know what to pull from our showroom for you and 95% of the time, you will like it."

The team effort it takes to deliver breathtaking renovations isn't just about bringing together talented designers and contractors, though. Homeowners themselves play a critical role in turning the creation process into a successfully completed project, as their lifestyle and tastes erring toward historic, contemporary, classic or modern decorating are what guide Ndandji's expert recommendations.

"It's about really understanding the client, listening to them and letting them express themselves," he says. "The first piece is the first free estimate, our first conversation, and that can take one to two hours, sometimes three hours if the kitchen is big and complicated."

For Ndandji, it's of the utmost importance to start by facilitating a "space of confidence" that encourages clients to trust his expertise—and also allows him to speak frankly about the ways individual tastes, current trends, functionality, spatial limitations and the overall harmony of home design might be at odds with what an optimally completed project looks like.

After all, he wants F+S's clients, as well as the future occupants of the home, to be happy looking at the final result every day. That's all hinged upon maintaining the harmony of the home, inside and out, even if he has to steer clients away from popular trends they'll regret spending money on once they see how it was a better idea than a reality they have to live with.

"Clients are paying me to help them, not to agree with them," Ndandji points out. "If you're spending money, you should let me, as a professional, help you out, to bring something that will pair well with your style, and your living style. I'm here to help them, and I can help them because I have the talent for it."

He continues: "If you attach yourself to a trend just because you've seen your friends' new kitchen, it may not pair with your style. The trends come and go, but your taste doesn't."

To that end, Ndandji believes in educating clients about why certain materials, colors and fixtures might create a clashing décor. And that's where F+S's 1,500-square-foot showroom is an invaluable bonus, providing customers with a streamlined, thoughtfully organized array of showcasing the domestic and imported kitchen, bathroom and other interior appointments available to customers.

"From the outside it looks like a little box but, because of my design experience and how we were forced to think about the ways we should set things up since we didn't have a bigger space, when you walk in, it feels like a mall because everything is synchronized to perfection," he says. "People are very impressed by the setup, the cleanness and the way everything is arranged. We didn't want anyone to be disoriented by their options."

A true full-service, one-stop shop, F+S stays with clients once they've selected the colors, materials and items to refresh their homes' designs, with its in-house construction team of licensed contractors guiding the project from demolition to site clean-up, whether they're fully responsible for the entire project or assisting a particularly handy DIYer.

"We plan with the customer, we design for the customer, we budget with the customer and we build for them," says Ndandji.

Ndandji doesn't just educate his clients: He stays on top of industry trends, reading and learning about the developments and advancements he and the F+S team can utilize to customers' benefits.

But nothing beats that old-fashioned human touch of attentive customer service and diligent, genuine relationship-building that extends the company's family-owned feeling to each and every client.

"Our clients become family," Ndandji says. "We're a small family business, and we believe in working for the clients, and especially creating a strong relationship. ... We believe that in doing so, it will open up the way for a future to work together again. If you want to grow, you have to believe that everything's possible to satisfy the needs of your clientele."

F+S Kitchen and Bath Design Studio
200 Haddonfield-Berlin Road #2, Voorhees
(856) 428-3800
FSKitchenAndBath.com

Published (and copyrighted) in House & Home, Volume 22, Issue 7 (April 2022). 
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