Frequently Asked Questions

Creative Touches is the brainchild of founder Michael Pretorius. He started the company in 2005, with the intention of creating a company that can bring beauty and tranquillity into the homes and offices of its clients, and to create a platform of learning and expansion for people involved with the company – its employees, clients and business associates – thereby changing the Building Industry into a happier, more user-friendly place.

Creative Touches provides two distinguishable services:

• An implementation service where we focus on the implementation of a couple of products for example Sandstone, decorative cement and wooden floors (These are all expertise that we hold in-house to the company); or
• A turnkey interior design solution where we design and project manage the implementation of a finished structure until it is ready to be handed over to the client as a finished product. Here our implementation services would include both work done by Creative Touches itself (In-house), as well as the work done by sub-contractors who we are associated with.

The process starts off with a consultation in which we analise your requirements and start defining solutions as to your specific needs. From there, follow-up consultations will be scheduled to look at different product options as well as colour schemes, textures, and practicality measures to make the space as good looking, but also as usable/liveable as possible.

We believe that you should be extremely involved in this stage of the process, and as such, we give you a little research homework to do. What we have found in doing so is you get a chance to open your mind and broaden your horizons a little more. This gives you a better idea of what you really want. Don’t worry though, it is not hard, and we are there to assist you every step of the way.

It depends; the products that we specialise in – Wooden and Laminate flooring, Decorative Cement walls and floors, Paint and paint techniques, Water features, Sandstone applications, and some of our bespoke services – are all in-house and will not be sub-contracted. When, however, we do a project where we are employed as project managers, we have agreements and long standing relationships in place with other companies. These companies include electrical, fire suppression, construction, tiling, wrought iron work, carpentry, etc.

We do both corporate and residential projects. We are comprehensively insured, and has the safety measures and training in place to work on large construction sites or to service corporate renovation projects. On our residential side, we focus primarily on the upper end of the market, and as such our aim does not differ from those of our corporate clients.

• Decorative Cement products from Cemcrete and Saint-Gobain/Weber
• Solid wood floors and Decking
• Laminate floors
• Sandstone
• Paint and Paint techniques
• Water features, ponds and waterproofing

Yes, we hold Preferred Applicator status with CemCrete and Saint-Gobain/Weber. We are affiliated with Suntups wooden floors and Balterio Laminates as well as Mazista stone products.

No, our first consultation is free of charge. Often, we are contacted to do a specialised project with the products that we implement in-house. When we are contracted to do an interior design project, our fees gets charged per hour as set out in our contracts.

We have three fee structures:

• Project fee – based on a quotation for our specialised implementation projects.
• Design fee – based on an hourly rate for the design.
• Project management fee – based on an hourly, weekly, or monthly rate depending on the duration of the project.

Yes. Even though we do not focus on one specific school thought in our designs, our main speciality lies with natural, earthy, yet modern looks. We enjoy an Euro-African environment where the earth and nature prevails. Our designs are very seldom ultramodern, slick and minimalistic, even though we have done it before.

Depends on how much you love dust, inconvenience and noise. Building projects are disruptive by nature, and you should prepare yourself for this. If you plan on doing a large renovation, it would be advisable to look for alternative accommodation, or to cordon off the areas where you will be working or living.

It depends on a lot of things. How big the project is, what you plan to do, and what materials you will be using.

It is extremely important to know that most materials take time to dry and to cure. You should prepare yourself for that by budgeting the time wisely, and never to rush into the next step before the previous step has not completely cured. For instance, if you plastered a wall, do not expect to paint it the next week. The plaster might look dry, but in reality it is still busy curing. If you paint over it too soon, the curing cement – which releases gasses and is still busy getting harder – might cause the paint to start blistering or might dramatically decrease the lifespan of the

This is one of the prime examples of cutting corners (the other being low quality products, low quality labour and low quality information). Time costs money, but it costs more to rectify mistakes.

Ask as many questions as possible. Ask the project manager, site manager or operations manager. You can even ask me if you are not satisfied with their answers. Point out things that bothers you, and be vigilant for mistakes. BUT, don’t do it while the guys are still in the process of application and the products still need to be floated or finished off.

If you can see that something is going to be skew, or blatantly not right, please speak out. Tell the manager on site that this is worrying you. This way you can save yourself, and us from a lot of frustration and extra cost. Don’t leave a problem until the end of the project, and then ask for it to be fixed, it will probably make things extremely difficult to rectify at that stage, but also, don’t be too overwhelming, because that has a tendency to make the applicators uncomfortable – a recipe for disaster.

• Look at the colours, but know that it will probably change as it dries.
• Look after your belongings. During a project a lot of feet move in and out, and things tend to disappear if not held on your person, or safely locked away.
• Look out for people damaging things on site. For example, we did work in a large complex where the neighbouring kids would ride their bicycles after hours inside the house that we were working on. They damaged the new cement floors so much that over 100m² of it had to be ripped out and redone.

How important is a propper project to you? Scheduling the processes and managing those schedules is almost as important as propper preparation before the finishing is done. If the painter has already painted and signed a wall off, you do not want the electrician to cut a groove into that wall to lay a new cable. So too does it not help much if the ready-mix concrete trucks arrive on Monday and there is no one to lay the slab. Or the guys installing the swimming pool starts doing their thing while the plasterers are busy plastering the second story wall just above the pool.

These are rather obvious examples – let me assure you, it becomes a lot more fun in practice – but they happen every day, and that negligence (or blatant stupidity) costs enormous amounts of money. The more subtle examples are painters not waiting for the plaster to dry, or plasterers plastering in full sunlight, or ceilings being painted after the walls and floors have been finished off. A project manager is imperative.

• We manage our specialising projects by default ourselves. With your proposal, you receive a project schedule with actions and milestones. This service is provided to you free of charge when we implement our own products.
• When we are asked to manage an overall project, you are assigned a project manager, who will set up a project schedule that will include all the tasks involved in the successful completion and handover of your project. We will suggest specialists for the different products that we do not implement and assist in negotiations with them. From there, we manage everything, and try to stay as close to the schedule as possible.

No. We have a vested interest in the smooth execution of your project. First, we want to get our teams in at the right time so that we don’t suffer damage from other work being done, and secondly, we would like to hand the project over as soon as possible while keeping in mind sound practices.

Yes, we have a small range of water features, tables and other furniture that we manufacture. These are all hand-crafted, and not one will ever be exactly the same. For more information, please contact our office on +27 11 567-0333 or email us on info@creativetouches.co.za. Most of our products are made on order, consists of exotic materials, and therefore can take a bit of time to manufacture.

It depends on where in the country you are.

We do have and Export agent, but please allow for manufacturing and shipping times.