Lesson learned, get the verbal agreements in writing!…read more Lesson 1: Retainer and Accountability After handing over $5,000 retainer to Richard it's basically gone. We would periodically ask "How much of the $5,000 have we used", with a response "Don't worry, you're far away, I'll tell you as you approach". And then one day, apparently we're past $5,000, no notice like he said. We spent many occasions asking for a warranty for a custom cabinet he ordered for us, this was a bad idea, because adding a middleman to the process just made it difficult, lots of chasing things through Richard vs the convenience of direct, a few weeks for a response, which is fine as he was overseas, but that's why you shouldn't have a middleman for such things. Ultimately when there was a problem with the cabinet quality we felt the middleman pain. And for the invoice, a few hundred dollars for an email here, items there, if we had transparency as we hit $500, $1,000 we might have been more careful. Lesson 2: Disagreeing with Richard Richard's preferred contractor operates on a blank check system, no detail, just hand over thousands, and he'll bill by the hour, had no idea if the project would be $5,000, $50,000 for $500,000, I guess we can always abandon it as we go. Richard sells this as "This way you're flexible to change and add things". After wanting upfront estimates, we decided to chose our own contractor, at this point the relationship with Richard felt different, comments with an undertone of "That's what you get when you don't use my contractor". But to be fair, the good: (Why it's 1 star and not 0) * Richard had some interesting ideas * He toured us his home which doubles as a showroom of ideas * He suggested a detailed floor plan, which whilst expensive, was nice to have and has had use since then In Summary I think there's a certain type of client who will be happy with Richard, and it's largely someone/couple who are very busy and wants to hand over a blank check and see what happens, and I'm sure some amazing remodels do happen as a result, but this isn't the service suited for ourselves, and a lot of people we know. Suggestions: * Transparency upfront about how the preferred contractor works before asking for money from customers * Continuous disclosure on retainer costs, Richard enters the costs likely the day of it, on a tool, give access to that tool so we can immediately see our balance OR a weekly email OR an email when we hit every $1,000 milestone at least.

We learned about Richard Landon from our daughter and son-in-law who worked with him on an…read moreextensive kitchen and living space remodel. It was obvious that Richard has a great eye for design and he gave them some really thoughtful ideas for their home. Our own project was to renovate a very small, older home into something we could live in for years to come. While the original ask was for help in redesigning the kitchen and bathroom spaces, Richard had some really clever and thought provoking ideas for the rest of the house as well. His innovative thinking really helped us to focus and identify what we need to do there. We would not hesitate to work with Richard on another project or, to recommend him to family and friends.

Blend IDS helped us upgrade several rooms in our house and provided 5 star service…read more The project was completed to our satisfaction and on time. The new lights and tables in the living room were a great touch and we love the new paint colors throughout. We changed the wall between the kitchen and the living room, and Blend IDS gave us a good plan to bring to our contractors. We really like the new custom cabinets they helped us select. We highly recommend working with this design firm.

Felicia Farrar of Blend Interiors is a great designer- she transforms your space with color and…read moretexture to bring it alive. She comes up with ideas I would never think of and is a great communicator and very professional. I highly recommend her for anyone looking for very cool living spaces in their home.

I am extremely disappointed with their design, which caused us significant frustration and added…read moreexpense. I would not recommend this firm to anyone. They specified 7' interior and exterior doors, which must be special-ordered and cost nearly three times more than standard 6'8" doors. By the time this issue was identified, the house was already framed. We requested that the contractor lower the door openings from 7' to 6'8", which required additional materials and labor. In construction, any change order means redoing completed work, resulting in unnecessary additional costs. The bathroom windows are also oversized for the rooms. No privacy. Additionally, the drawings were inconsistent across the three bathrooms. In two bathrooms, the toilets were correctly centered at 18", but in the third bathroom the toilet was centered at only 15", even though there was sufficient space for 18". The plumber had to move the toilet 3", which again resulted in added expense.

This review doesn't exist for any reason other than to let others know of our life-altering…read moreexperience from trusting AIRD with our home; a fact-based caveat emptor of sorts. An outcome of trusting AIRD is delayed retirement to fund remediation of design/construction defects so our 1000sf house can function w/o long-term structural, water & other damage. AIRD's reviews & ratings on this site as well other sites are compromised by reviews made by employees of the general contractor she collaborated with). (Rebuttal to Jan2023 reply: Alexandra Immel did not fully cover costs related to one of her firm's erroneous omissions. We were still stuck w a $3K balance for one subcontractors. We paid for/endured delays due to her employee's other omissions. Wasting $3K+, extra months of double rent/mortgage, do-over construction materials & labor is a tiny expense relative to our total cost of remediating issues that originate AIRD's design (& omissions), as well as trusting the contractor Alexandra so wholeheartedly recommended for executing AIRD's plans. The client should never need to research City construction energy code when they're paying professional designers. But I was forced to. Like most people, I *want* to give good reviews, want to believe that when several hundred thousands of dollars is being borrowed & spent, it's spent it wisely. In reality, some people will allow emotions to positively bias their reality of such a huge investment, their reviews, enable excuse-making for individuals they find personally amiable, overlook the aspects that were professionally lacking. Unlike them, for this project, I invested time & money not to make a new "friend" to forgive, but to have a home with better space & small 250sf addition for a better quality of life. The cure is almost always worse than doing things right w the right people from the start. We had/hv no choice but to remediate ASAP. The time to minimize risk of preventable rot (of materials Alexandra insisted on), leaks & other defects is upon discovery of such design defects, not 5-10 years down the road which is when they would have shown up in the form of compromised structural integrity (final product & plans were evaluated by several design/construction pros). There's no space for "positivity bias" in this case no matter how much benefit of the doubt I wanted to extend. When a project involves moving out/in, (14mos of gas guzzling time-suck commuting is more than adequate for adding 250sf & a bathroom), mortgage $, it's critical staff hv adequate skill, knowledge & attn to structural/enviro detail, be *up-to-date* on critical skills/issues involved (appropriate materials, enviro impact, bldg & energy codes). Also essential is a genuine leader of a team who also truly values the time & financial resources of their client. AIRD fell short in all these respects. I'll never forget the comment spoken out loud at an early zoom meeting where Alexandra Immel literally said, in her own words w/ a smile, "money is cheap" (interest rates were lower; conversation is on record). The standard *looking* design plans AIRD produced were so lacking in detail, especially at critical structural junctures that the builder Alexandra recommended could not to execute her firm's designs, w/o trial & error & multiple do-overs, as if they were learning on the job & lacked the experience Alexandra Immel claimed they had. They'll naturally blame each other but absent legal action, the client is stuck w/ the total cost. Cascades of decisions are based on upstream decisions & good data, visual renderings. In our case they were asked for & promised at the start. But were never delivered in a timely manner PRIOR to critical decision points. A logical *looking* workflow on paper from a designer means nothing w this frequency of omissions (incl on plans signed off by the then lone registered architect in the firm at that time & caught by the city inspector). Any builder is dependent not just on designers' plans, but also knowledge of & respect for city code, as well as time-tested experience. Per WA records for just the last 7 yrs, the builders so heartily, *gushingly* recommended by Alexandra Immel had numerous safety violations & violations involving unlicensed (in our case, also incompetent) workers. Per state court records the builders also have 16 cases listed, between the state SUPREME, Appellate courts plus superior courts of at least two counties. When I checked with the state, spoke with Olympia, Immel's own registration attempt as an architect stalled out over two decades ago. Which would be fine had she kept up with the ever-evolving field of residential design (sub 4000sf builds don't require registered architects). I wasn't looking for inspiration, just competency, honesty. What I got was, & is still to this moment, a nightmare of a mess to tediously undo & clean up at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars, robbing us of years of quality of life.

This place is snobby and the man who works there is pretentious. My husband and I walked in to look…read morefor bathtubs for our bathroom remodel and the guy basically said his tubs would not fit within our budget. He doesn't know us, he doesn't know how much we make, or what we do, but he immediately assumed it wouldn't work. I didn't even say a word. I just let him dig his hole and we left.

We have been terribly disappointed with our Pedini experience…read more Our architect suggested we go to them, and look at their Blu line of fixtures. We did, and what a mistake. They assured that we are getting a fantastic set of fixtures for our bathroom remodel. We swallowed hard because the cost was 50% more than the metal fixtures we had looked at by Koehler, but they convinced us. What a mistake. All of the control handles and Blu fixtures are stamped from plastic with cheap metallic coating. We've had two completely delaminate, and all of the wall covers have come loose. Our general contractor has been trying to get Pedini to replace those which the yellow plastic is showing through the cheap veneer, but three months later, the only thing we hear is the chip of crickets. Please think long and hard about a high-end distributor who pawns cheap plastic fixtures off, then seems to avoid standing behind them when they fail.

Rachel helped me with repainting my entire house,( she is in Seattle, I am in L.A. ) and it was a…read moresmooth and very stress free process! My colors are exactly what I wanted, calm and airy and the whole house flows together. It's beautiful! I sent pics through email and she sent me pics back with color samples and what to put on which wall. It was all so easy and she is a dream to work with. I think it's important when it comes to your home, to have someone that listens and truly tries to understand your personal style. I changed my mind several times and it was never an issue, she never made me feel like I was wasting her time. She's very talented and professional and I will definitely be using her again on my next project!

I was nervous about our remodel design decisions, so I scheduled a Design Day session with…read moreMichelle. She did a great job putting us at ease and made some great suggestions. She was very organized, which I really appreciated since remodels can be hectic. At the end, I felt we had a good plan to move forward with. When our original backsplash material didn't work out I emailed Michelle for advice and even though it was past our session time she was very helpful and encouraging. I would definitely use Michelle's services again.

Rebecca worked on our Seattle house for several years and even helped with the exterior. We really…read moreenjoyed working with her on the design process. She took the time to listen to our goals for the house and made sure to strike a balance between what my wife and I wanted. She was very respectful of the house's age and focused on creating a timeless design for each room. We're big fans of color, and it's clear that she's really skilled at working with it, which is why we chose her in the first place. Overall, we couldn't be happier with how everything turned out!

We hired Rebecca in December of 2021 to work on three rooms -- our entryway, living room, and…read moremaster bathroom. Our contract stated that she would provide design and project management services. We also purchased furniture from her for our living room. In total, we paid her approximately $50k for all of these services and products. Throughout the project, Rebecca made us feel as though we were her absolute lowest priority and frequently showed little to no regard for our time. After we paid her for the furniture, Rebecca stopped communicating with us. Her contract states that she will respond to questions and comments within 3 business days, but she frequently ignored our emails and we would typically not hear from her for 4-6 weeks, only after repeated emails from us requesting updates. For 6 months, Rebecca repeatedly told us our technical drawings would be ready within 1 or 2 weeks. Then we would not hear from her for 4-6 weeks, and would often have to email her two or more times before we would even receive a response. In her response, she would simply repeat that we could expect our drawings within 2 weeks. This cycle repeated for 6 months, and we finally received technical drawings in March of 2023, nearly 15 months after we began working with her. The drawings themselves lacked details such as terminations and returns, and even included the wrong colors. These issues were never corrected. Rebecca showed very little regard for our time. She frequently canceled appointments at the last minute without explanation, usually in the middle of the day that she was supposed to meet with us. We generally did not hear from her again for 4-6 weeks at a time, only after repeated emails. After 18 months of this behavior, we finally sought legal counsel. Only after this did Rebecca finally respond to us and deliver our furniture. However, when we had an issue with one of the chairs that required a warranty claim, the same behavior emerged. We would not hear from her for many weeks on end, and appointments were canceled at the last minute, on the day she was supposed to visit. We had a remarkably poor experience with Rebecca. Our project for 3 small rooms should have taken several months, but has instead extended to nearly 2 years without being completed. We would strongly recommend avoiding her services.

Avoid Rockwell Interior Design, which is also operating as Chic Cabinetry…read more(Rockwellcabinetsdesign.com) in Gig Harbor, WA. We chose Rockwell/Chic at the recommendation of our contractor, as this was their preferred cabinet provider. This proved to be a mistake, as Liane Rockwell was more interested in satisfying her sense of design than meeting our needs within the space available. Our contractor needed to intervene to get the design changes we needed. Then the design mistakes showed up with the cabinets. Drawers would not fit under bathroom sinks and had to be remade, the kitchen appliance garage was missing the internal box and shelves, and the storage cabinet for our laundry room was delivered without anything to support the internal shelves and it was 2 inches shorter than needed, preventing the installation of the adjacent cabinets flush to the ceiling as desired. The Liane's response was, "Those things happen", and she refused to correct the situation. Leaving our contractor to deal with the cabinet manufacturer.

Our experience with Leanne was awesome. We hired her for a full kitchen cabinet and countertop…read morereplacement. It came out perfect and we could not be happier. The cabinets and countertops are very high quality and just beautiful. There are many custom drawers, shelves and cabinets that Leanne designed in to fit in with the various "work areas" of the kitchen. It is the most beautiful and functional kitchen that I have ever had. Love it! I highly recommend Leanne.