London Design Festival Runs to 20 Sept; Materials Up 5.9%

Four things are worth knowing if you are planning a room or a renovation in London this month. The city’s biggest design week is under way until Sunday, one of its most famous buildings has been turned into a furniture range, the government’s latest figures show renovation materials still getting dearer, and Britain’s largest homewares retailer reported its year. Here is what each one means for your budget and your plans.

London Design Festival runs until Sunday 20 September

The 24th London Design Festival opened on 12 September and runs to 20 September, with more than 350 events across the city. This year’s programme is organised into 11 design districts: Bankside, Brompton, Blackhorse Creates in Waltham Forest, Chelsea, Dalston to Stokey, EC1, Fleet Street Quarter, Mayfair, Park Royal, Shoreditch Design Week and, for the first time, Soho. The festival’s London Design Medals went to Sir Christopher Frayling (Lifetime Achievement), Solveiga Pakštaitė (Emerging Design), Anab Jain and Jonathan Anderson.

Most of it is free, and it is the most useful week of the year if you are about to hire a designer. The Chelsea, Brompton and Mayfair districts are home to many of the fabric, lighting and furniture showrooms designers buy from, and a festival walk round them is a low-pressure way to see finishes in person, to notice which studios keep coming up, and to get a feel for what things cost before a designer puts a specification in front of you. Our guide to hiring an interior designer in London covers what to ask once you have a shortlist. The programme is on the London Design Festival site.

MADE turns the Barbican into a 23-piece furniture range

MADE and the Barbican have launched MADE x Barbican, a 23-piece collection of furniture, lighting, textiles and accessories based on the Barbican Estate and the interiors designer Miriam Howitt created for its original show flats. Prices start from £32. It has been on sale at MADE.COM since 17 August, with selected pieces in the Barbican Shop, and during the festival MADE has an installation in the Barbican Centre’s Level G Hub Space from 12 to 20 September looking at the archive behind the designs.

The Barbican’s language of curved forms, grids, stained ash and chrome, in warm neutrals with moss green, ochre and rust, is a look many London flat owners already want, and this is a cheaper way into it than commissioning bespoke joinery. The practical point is that a single branded range makes a room look bought in one go; a designer would usually mix one or two statement pieces with older or vintage furniture. Our round-up of interior design trends for 2026 puts this year’s looks in context. The details are in the Barbican’s press release.

Renovation materials cost 5.5% more than a year ago

The government’s monthly building materials figures, published on 16 September, show material prices for all construction work up 5.9% in the year to July 2026 and up 0.4% on June. For repair and maintenance, the category closest to a kitchen, bathroom or refurbishment job, prices were up 5.5% on the year. Some items moved much further: fabricated structural steel was up 20.9%, rigid pipes and fittings 15.5% and flexible pipes and fittings 11.7%. Electric water heaters were 1.5% cheaper and cement 3.5% cheaper.

The rise lands unevenly. Steel is what goes into the beams that support a knocked-through wall or a rear extension, and pipework runs through every bathroom and kitchen refit, so plumbing-heavy and structural jobs are the ones most likely to come in above a quote that is a year old. If you had a price or a budget drawn up in 2025, it is worth asking your contractor which lines have moved before you sign. Our new bathroom cost and new kitchen cost guides break down where the money goes, and the interior design budget planner lets you add a contingency. The figures are in the GOV.UK commentary.

Dunelm grows sales 3.1%, but profit stands still

Dunelm reported sales of £1.83 billion for the 52 weeks to 27 June 2026, up 3.1%, on 8 September. Profit before tax was flat at £211 million, which the company put down to inflationary pressures and costs linked to sales volumes. Its share of the homewares market rose to 7.9%, digital sales made up 42% of revenue, it runs 204 stores across the UK and Ireland, and it launched a new strategy called Winning Hearts and Homes.

The detail for shoppers is the gap between sales and profit: a retailer selling more but earning the same is absorbing higher costs, the same pressure the materials figures above show further up the supply chain. If you are furnishing a room on a budget, it is worth buying the pieces you are sure about when they are on offer rather than assuming prices will fall. The results are reported by ADVFN.