Shelterstyle.com

I could go on for days about this bad designer. She is a total flake and does not listen well. She gives you bad advice and when you are not happy with the results she does nothing to make it better. She also does not take the clients side when there are disputes with vendors. She lies. She charged me a lot, cost me thousands and thousand of dollars because I trusted her and used her vendors. I am having to sue one vendor to try to get some money back. Stay far far away from this awful designer.

Unfortunately it did not go as planned and I had to send someone else over to redo the work. My husband was away on work for 6 months and we had the opportunity to receive several thousands of dollars worth of free furniture. I did not want to pass up this opportunity, so I asked Joetta to go to our home and be my eyes, redesign a couple of spaces, and give me all of the dimensions, color options, etc I would need to get this furniture from out of state. Even though we had two phone conversations and I sent a detailed email, somehow my request was lost in translation. I was really hoping to have someone to help me redesign existing spaces but I only received an email with dimensions for additional chairs. I did not receive any color or fabric suggestions for furniture and I was mostly disappointed because it lacked a sense of innovation. If I go through the trouble of hiring a designer, I want someone to think outside the box and help me improve the space. I really wanted suggestions for additional seating options in our living room (which was incredibly clear), as it is our only place to watch TV and she simply said she liked the current furniture arrangement. If you use Joetta make your intuitions clear over and over again. I basically spent $650 and have to redo the entire process. Joetta's response was she was unclear what it was I wanted, but having reread the email it makes sense now, but that does not help me.

We used many of Joetta's ideas when we remodeled our home. Her ideas for style and colors were invaluable.

She came on time to the appointment. She was personable and professional in her manner. She spent 4 1/2 hours at the house, making several suggestions. Later, she called or emailed me with additional recommendations to complete the work that was done. She prevented me from making some costly changes which were not necessary and instead suggested services to improve what existed. I was really pleased with the results.

Recommendations were very helpful and ensured coordination between rooms.

Joetta is a true professional. She is able to visualize optimal placement, size, shape and color ideas and is fantastic at describing how to get there. She uses many existing pieces - often the placement is just the and quot;trickand quot;. But she can also design from emptiness... Her recommendations are tasteful and flexible and she is very good at not prescribing specific fabrics, colors or styles unless you ask her to. This leads the homeowner to focus on what THEY like; and ultimately, the room feels more comfortable by those who live in it. In several cases, Joetta provided only the size (for example: 42and quot; high, 35 to 42 wide, and no more than 22and quot; deep) leaving the color, style and even type of furniture piece up to me. It was great. I've brought her back twice since our initial visit in 2011 to work on the next room, and the next. She is always responsive when I'm in a store and think I have what I need but want to discuss a specific detail before purchasing. She's always punctual, confirms appointments, provides written recommendations and basically just really, really good at what she does. I strongly recommend her if you're serious about getting it right the first time!

I reviewed Joetta's feedback on Angie's List and noticed 2 extremes. I found people were either very pleased with her work or they were very displeased with their interactions with her. After reviewing the before/after designs on her website I decided to reach out to her. I contacted Joetta on 1/28/13 with a note explaining the service I was looking for (new home build) and to see if we could schedule an appointment. I received a quick response from Joetta with 2 dates and times and a list of questions. Unfortunately, there was a computer virus the infected my account and I was locked out by the provider. On 2/1 (4 days days later) I responded to her note and explained what had happened. In the interim, to Joetta's credit she sent me a check in email during the time I was offline. Once my account was back up, we locked in a time to meet on 2/9/13. On 2/2 I received a rude email from Joetta explaining I had not answered a set list of questions she provided. I responded on 2/2/13 that I assume she did not mean to be rude, that many of her questions were answered over the course of our communications and offered to connect by phone so we did not continue to miscommunicate. I also left a vmail prior to my email. I received an email response back from Joetta that she did in fact intend to be rude, and that she did not call because she was on her way out the door to another appointment. In addition, she had difficulty looking up the address on yahoo maps, probably because it is a new home build in a new subdivision. Needless to say I was pretty shocked to hear she intended to be rude. I would have expected and preferred she seek to understand and/or gather more information before intentionally sending out a zinger email to a potential new client. Yet, when I paused long enough, I remembered some of the other comments listed on this site re: her services. And in the end, I must conclude the fault is mine for choosing to take the risk and engage someone who this website already informed me was rude. I chose to focus on the positive ratings I read and the excitement I had after viewing her website photos. So I write this to forewarn you...proceed at your own risk.

Joetta was very nice and helpful. She was very prompt and knowledgeable, and she always offered several options at varying prices which was very much appreciated.

Joetta arrived right on time and was very professional. She gave me some ideas to consider, keeping in mind my modest budget. She gave me and quot;homeworkand quot; to do and items to research. She also gave me some provider names to contact if I wanted to consider certain services. Basically, I got a plan to begin with and get me started. I have made many of the choices that I need to make and, as soon as I select a contractor to do the work, i will consult her for assistance in choosing colors, and possible furniture placement.

Joetta told me that she usually takes 3.5 hours to complete a consultation, and that she'd never done one in less than 2.5 hours. She charges $150/hour, and though I can easily see how staging a house for sale could take that long (mine did), I really had a specific area in mind, and can't really imagine how staring at a window would take that long. I asked her to either keep it to an hour or cancel the appointment., feeling that I could have easily whittled down the task to fall within that time frame, but we never had that conversation. She replied that she took me off of her appointment list. The conversation was unnecessarily abrupt. It would have been useful to know that she has a minimum time somewhere between 2.5-3.5 hours, regardless of the project, to compensate for her efforts.

We have been in our home 6 years. I have been unhappy with our Great Room. I kept buying things and then returning them, just trying to make the room feel "Right". I got advice from serveral sources and the room was still not right. We were thinking of having expensive shelves built in. Finally, we decided before we did that, to have someone come in. I contacted Joetta. She was up front about cost and trip fee. I knew it was a little bit more than I thought I wanted to spend. But decided to go for it any way. She come out, gave us advice, and I could not be happier. And the best thing is, is that we did not spend a lot of money having shelves built in. A little paint on some existing selves, a larger rug, removing some couch pillows, and now the room feels right. Such little things made such a big difference. She does not work on commissions, so she did not try to sell me anything. We asked her advice about some tile we want to add to the Master Bath. She also gave us advice about adding a lamp and switiching a table in a sitting room, and now that room feels even more cozy. Communications were excellent, she was right on time, easy to talk to, and I feel like she gave us great advice. I am really excited about the small changes that have made a big difference to the way we see our home. I would recommend her to family and friends.

I needed to reschedule my INTRODUCTION visit because of a few personal concerns. She immediately accused me of lying about my excuse and even said it was her policy to charge me. In her words "Sorry but I am not buying your excuse". I haven't even met her and she was already wanting to charge.

Joetta was very responsive when I called and I had an appointment within a week. She asked me to do some and quot;homeworkand quot; and find magazine examples of what I was looking for. When she arrived we went over the magazine tear outs and walked through each room. As we went through each room, she gave her advice and wrote it down on her pad. At the end of the appointment I had 3 pages of notes. I got what I wanted (paint colors to tie in my existing floors and furnishings), but I prefer a more direct-speaking interior decorator. At times I felt like I was trying to pull her opinion out. I think that is her style. She likes to collaborate with the homeowner to come up with a personal style. I prefer someone more assertive who is not afraid to tell me what looks good, and what doesn't. Also, I felt that her decorating style was more traditional vs. contemporary.

Most interior designers base their rates on selling new items to the customer, but she worked with me to update my old items. I think her price was fair, and I think I got my money's worth. I felt she listened to me and designed around what I wanted instead of telling me what I ought to want. I enjoyed working with her.

It worked out really well. I really needed the advice. She came and gave me a lot of advice and wrote a lot of it down. I ended up using some of it. I thought it was a little pricey. She was great and her advice was really good. I have never used this kind of service before so I didn't have a comparison.

She is great. I would use her again. As long as you tell her what you want she is really good about giving you a range of ideas. I have used her before for just decorating. You can get new things if you want, but she helps you use your old stuff.

She was very honest and forthright in telling us that our house was not worth further investment. I appreciate her honesty, and that that was not an easy message to give. However, she was not inspired by any shorter term, smaller projects I wanted to discuss. It seemed she was used to higher class neighborhoods. I probably should have cut the visit short after the first hour.

I rearranged my schedule around times that were provided and confirmed via email and did not hear back so 1 day before the scheduled time I booked other meetings at work. When I finally connected with her before the appointment it turns out HER email was not working and the appointment was confirmed but I did not receive the email confirm. I could no longer make it and she thanked me for helping her diagnose the email problem that was affecting her business. At the time we rescheduled, I had to make a last minute change and cancel and in addition to a rude email from her, she did charge me $100 for the missed appointment although she had affected my busy schedule one week earlier at the last minute due to non-working email. The whole experience communicating with her was very unpleasant and the energy does not feel right for a creative person to help me. I am shocked that she still wants $100 when the initial problem was her email, but I will pay and NEVER plan to call her in the future.

She charges a relatively small amount by the hour. She has an incredible list of people that can do just about everything. She handwrites out everything she is going to do and the contact people to use. She will draw pictures of what she is going to do and how it is going to look. Her philosophy on decorating is to reuse what you have as much as possible, so that you spend as little money as possible. She repurposes all sorts of stuff and really helps you save money to achieve the effect that you want to achieve. She has a great sense of color, proportion, and style. She is really nice and has a great personality. I have used her multiple times and will be using her again.

Joetta is truly a visionary and has the uncanny ability to listen and turn quetions, thoughts and concerns into a solid plan complete with drawings, descriptions and contacts w/phone numbers. I plan to call on her again when we recover from this project and are ready to tackle another room. A home built in 1926 is full of charm but has a never ending list of projects!

Initially, I was not happy with Joetta's services. I thought her price was too high and that she could have condensed her suggestions to a much shorter time frame, thereby reducing the price. Plus, I was not pleased with her handwritten report. I believed for the price, the report should have been typed which would have been more manageable for future reference. I shared my concerns about the handwritten report with her via email. I waited four months before posting any comments because I wanted to be fair and determine how our exchange would fan out. I"M SO GLAD I DID! I went from being unhappy to VERY PLEASED with the way she conducts business. I, now, have a designer for life. She answers all of my questions PROMPTLY about any room in my home. I don't know how she does that with all of her customers. She not only provided me with a list of vendors, I have a ready list for future work for years to come. When I ask her questions about possible design choices, she gets back to me the same day, the next day at the latest. So for $575.00, to have her expertise for time infinitum is priceless- WHAT A GREAT DEAL!!. So what if her report is hand written, I still wish it were typed, but that's the educator in me.

Wonderfully! I had prepared myself for our first meeting by having on hand pictures of rooms I liked, as well as a clear list of my objectives (help with selection and placement of new furniture in the living room, address storage for play area, choose wall colours for 3 rooms). When Joetta arrived, she listened attentively to what my goals were, and asked questions to make sure she understood what I wanted and what style I liked. We spent a few hours going through ideas and walking through the areas in question as she jotted several pages of notes. She even had some easy and cheap suggestions for areas I hadn't thought of, which was much appreciated. When we were done discussing the rooms and choosing the paint colours, Joetta handed me 8 pages of notes which I called me design plan. It contained everything from detailed drawings of room layout, to names of products to consider, and even contact information of a seamstress and handyman to help with small projects. Armed with this, I was free to implement my new plan over time, on my own accord. Joetta then came with me to a store I liked and helped pick out the model and colour of a sofa and arm chairs. Although she only charged me for her initial meeting, she continued to provide advice via email, names of stores to check out, and sending me links of ideas for lamps, a side table and an area rug. Joetta always replied promptly, usually within a few hours. When I was unsure about her idea for an area rug, she even invited me to her house to see what they looked like. Joetta was always very attentive, non-judgemental, helpful and practical. She was happy to work with what you have, or suggest new pieces if you wanted. I think most importantly, Joetta always made me feel like I was in charge, that she was there to guide me, not lead me, through the design process.

Joetta was great. She is knowledgable and helpful but also was able to help me define my own style. She was very personable and I do not hesitate to recommend her. Her website is thorough and specific about charges so there are no surprises and expectations are clear.

Joetta arrived earlier than our scheduled 10:30 a.m. visit and we went to work right away. Rather than reupholster my existing sofa and chairs, I wanted a new look but wasn't sure if an L-shaped sectional would fit in my living room. Perusing through catalogs that Joetta had brought and using the magazine photos I had, Joetta measured out the area showing me exactly how different sized sofas might fit in the configuration I wanted and where I might place an ottoman/bench. We discussed color choices for the sofa and ottoman and coordinating colors for pillows that would bring in the colors of the existing area carpet and chairs. When Joetta left, I had in hand a sketch of my "new" living room with a detailed list of 5 different vendors (with addresses and telephone numbers of the lesser-known establishments) where I could look for and "test drive" the sofa, including complete dimensions and approximate prices. Additionally, she mapped out where I could place the existing lamp(s) and table(s) and listed the name of a reliable upholsterer. We discussed options for decorating the mantel by painting the mantel a more muted color because the bright white detracted from the "look" that I wanted. She measured out what would be the ideal size for use on the mantel and recommended using an existing artwork that was hanging on another wall. Every detail we discussed was written on the plan. Joetta is a terrific listener and wonderfully observant. She honored my ideas and was positive and enthusiastic throughout the consultation. (She even made a recommendation for the "furminator" when she learned that our Australian cattle dog was "blowing.") I have "homework" to do. But before I make any purchase, I now have a written guide that will save me a lot of time and headache in the stores.

She did a great job. I had spoken to couple of other people and she was able to come out on a Saturday. She was willing to do whatever we wanted. She came with us and figured out what needs to be done. She let us do the designing. She also gave 15% discount. She was little expensive, but when she came she was totally prepared. She had a big suitcase with catalogues, paint chips and colors. We got our entire plan done. She also gave numbers of electricians and carpenters who could do the job for us. She had worked with these people and she made our job easy. If you want her to do some shopping for you she will do that. She is going to help me pick up the fabric for the bed spread and the curtains.