LANDFORM DESIGN GROUP

We hired LFDG to do a major remodel of our landscaping and home exterior. While the planning for the landscaping was thorough, the planning and execution of the home exterior remodel was a fiasco. The landscaping was planned thoroughly and in advance with pages and pages of documentation. Design selections for the home exterior were left to be made during construction with no advance planning whatsoever. We had clearly and explicitly informed Jayson King that we could not visualize and he promised us that, even though he insisted that selections for the home exterior should be made during construction, we would be able to see his actual design proposals in a photorealistic rendering. The rendering was unreliable from the very beginning. We started out with what turned out to be a concept rendering only, and then LFDG proceeded to make proposals that had no resemblance to what was depicted in the original rendering. Since rendering is an expensive process and they were charging us by the hour, inserting single design elements and rerendering over and over led to a markedly increased total cost of the rendering. They then filled in other elements as yet unselected with stock images, sometimes ridiculous ones. This "rendered" the rendering useless for our needs and ultimately we were flying blind. Everything was being executed according to LFDG's exact specifications, in complete accordance with designer advice, and in consultation with LFDG, and yet we found ourselves standing outside a house that was not coming together beautifully and professionally in the style we had requested, mostly due to one major design error that cost us thousands of dollars to correct. In our opinion it was HORRIBLE and other designers and lay people alike commented that this design element was totally inappropriate for the Country French style that we had requested and that Jayson King had claimed he could produce. When Jayson King ultimately refused to produce an accurate, complete photorealistic rendering containing all of his actual design proposals before continuing with the project, he entreated us to trust him and the process, and when we did trust him, it cost us thousands of dollars to correct his (in our opinion) mistake. We were then ridiculed for putting extensive and time and energy of our own into correcting the major design mistake (in our opinion) that he had made. Because of the lack of effective planning and the design mistake, an effectual production schedule could not be put together for the contractors involved. They could not plan ahead and could not get all of their work done when they did come. They became utterly frustrated. When conflict between us and LFDG began to become evident, Jayson King's first response was to threaten legal action even when in our opinion he had cost us thousands of unnecessary dollars in the design mistake and ineffective planning and management. In fact the more inefficient the planing was, the more inefficient the management was, the more management hours were required with limited tangible results, and the more LFDG go paid. It then became more and more difficult to fire them, because of the clause in the contract that says that they will be paid a penalty based on time already invested in the project if you fire them for any reason. Their contract stated that decisions and interpretations (design proposals) would be in writing. This never occurred in any meaningful way as far as the home exterior was concerned, even after we began to insist that they adhere to the terms of their contract. Because there was no plan for the home exterior and no adequate design specification documentation, confusion reigned supreme. In one instance the wrong grout was installed in a large portion of the stone. In another instance painters were swarming over the house when LFDG had not yet made any proposal for the garage doors, garage door color, there were no front door exact specifications, no front door finish proposed, back door colors, or stain color for the cedar porch ceiling. The contractual agreement was that LFDG would supervise and enforce quality of workmanship, but as far as the home exterior remodel was concerned, this hardly occured. We were left to deal with all the workmanship issues on the home exterior ourselves. LFDG also contracted to monitor and control contractor draw releases, but instead released one interim draw to a contractor for $10,000 worth of labor that had not even been started, much less completed, and overpaid another contractor in full (according to our detailed records) months before completion, with extensive parts of the project incomplete and not working. Though he suggested his management expertise could ultimately save us money, the project went at least $30,000 over budget. He projected the project would take two months to plan. It took two years to plan the landscape aspect alone. He projected the project would take eight weeks to complete. It took at least two years when all was said and done. The management and design fees we paid him for implementation stage were triple his projection and that was only up until the time (mid project) that we parted company. When we finally called in our interior designer to finish the design of the home exterior, within 24 hours she had put together the general overall color scheme for the home exterior and made the garage door proposal we had not received from LFDG in the five months since the installation process had started, at an hourly rate that was one fourth to one eight of what were paying for Jayson King and/or his sidekick to show up for an hour of their time on site. The horticultural planning was poor, resulting in many dead or non thriving plants and the necessity for the homeowners to redesign sections of the planters. When confronted with most of these discrepancies (some were discovered later) Jayson King denied culpability and blamed his clients.