OUTER IMAGE DESIGN

One of the worst vendor experiences I've ever had! I've remodeled a few homes in my day and have used A LOT of vendors. This time we just never used a design firm for hardscape items and got burned! I just read the reviews FROM their site, called a few of their former clients and they seemed to check out. Do more research and you'll see what we missed. We paid $3.5K for a complete set of design plans back in February...it's now August and we still do not have a simple set of finished plans...SIX MONTHS later. We were also given a guesstimate of about 75K for what we needed to be done prior to hiring them for just a design. The first meeting ( which was in late MAY) to review design work which was almost nothing like we requested but what Mr. Nedd said he liked. Oh, and the bid was over 200K with multiple layers of items that you could "add" but were not included. The sideyard alone was over 75K for almost nothing but grass, bullock and a sprinkler system. We ended up using no plans at all and hired a great landscaper to install it for around 18K. We've wasted 6 MONTHS with this firm that we can never get back. We were also informed at the end of July that they would not finish our plans, but we could view the uncompleted, unfinished set online via a website. UNFINISHED design plans -- who can use them? This steep fee was also just for a 2D not 3D image set of plans. Just so you know, it's really difficult to visualize and adjust a set of plans from a small aerial view, but we did not know. Wished we picked another firm and are in the process of selecting another one to start over. Additionally, we are now in the process of contacting the BBB and other advocacy groups as well as considering litigation in an effort to help others avoid this unethical vendor.

We were very pleased with the design, but once the design was signed-off, we rarely saw Mr. Nedd on site during the construction phase unless we called him directly on his cell phone. We were told that we would not need a 40% treated wood like he used at the waterfront, since there was no moisture issues at the back of the house for the main decking. We did pay for #1 grade treated wood. Work started in August 2007 and was completed at the end of September 2007. At the beginning of spring/early summer of 2008 (9 months later) we noticed mitered corners warping and/or pulling apart, boards curling up and boards popping up - some nailed and some not nailed at all. We contacted Steve Nedd directly via his office and cell phone about these and on several occasions he said not to worry ? he would take care of it. He sent out a worker with blue tape and asked us to mark all the issues ? we did. He never showed up - instead Mr. Nedd said he would send out his supervisor, Bruce, to look at the blue tape marks. Bruce never showed up and after two calls (by my wife and myself) we were told that he would have to let Bruce go. On the next call, we were told that Bruce had left the company (FYI Bruce was not part of the installation crew). Steve then sent out a deck repairman (sub contractor) who took pictures of the deck showing leaves and pine needles on the deck and ?red lines?. His repairman reported back that we had not maintained the deck and there were red lines on the deck. My wife explained when the repairman was here that the red lines were from the installation crew?s chalk lines. Since we still had leaves dropping from the fall and spring, we had leaves on the deck. We did not blow leaves daily. Steve explained that since we had not taken care of the deck ? sprayed with a sealer, he would now NOT perform warranty work and that the warranty was now in question. We were lead to believe that the pressure treated wood used on the deck did not need further treating. We were not given any paperwork or instructions that the wood had to have additional treatment. We certainly relied upon his expert opinion of the type of wood used. He how wants $8000 on top of the $41000 we paid him initially to come out and power wash the deck and apply a sealant coating. He would not make repairs unless we agreed to the $8000 treatment. We really feel mislead about the treated wood he recommended, with no care instructions and less than a year later having major warpage and separation. We find it incredulous that someone in the deck construction business would not advise up front that additional cost would be required from the onset to seal or treat already treated wood. We also feel that we were badly advised on the quality of wood and its warping/separation that has occurred in less than a year.

EVERYBODY WAS SO NICE, ALL OF THEM, WHICH I FOUND UNUSUAL. THEY WERE VERY RECEPTIVE TO CHANGES THAT I WANTED TO MAKE. THEY ALWAYS RETURNED PHONE CALLS. THEY WERE VERY PROMPT AND WORKED QUICKLY.