What is Ako's Essentials Design Service?
Ako Playroom's Essentials Design Service is a full-room design service tailored for playrooms, kids’ bedrooms, or shared family spaces. It’s a streamlined, fixed-fee option that gives you a complete, expertly designed space with flexibility to keep existing furniture or start fresh.
Essentials gives you a complete Ako-designed space to implement yourself, while our Bespoke Service includes Ako managing the full design and build process.
We design every space using our 3 part signature design framework:
Aesthetic Design: Visually cohesive, styled with intention and personality
Educational Design: Promotes learning through play and developmental growth
Organisational Design: Helps you set up and maintain a tidy, functional, child-led space
Ako's Essential Design service is right for...
Ako’s Essentials Design Service is perfect for families wanting a full-room transformation — whether it’s a complete playroom makeover, a beautifully designed child’s bedroom, or an active play zone within your home.
This service is ideal for families whose space is already a blank canvas and doesn’t require construction work. It follows Ako Playrooms’ signature design process, giving you a thoughtfully planned, educationally balanced, and aesthetically cohesive space — ready to bring to life.
You’ll receive expert plans, mood boards, and shopping lists from Ako, along with our guidance every step of the way. You’ll manage the purchasing, setup, and styling, either DIY or with your own local trades.
For families incorporating active play, Ako provides full working drawings for any climbing walls, ladders, or monkey bars, ensuring a safe and accurate installation. These can be installed DIY if you’re confident, or by a local builder or handyman using our detailed instructions. All active play equipment is designed and manufactured by Ako Playrooms and ordered directly through us, guaranteeing the same safety, quality, and design integrity as seen in our professional projects.
The Essentials service suits:
- Homeowners wanting a custom-designed playroom or child’s bedroom to implement themselves
- Families who want a more cost-effective option without compromising on Ako’s expertise
- Parents happy to manage setup with clear direction and support from our team
- Families working with their own trades or builders for final installation
Ako's Essentials Design Process
Ako Playrooms Onboarding:
- Educational, Organisational, and Aesthetic Design Questionnaires
- Measuring and photo guide to help us understand your space
- Collaborative Pinterest board for inspiration and communication
Design Meeting:
- Customised mood board with colour palette, equipment, product, furniture and decor suggestions.
- Aesthetic Design direction with styling ideas
- Full-room space layout suggestions
- 2D Educational Floor Plan with zoning recommendations
- Active Play Elevation suggestions
- up to two feedback rounds to refine your design
Final Design Package
- Ako’s Organisational and Educational Setup Guide
- Clickable shopping list for easy purchasing (FFE)
- Aesthetic styling and design document with set up notes and instructions
- Realistic 3D Renders of your final design
Ako's Essentials Projects
Choose Your Essential Design Service
Flexible, fixed-fee design services for every kind of family space with expert support and educational insight tailored to your space, style and budget.
Ako's Essentials Design - Basic Service
Includes
-
Ako Playrooms onboarding guides including: three specialised questionnaires and a collaborative pinterest board to share your inspiration. As well as a guide on how to measure and photograph your space
-
Educational Design Setup guide tailored to your space
-
Organisational Design Setup guide tailored to your space
-
Clickable shopping list for easy purchasing (FFE)
-
Complete full room re-design including, paint, wallpaper, furnishings, toys, lighting, storage etc. and play equipment for each play zone
-
Aesthetic styling and design document with set up notes and instructions
-
Realistic 3D Renders of your final design
-
One round of feedback and refinements
Ako's Essentials Design - Premium Service
Includes everything in Basic service plus
-
Educational and organisational integration of active play features into your layout
-
Working drawings & 2D wall elevations for active play equipment
-
Two virtual meetings design presentations
-
Two rounds of feedback and refinements
-
Budget-sensitive recommendations to help you prioritise
-
Text/Email/WhatsApp communication throughout design process
The AKO Process
Why Choose Ako's Essentials Design Service?
Expertly Designed, Without the Overhead
Our Essentials Design Services gives you the full benefit of Ako Playrooms’ expertise without the cost, complexity, or timeline of a full-service design project.
Thoughtful, Child-Led Spaces
We create spaces that look beautiful, function intuitively, and support your child’s development through purposeful zoning and educational design.
Clear, Supportive Guidance
You’ll receive floor plans, styling direction, and clickable shopping links, plus the option of collaborative meetings in our Premium tier, so you can confidently bring your new space to life.
Ready To Transform Your Child's space?
FAQs
We begin with an initial consultation. A friendly, no-pressure video call to learn about your family, your space, and what you’re hoping to achieve.
From there, you'll complete our design questionnaires and begin sharing inspiration with us through a collaborative Pinterest board.
Next comes your Design Meeting, where we dive into your child’s play style, developmental needs, aesthetic preferences, and functional priorities for the space. This is where we really personalise your design direction and take on board your feedback.
Then we create your full-room design package — including:
- A tailored 2D floor plan with educational zoning
- A custom mood board with colour palette, styling suggestions, and product ideas
- A clickable shopping list with links to everything you need
- Our Educational and Organisational Guides to help you set up the space with confidence
If you’ve selected the Premium Essential Service, you’ll also receive an extra virtual meetings and detailed working drawings for any active play elements.
Once your design is finalised, you’ll receive everything you need to bring your new space to life on your own terms, with our support just a message away.
The Base service is ideal for smaller playrooms or bedrooms without active play features and includes one round of feedback during our design meeting.
The Premium service is suited to larger rooms (16sqm +) and includes active play layout planning, an extra design meeting, and working drawings for those features.
Most projects are completed within 6–8 weeks, depending on your response time and the service selected.
Base clients provide feedback via our design meeting and have the option to do up to 4 product swaps after the design is delivered. Premium clients get two design meetings — one to plan, one to review and refine the design collaboratively.
Yes! We can design around any existing items you'd like to keep or suggest a full redesign with new furniture, toys, and décor. The choice is yours.
Yes, we suggest accessible, off-the-shelf products from well-known retailers. You’ll receive direct links and can swap items if needed.
The Premium service includes working drawings and layout planning for active play features. Our Active Play products are DYI friendly and come with installation instructions.
You’ll receive clear documentation you can pass on to a builder or installer of your choice.