Two years ago we contacted Debbi to advise us on redecorating our aging and dated suburban house. We hadn't bought new furniture in 20 years and all our walls were boring off white. She was referred to us by a well known home service club to which we subscribe. We were initially impressed by her apparent knowledge of decorating principles and we were quite interested in the service she offered of producing computer assisted renderings of each room that would show how the chosen design would look in 3 dimensions. Her initial report made some recommendations which while a little vague seemed sensible enough so we went ahead, paying over $1400 for what was supposed to be a complete set of designs and renderings six rooms. What a mistake. After we finally gave up dealing with her after over a year, she had only produced two partial renderings, which took months. The designs were impractical and flashy and seemed to have little to do with our lifestyle. She refused to give any refunds despite the fact that the work was incomplete and unsatisfactory. Her design recommendations also seemed haphazard. She had initially recommended a gray field colour for the walls and we met with her carpet supplier to choose matching carpets for the living room and dining room and stairs. We later had second thoughts about the gray field colour, which seemed somewhat cold, so she recommended a completely different field colour, a sort of greenish beige. This seemed warmer so we went with it. Unfortunately she neglected to change the colour of the carpet and the result was discordant and unpleasing. She does appear to have a large network of suppliers but with one exception they were not especially competent. The carpet installer (one rather unhealthy looking overworked fellow for two very large rooms and two staircases) badly damaged the new paint job and did an indifferent job on the stairs that had to be partly redone. (To her credit Debbi did ensure that these deficiencies were rectified.) The paint job was spotty with wavy cut lines and gaps and "painters' holidays" everywhere. On her recommendation we also had new windows and doors installed. While the quality of the windows was fine, the installation was less than professional, with many badly joined mitred corners and gaps in some of the door frames. The one exception was her kitchen cabinet installer, who did a superb job of building and installing a new matching cabinet. The problem there was that Debbi insisted that it be placed near the door to the kitchen, disrupting traffic flow and sticking out like a sore thumb. We finally had to hire the installer to move it to a more sensible place at an additional cost to us of $500, which of course Debbi refused to absorb because we had "changed out minds" after she had dismissed our concerns about the placement of the cabinet because we and our friends were not "design professionals" and so could not comment on such things. Altogether our experience with Debbi was less than "magick", except for the magical disappearance of our money with little to show for it.
- Approximate cost of services:
- $1,500.00
