Decorating Den Interiors

Jeanne may be fine as an interior decorator, but she claims to be competent at remodeling kitchens and that is 100% not the case. In terms of kitchen "remodels," she is basically just a rep for a good cabinet maker. She knows nothing at all about counter tops, sinks, faucets, lighting, or even where to get glass for cabinet doors. I had to find all of that on my own. In addition, she is disorganized and scattered with poor communication skills. My husband and I hired her at the end of April 2016 and told her we would need the kitchen cabinets by mid-July. She said that would not be a problem. I literally handed her the kitchen design - she barely had to do anything. She just needed to update a few design elements (which I provided to her in the form of photos), add in some extra features (roll-out drawers, a little special cabinetry), and take the measurements. It took her two months to do this. In that time, weeks would go by with no word from her. I would follow up to check on the status and she would respond saying that she needed an answer to a question that I had given her weeks earlier. She came out to measure the kitchen five times. She had no idea how to go about doing anything innovative with the cabinetry (luckily, her cabinet maker could figure it out) and she tried several times to talk me out of the coolest part of the kitchen (the corner drawers I insisted on instead of the lazy susan she wanted me to put in). She had no suggestions for anything unique or modern for the cabinetry. Thank goodness for Pintrest. After she finally finished the drawings for the kitchen cabinets (by hand - she doesn't use any computer software like a real professional would), I thought everything was fine. Until I received a call from her letting me know that the cabinetry wouldn't be done until the middle of August - a whole month late. Turns out she never reserved the cabinet maker for the time frame we needed (since she took two months to finish our cabinet design) and other customers booked him up. She knew that our kitchen had been torn out in June as part of the overall house remodel and that we would have no kitchen until the new one was installed. And since the counters and appliances couldn't be installed until after the cabinetry came in, that meant that we had to live in our house for a full month with no kitchen. All due to Jeanne's incompetence. And speaking of incompetence, and why I am finally writing this review over a year later, the one thing that Jeanne did suggest to us was about installing these cool under-the-cabinet outlets that are hidden so you don't have to have them in the middle of your nice back splash tile. They were super expensive, but look good. Except apparently she ordered the wrong version of them and now we can't close the permit out on our kitchen remodel because they are against building code. And our contractor who did the rest of our house remodel (WHO JEANNE RECOMMENDED TO US and who was also terrible) was also too dumb to realize this when he installed them. Now we can't get either of them to replace them with the version that should have been installed to meet code requirements and pass our city inspection. Whatever you do, do NOT hire this woman. The cabinet maker she works with is great, but you don't have to go through her to get them. Jeanne seems to be a nice woman, but she is incapable of providing a professional service to her customers.

The first time the ladies came to the house they went through and told us all the things they thought we should do to improve the house, giving some excellent ideas. They told us that we should have the lighting updated in the dining room, foyer, and master bathroom. We should up date the mirrors in the bathrooms with frames and new decorations. Plus the items we wanted completed in the first place. All of this seemed like wonderful ideas and we agreed to have them help us. They told us that while they would not be the "cheapest", they would be reasonably priced. Boy was that WRONG! $1200 for window treatments (for only 3 windows), $200 a piece for mirror frames and $350 a piece for lighting fixtures in the dining room and foyer. I don't know where they missed the point that we are planning to sell this house but man did they. Also, when attempting to choose the material to make the window treatments they did not seem to listen to what I liked or my style. I picked out patterns, colors, and materials and the next time they came they did not have the same ones and had patterns and colors I specifically stated I did not like. They also did not seem to take into account the items we said were our top priority (painting, extra lighting and back-splash). I do have to say that the people they suggested for the actual labor we needed done were fantastic! I would recommend them for ideas and suggestions but not for any kind of actual work. They have great ideas but those ideas could be executed for a lot less money by finding the items on your own.

It went very well. I did not buy everything she suggested as I felt some items were too expensive for my budget.