Designs By Cheryl Lynn & Associates, LLC.

Very well, neat and reasonable.

Great Job!!!!!

Update: Cheryl DEMANDED final payment on June the 17th. Today is July 27th, 40 days later and the kitchen still isn't 100% complete. We hired Cheryl Lynn Designs for a kitchen remodel. I am writing this review, in spite of Cheryl threatening me about writing her a negative review. We have no doubt she will respond and state that this is all lies and will attempt to discredit us, the accountant and the retired military officer. Please learn from our mistake. She sent me an email on June 18th and stated: “…You have made false claims against me in your text messages and to you husband. I will let you know that if you choose to do a bad review about me, or try and slander me in any way, I will respond with the appropriate action. Angies’s List – I can respond to your review, and put pictures, and copy emails, text messages, phone records etc and list it all. Angie’s List now lets me the provider also do a review on you. And rate you. If you slander my name I will take action.” I have discussed my concerns of retaliation with the folks at Angie’s List, and they have encouraged me to write an unfettered review. So here goes…. We liked Cheryl initially. However, we quickly lost confidence in her. We hired a designer to schedule the work and coordinate the subs. And was told from the beginning that each piece of the kitchen project would fall one right after the other. That was not the case. It was very stressful, and we never knew from one day to the next what was happening, if we needed to be home or not. More often than not, however, we were told someone was coming out, only to be rescheduled. Luckily, the subs that she uses (all independently owned businesses) were wonderful to deal with, and I simply stopped dealing with Cheryl and dealt/scheduled with them myself. Cheryl Lynn Designs added no value to the project. My first mistake was telling her our budget. And, surprise! Her quote came in exactly at what my budget was. However, it did not include the electrician, the lighting, the faucet & disposal, and the cabinet hardware. We came in over budget approximately 20%. Which must be her mark-up. (I asked her early on in the process if she marks up her subs and was told no.) Either that, or she has over charged me $2700 for the cabinetry, and she stated this was a transposition error, but has refused to refund this amount to us. Her ‘design plan’ was amateurish and lacked substance. It consisted of her bringing about 15 samples to our house, and pictures of cabinet stains. That’s it. Having worked at an architectural firm, I fully expected boards with various options. The only board she brought was a board with pictures of three kitchens. None of which were what we wanted to do. We had to wade through the samples, and we both just kind of stared at them in disbelief. Wondering what the heck?? That was the second mistake. Ultimately, we stammered through and picked out granite and tile for the backsplash that we are pleased with. Then, as another reviewer stated, she logged onto her email using our computer, and showed us pictures from Lowe’s and Home Depot of faucets, light fixtures, cabinet hardware. Um no. I’m not going to buy $2 hardware on custom built cabinets. I then stated that I will not purchase a faucet from a big box store because they have a lower quality than a plumbing supply store. She said that was false. Every plumber I have ever spoken to has told me to always buy faucets, etc. from a plumbing supply store. She also seemed confused as to why I wanted to replace my disposal. Well, why wouldn’t I? I’m replacing everything else. This must eat into her mark-up. Cheryl lacked follow-through. A perfect example of this was the tile was never ordered for the backsplash. She stated she placed the order, but didn’t know it was never ordered until the afternoon before the backsplash was due to be installed. This delayed the project another 2 weeks. We saw Cheryl’s true colors on June 16, which really affected the outcome of this review because before this date it wouldn't have been as negative. The backsplash was being installed, and she wanted her final payment. I informed her that the job wasn’t complete. Something she should have known, but obviously didn’t. We had an issue with 4 drawer fronts. She was demanding final payment on June 17, once the backsplash was completed. And threatened in texts and voicemails that she would pull the tile installers off the job if I didn’t pay in full. She sent me 34 texts in about 3.5 hours on June 16 demanding that I respond immediately and return her call. I informed her multiple times that I was at work and was in meetings all day. I quite frankly didn’t have 30 minutes to listen to her bloviate. She left me a 2.5 minute voicemail calling me childish, and saying that I have an attitude, and that I’m wasting her time. Cheryl seemed to forget that we are the customer and she is working for us. We then decided that she would not be allowed into our home to take pictures for her portfolio. She was absent during the entire project. The only time Cheryl came out to the house during the project was to collect the final payment. Then was surprised when we would not allow her to take pictures for her portfolio. Once she was told no pictures, she then handed her phone to one of the tile installers and told him to go in and take pictures, which we didn’t allow. She then began inquiring about what sort of home security system we had in place. She referred to me as demanding and controlling. I, however, call it looking out for our best interests. She was paid in full on June 17. Today is July 11, and the job still isn’t complete. The subs that she works with were all great and we will definitely use them on future projects. • New Age Cabinetry & Design built the kitchen cabinets. They are beautiful. Randy did everything he said he would do, and is very easy to work with. • Steve Stone of A Sandy Stone, LLC stained the cabinets and painted the island. His work is beautiful, the cabinets look like fine furniture. • Carolina Custom Tile (Brandon) did a great job on the backsplash. And was awesome to work with. • Russell at Foremost Plumbing was awesome. He spent an entire day re-plumbing the pipes at the sink area after a pipe broke during the demolition. • Ray at My Granite Kitchen was awesome to work with, and the granite is beautiful. Cheryl is extremely difficult to work with, and we will never hire her again. And, regret hiring her for this project. Although, we are extremely pleased with the work of the individual businesses listed above. Our job still isn’t complete, and it’s been over 3 weeks since she received final payment.

We chose a painter and scheduled the work. There is where everything started to go downhill. The painter was extremely polite and professional, and was a fantastic painter. However, his drywall/mudding skills left a lot to be desired. We went through several weeks of multiple visits per week, sometimes multiple visits per day to try and get the walls looking nice. After almost a month, we requested that Cheryl Lynn take a look at the work and find someone else to complete it. She did not come by to look at the walls, only asked us for pictures of them. Towards the end of working with the first painter, he told us he does not work with Cheryl Lynn regularly, and would not be working with her again. The second painter was again extremely professional and polite, and did a fantastic job, although it did again take several visits over several weeks. The entire time, Cheryl Lynn only communicated by phone or text, never in person. There were times where we called her to ask about the painter, but instead of returning our call, she had the painter call us back. In my opinion, that is extremely unprofessional. The second painter also told us that he would never work with Cheryl Lynn again. The agreement at the beginning was 50% up front, and the rest WHEN WE WERE SATISFIED WITH THE WORK. We are STILL not satisfied with the walls, but we refused to deal with Cheryl Lynn any longer and paid her to get her out of our lives. When she finally came by after we told her we were done, she agreed that the walls did not look like they should have. My wife brought up several points about paint colors and painting, Cheryl Lynn tried to say it was complicated picking out colors and getting them right, to which we replied, "That's why we hired a decorator". The entire process, to fix some bad patches, and paint our kitchen took almost 2 months, and was a stressful nightmare. We will never again work with Cheryl Lynn for anything.

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Cheryl was at first responsive but be ready to be frustrated soon. After the initial consultation it took her 5 weeks to deliver a design. She postponed the design presentation twice on the day of the meetings. She told me on 5 occasions to expect a call from her construction guy who never called me despite her assurances. She was 30 minutes late to the meeting and but didn't call to tell me she was late. Her presentation was binder with printouts of marketing images from fixture design companies, 3 tile sample boards, and 4 small pieces of marble. She told me what I told her at our first meeting and had a tile guy take some measurements, she then asked to use my laptop to log into her email account to show me the fixtures she found. I was appalled by the lack of professionalism which got worse when she told me she didn't email it to me in advance because she didn't trust me to have it before her big design reveal. The worst experience with her was at the end of the meeting when she asked me for payment without an invoice. When I asked her to email me the invoice and said I would mail a check she did with a rude note telling me it should have been paid upon receipt of her services and asked me to email my credit card number to her. She billed me for over 7 hours of her time but I can't tell where more than 45 min was spent.

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Cheryl Lyn did a great job and I am very pleased with the new colors in my living room along with the new flooring. Highly recommended to those who want recommendations based on their home and personal preferences. She was very easy to work with, coordinated quotes and installs for the various projects, and was quick to respond to questions. Thanks Cheryl!

+The plan included new carpeting in in the great room as well as a bedroom and hall. It included construction of bookshelves and cabinets and painting on the cabinets and a fireplace. It included window treatments and it also included furniture and art placement. The contractors were A+ and we are very pleased with their work. The suggestions for the the plan were just great and I can really appreciate the difference having an experienced decorator. We're very pleased with the work and will use Cheryl Lynn Designs for the next project.

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Cheryl did an excellent job of helping us find our style and a color scheme that would go with our newly renovated kitchen. We already had new flooring and paint and she did a great job of putting together a plan that worked with what we had. We liked all her selections but wanted to eyeball those items in NC to make sure they looked as good in the showroom as they did online. Once we got to NC we ended up making different selections and getting back more in our price range. Cheryl has good ideas and she has a vast selection of samples to choose from. I would definitely use Cheryl again to make future renovation suggestions. Even though we did not use any of her subcontractors, it seems she has assembled a team that can do anything from plumbing to window treatments. Very important if your project involves subcontractors. All in all ours was a very good experience.

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She never got back to us and I will never use her again. She said she would get back to us within a week. It was something we were thinking about and she came up with no ideas. There was no call back. She more less took the money and run. We gave the whole money and nothing came out of it. The only good thing about it was she was on time.

Fine.

I first connected with Cheryl when I bought a Big Deal for 2 hours of design consultation. That went well so I continued to work with Cheryl for a thorough updating of a number of interlinked items in my great room, entry hall ways and kitchen. While we were doing granite in my kitchen, she also helped me pick out granite for our master bathroom. She created what she called a "design plan". At first that plan seemed expensive to me, but she stayed with me in making selections, decisions and changes throughout the project over several months. Cheryl has access to specialty suppliers and materials that I would not have found on my own. She also has contractors that she works with and had that leverage to schedule and oversee the work. We had a couple of snags during the work (some incorrect materials were delivered by a supplier and an item was damaged). It was a relief to have Cheryl involved to get things set straight. Cheryl is a great advocate for her clients and she jumped in to make sure my issues were corrected. Cheryl was enjoyable to work with and I'm happy with how my project has turned out. I feel that Cheryl helped me have an outcome that reflects my tastes.

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Cheryl is a lot of fun to work with. Her ideas and color schemes were right on! She managed to give us quality work on the budget we had to work with, staying close within that budget. When helping us with out selections, if she couldn't bring the samples to us, she gladly met us at the store to help us in our decisions. Her contractors took much pride in their work. They are top notch and did an excellent and meticulous job, cleaning up after themselves before leaving each day. They worked well with our schedule and were more than accommodating if we changed our minds mid-point about a service they were doing. She has been very patient with us as we wait for the kitchen counter tops to be installed so her contractor can finish our contract with the back splash. We are so pleased with everything at this point.

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I saw a 2 hour design consultation with Cheryl advertised as a Big Deal offer. For several years, I had been wanting to redecorate my great room and adjoining kitchen. I have done many house renovation projects myself in the past. However, since there were many interdependent aspects of the project, I was intimidated with taking it on myself. I bought the deal on-line in the hope that I might find someone who could eventually help me with my big project. Cheryl came by about a week later and spent about an hour with me to understand what I did and did not like in my current situation. She looked at other rooms in my house that I had decorated myself to get a better understanding of my tastes and preferences. She and I kicked around some ideas for restructuring my fireplace, addressing flooring issues and brightening my kitchen. I felt more comfortable that my issues could be addressed and I got a good feeling that she could help me put together a plan to do it. I wanted a put-together look but not overly formal or ornate. It seemed clear that Cheryl can work on designs that range over a wide span to suit the client's taste. I ended up rolling the remainder of my "Big Deal" time with Cheryl into a much bigger, more involved redecorating project. It is currently in progress. I will review that whole large project engagement separately when it is done.

It went well! I will be continuing to work with her.

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Most recently, Cheryl assisted me in selecting fabric for two chairs I was having reupholstered. She scheduled an appointment to look at the chairs to be upholstered and, after asking questions about what I wanted and didn't want, she made an appointment and brought several samples of quality fabric which I looked at and then chose one of those samples for the chairs. The outcome of the reupholstering project was remarkable. Cheryl works with craftsmen who do quality work. If there is any sort of problem, she's right there to rectify the problem. About 6 years ago, my husband and I decided to do some extensive updating and remodeling to our 25 year old home. Cheryl worked with us throughout the entire project (major updating in the kitchen and three bathrooms, interior painting, floors refinished, and more) and the end result was a beautiful, almost-like-new home. We were very happy with the outcome of all the work that was done and most grateful for the assistance that Cheryl provided throughout the process. She was always just a phone call away if I had questions or requests for her. Cheryl loves being a designer and it is reflected in the quality of her work and in the energy she brings with her to the job. Her rates are competitive with another designer I worked with before I met Cheryl and she provides written estimates before ever beginning a job. She has been able to understand what my husband and I have wanted for the end result of the decorating/design work and we have always been happy with the work she's done for us. She's been so helpful with large projects as well as small jobs. I have continued to use Cheryl's expertise and assistance over the years and will continue to do so.