Design Inside - Chicago

Design Inside helped us remodel a small office space, taking it from drab to welcoming. Kathryn was a great resource on what to do where to maximize our budget and overall impact. She and her team were great to work with!

We had a great experience with Design Inside! Our project went from February to July of 2019. Our designer Emmalie was wonderful! She was very accommodating of our schedule and very focused on providing us great direction on all the things we had to make decisions on, and there were a lot of them! She took the time to get to know us and our style and really gave us great direction. Our project was extensive, as we completely renovated a 3 bed 2 bath condo and the only things not touched were the 2 baths (fixtures and tile). Other than those, all paint, lighting, full kitchen (including appliances), and hardwood floors throughout were completely redone. We also liked that they will help you as much or as little as you like. You set the terms of what you would like them to help with. They helped us with all design decisions and their guidance was wonderful! We highly recommend Design Inside!

I really enjoyed working with Angela Murphy from Design Inside. I couldn't have completed my bedroom update and kitchen update without Angela. I was really busy with work and it was helpful to have her narrow down the choices for me and give me a professional guidance on how to update and add new selections to my existing decor. I felt she really listened to me and understood my style well. Angela brought a good range of choices for each item I needed. She was great when I had an emergency issue with an appliance. She helped me through the issue during off-hours. Angela completed the project on-time and on-budget. The contractors she used were very professional and perfectionists. I will be working with her again on future projects.

We are very pleased with our bathroom remodel. Our original 30 year old guest bath was brought into this century featuring a traditional style with some more modern touches in the tile surround and the mirror. Angie made the process very easy. We will definitely use Design Inside for future design projects.

I highly recommend Design Inside. Kathryn & Bill are extremely professional and easy to work with. I had a very pleasant experience with them and will use Design Inside in the future!

Katy is the perfect mix of practical and design savvy. In our first meeting, Katy helped me where to prioritize my projects for the biggest impact. In addition to directing me on where to invest dollars and where we could save. We worked on several areas of my home in tandem...living room, hallway, master bedroom and guest room. Not to mention storage ideas and thoughts on future bathroom projects. The process was seamless and easy. We put a plan together in a few hours and we were off to the races. One of the most enjoyable experiences in working with Katy was the ability for me to add my own personal touches along the way. She really adapts to her clients in terms of how involved they would like to be. For me, I had lots of ideas that Katy helped me bring to life, streamline and balance. And she also encouraged me to take chances with paint colors, fabric upholstery choices and more. My gallery wall is one of my favorites! I could never have measured and hung with such precision. And my reupholstered hallway bench is one of my favorite stand-out pieces. Thanks Katy! I love Katy’s design eye, easy-to-work with attitude and desire to put her client’s style into every choice. My condo is finally a home! Love it! I highly recommend working with Design Inside and I plan on doing so for my next projects!

We needed to redecorate our living room. My husband found Design Inside on the internet. I was a bit hesitant about finding a decorator that way; but we had a fantastic experience with Emily Barry from Design Inside, and love our "new" room! She is not only a wonderful person, but a good listener and problem solver. Emily won't stop until she finds the option you want. When concerns or problems arose; she not only listened to them attentively, she solved them as quickly as possible. When Emily had a death in the family; one of her colleagues, from Design Inside, stepped in and did a wonderful job. I can't recommend Emily Barry, of Design Inside, highly enough!

I loved working with Katy to redesign my painfully small master bathroom! She was on the ball, organized, and prompt with getting the project started and keeping it going. I was most impressed by her ability to precisely figure out what I meant the space to look and feel like. I don't do "design" talk and she really got to the heart of what I identified as our problems and had great ideas on how to fix them. The best part was that her ideas were not overly complicated, just things I would have never thought. She also didn't bat an eye when I asked her to find more budget friendly options. I will be working with Katy for additional help in other areas of the house and already recommend her without hesitation.

We worked with Design Inside over the course of a year on projects that continued to expand because we were so thrilled with the process, working relationship and outcomes. We used Kathryn's design expertise to remodel our kitchen, first-floor full bathroom, and front porch. Working with Design Inside was money well-spent because Kathryn is talented in both technical and creative design. She measured and prepared for every contingency when creating a plan to transform our galley-style kitchen into an expanded and multi-purpose open-concept design that included kitchen, mudroom, and work space. She was efficient in helping us make design choices to update our bathroom, and concise with material recommendations and measurements needed to replace our front porch. Kathryn and her team were respectful of our time, budget, and input. Every selection for purchase was presented as a choice, and we knew we were always guided to the best price point. Kathryn recommended when to pay for quality materials, and helped us find savings in other parts of the design to off-set the cost. We are most happy with the selections we would not have made without her involvement. We could not have completed our home remodel without Design Inside, and would happily recommend them to anyone looking for guidance on small or large projects!

I'm disappointed that I need to leave this review. For the most part we enjoyed working with Design Inside. Kathryn and her team gave us helpful advice on art and picked out nice accent pieces for our condo. The one star is for two main reasons: 1. Poor project management: In 2015 we starting working with Kathryn to design and implement a custom cabinetry project. After blowing past multiple extended deadlines, the project is still not totally finished. We asked to see a breakdown of designer hours to better understand how the price had far surpassed the original estimate. We even discussed getting money back if we learned that we had fact been over billed for designer or vendor error. The company never sent this breakdown. 2. Unresolved damage: We also worked with Design Inside to place some shelves in our master bathroom. One of the shelves was drilled into the wrong tiles because the designer incorrectly marked where it was supposed to go. We get that mistakes happen and we were optimistic that we could find a solution we could live with. We had a conversation with Kathryn about trying an alternate solution but were clear that if this alternative didn't meet our expectations, we would want to explore monetary compensation. When we followed up with the company to implement the alternate solution, we felt pressured into accepting the alternative solution as the final solution. Attempts to have a phone call to clarify the plan were rebuffed by the company and there is still unresolved damage in the bathroom to this day. In both these situations we had good conversations with Kathryn that made us feel confident we could find a solution that made both parties happy. Unfortunately after those conversations we were told that Kathryn was out of the office, they didn't know when she would be back, and her associate would handle our concerns. In the course of communicating with her associate Brittany the trust we had the company was destroyed. She never sent the breakdown of hours like we requested and refused to have a phone conversation to clarify the plan for the bathroom. After multiple requests for a phone conversation and trying to call the office, the only phone call we received was from their lawyer.

In July of 2015, my girlfriend and I began working with Kathryn Cherne to do a build out of cabinets around our fireplace in our condominium. Originally, the project was supposed to be completed prior to December of 2015. The project was not completed until February of 2017. Kathryn originally estimated the project would cost 15-25 hours of designer time. We have now had to pay for over 200 hours of designer time. While not all of these hours were related to the project, they have been the vast majority. We were unable to get clear and accurate billing from Kathryn, even upon request. We did have a setback with the fireplace, as we decided to lower it and the stone did not match. Which Kathryn had said may be a possibility - though she thought it unlikely. Kathryn estimated that would take 5 hours of designer time to fix. However, it took significantly longer. This project is now three times over its monetary budget and four times over its time deadline. To make things worse, Kathryn disappeared near the end of the project and no one was able to tell me when she would be back. The staff at Design Inside was left with minimal information, and we have been unable to reach a solution without Kathryn. Unfortunately, one of the tasks Kathryn said she would complete prior to her disappearance was cleaning up and organizing the billing, so we knew precisely how much was spent on these projects. This was not completed and apparently was not relayed to the Design Inside team. We have some concern that in addition to Kathryn drastically underestimating the time it would take to complete the project, leading to significantly overcharging us, she also has not utilized discounts that were promised on receipts. Moreover, she also raised the prices in January of 2016, and although our project should have been completed by then, charged us at that rate. We had also asked Kathryn to help us decide on a location to put up shelves in our tiling on the walls in the master bathroom. Kathryn told the contractor the incorrect location and they drilled into the wall and left us in the lurch as to how we could resolve that issue for some time. While Kathryn has done well with some of the design, the implementation, overcharging, under-estimating, and the fact that she has been impossible to reach to deal with expensive mistakes design inside has caused leads me to post this cautionary tale. Kathryn had offered no help in processing the billing to make it clearer or providing an explanation for why her costs became so out of control. The billing was basically a collective of a bunch of random charges for a variety of projects on more than twenty or thirty different documents. We requested a breakdown of the costs for the individual project, and we never received it. In fact, that was roughly the time she disappeared. On our side, we have begun the process of clarifying her original documentation so we can clearly understand how this project became so out of control. and figuring out what steps are necessary. We have spent the last several months creating documentation of clearer billing so that we can understand where all of the money went and why this project became so expensive and hearing from contractors and building professionals who have echoed that the work that was completed is overpriced. I also have concerned that Kathryn may have requested contractors charge me more than they would have originally quoted based on my exploration into the project. There are many designers in Chicago, I believe they would likely treat you better on an individual level and have greater respect for your time and money and thus I would never recommend Design Inside to anyone.

We needed design help with a condo in the West Loop. We found Design Inside and Courtney helped us with color selection, furniture and finishes. She was especially helpful with artwork and accessories. We were very pleased with the result! Courtney was a pleasure to work with, and Design Inside is a great choice for contemporary design. Pete and Ann G.