The Designer's Niche

Thank you so much, and I hope you enjoy your new home.

As with all stories, there are two sides. This review does not surprise me coming from this client, as he became unusually difficult to work with as the project went on and verbally abusive, and my efforts to resolve certain issues fell on deaf ears, so I let him go as a client and cut my losses. I worked with him over five years ago, so I'll be brief yet professional to the points made. I ultimately had to block communication with him as he harassed me and spoke very ugly to me both on the phone and via email, and nothing I offered was good enough. His job went unfinished (and refunded) ultimately when my husband went to do final punch out at Bob's home, and Bob stood in the room and verbally put me down over and over again. Sean asked him to stop a couple of times, or he would leave. Bob did not stop, and then proceeded to tell Sean to get out (using a few more choice words). I would never have chosen to end a job that way, and I refunded him immediately.
1.) At the time I worked for him I had one design assistant. Our company has since been blessed and I now have six wonderful designers, along with 2 moving crews, and 2 great contracting companies whom I can go to with any project, and we have a long list of happy clients.

2.) The toddler incident was due to a specific time frame he insisted I go to his home on a single occasion, and I first discussed with him that I had no child care for that time frame, and he was fine with it. As a professional I do not bring my children to work unless it is after hours and first discussed (and usually insisted and Ok'd) with my clients.

3.) The window incident was the day, if he remembers, that I hung the window treatment while he sat and watched, and I drilled right through my thumb. I asked if I could nail the window treatment up and have Sean come back and secure it for me as there was a lot of metal behind the wall. He was fine with that plan, however he ultimately told Sean to leave during the incident stated above.

4.) Build a Sofa was the company that sold him his sofa, and upon Bob's inspection by sticking his hand way down deep inside of the crease of the arm/back of sofa and feeling around, he noticed there were a couple of inches INSIDE of the sofa that did not have staples, and he was so upset about that he requested they go back out to add a couple of staples deep inside. Build a Sofa notified me they went out and took care of that, and I never heard a word back from Bob so not sure this is an accurate statement.

5.) I had a huge decorative palm tree and 2 custom arrangements that I told him I was selling, and he was extremely interested in having them. I brought them for his approval and he loved them and decided to purchase them. The lamp he ordered only needed a new black switch, which I provided. Everything in his home was ordered new or made custom, other than the palm tree and arrangements.

6.) The contractor he is referencing began having another issue at another client's home that was happening simultaneously with his, and I did not have any negative work from this contractor, unfortunately, until we worked with Bob. To this day, we no longer use that contractor due to the way he handled Bob's job.

We obviously strive to meet all of our clients expectations, and although there may be bumps in the road here and there, we know it's how everything is resolved that counts . We certainly tried our avenues to make Bob happy, but he became too difficult, and too many times resorted to verbal abuse and profanity so this was not a good client/designer fit. I wish Bob well.