Faux Illusions LLC

We want to be respectful but honest in this feedback. We would not hire this person again. When we first hired Faux Illusions the project was very small and she finished within the scheduled time. The project was done nicely but had to have several adjustments so that the glossiness of the cabinets matched. A few years later, we hired her for a big job ($7000). (52 drawers and doors total and the base behind them). Into the third day of the big job Donna was concerned that the work was moving very slowly. When Donna asked some questions there were some very uncomfortable statements and accusations made by Carol. Such statements as "Why won't you give me a key?", "don't you trust me?", and then..."I want to be paid in full before I will finish." When someone is hired to do a job they should be as polite and respectful of the owners and should not threaten to not finish when they have already been paid 2/3 of the agreed upon price. The Faux Illusion website claims that there is a "we" or "us" in the business that Carol runs. Actually, Carol is the only person doing the job. We were told that Carol had helpers and so the project could be finished within our stated timeline. This was not the case. Carol informed us that her "helper(s)" were not available only AFTER the job was started and $2500 had been put down. We were available to let her in and out upon all of her requests but she was often late or did not show up at all. Additionally, we do not like to leave my house for long periods of time with people working inside. We did not want to give Carol a key or a code to enter the house. When this was explained to her, the comment was..."don't you trust me?". Our decision on who we give keys or codes to is not about trust but about good business practice. We have many work people in and out of our house. No one should hand out keys to people that have been hired to work in their home. We do have security timers and two cameras but this does not insure that we will be protected from incidents that could occur. It would not be sound business practice to hand out keys or codes to people that we only know on a short term basis. Donna often did not know what time Carol would show up so someone had to stay at home and wait for her to arrive. We realize that the weather was very cold, but we would still like to know an ETA. The other businesses that we hired to do work during this time period also had to do very detailed work in cold conditions. They let us know the exact time that they would arrive (give or take 30 minutes) each morning and stuck to their ETA. One business even had extra help come in so that they could meet the deadline. We tried very hard to do everything Carol asked. We set the temperature of the house to what Carol suggested in an email. We provided a ladder for Carol since she forgot hers. We provided some small tools because she did not have the tool necessary to fit in the drawer. We cleaned snow off her car and helped carry some of her things in and out. Donna made lunch for her one day and often offered food to her while she was working in the house. We were very accommodating to all of Carol's demands, even for early payments so she could repair her car. There are still 39 doors that need to be hung and we are 3 weeks into this project. There are 23 doors sitting in our home waiting to be hung; the rest she said would arrive today. It is now almost noon and we have not yet heard from Carol (phone, text, or email) as to when she will arrive today. We sent a text last night at 7:40 p.m. stating that since it was New Year's eve today we would need her to be out of the house by 3:30, because we had plans. Carol replied by text right away that she would hang as many doors as she could. The project has still not been completed and so we will wait and post here regarding the actual quality of the completed project when it is done. We hired Carol because the other 2 companies were busy for the next 3 months and we wanted the job done before the holidays. There were a few days that Carol could not work because she scheduled another project in Palmer Lake even when she knew we had a deadline. We believe our project should have taken priority since she had already started with us. We did not allow access to our home during the week that we were gone which did not set well with Carol. These comments are meant only to inform factually of the issues we encountered along the way during this project. These statements are not meant to be disrespectful in any way. We will give a detailed report on the quality of the project when it is finished. Additional comments as of 5/2015. The job was left undone. The parts that were done did not hold up, started peeling in many areas and had to be corrected by a professional.

Carol is a skilled professional and an artist. We hired her to decorate a music studio. She came armed with excellent suggestions and samples, gave us skilled guidance in realizing our vision, paid very careful attention to our budget, and finished the job in a timely manner. The results are gorgeous: even more spectacular than we anticipated. We thoroughly enjoyed working with her and would not hesitate to hire her again.