Angela Todd Studios | Portland, OR

We work hard to approach our client relationships with honesty and integrity. Our decision to politely bow out of your project after producing floor plans and introducing you to our tradespeople, who did fantastic work for you, was in the best interest for both you and Angela Todd Studios. As we compassionately discussed with you last year, based on your intended spend and your wish list, paying a design firm throughout the project wasn’t a good use of your lean budget dollars. It is untrue we invoiced you for discussions about a billing entry, or that we performed any work not requested of us. As we discussed during our first meeting, our design billing is often 8-12% of the total cost of our furnishing and remodeling projects. Since you spent less than $2500 for time billing with our firm, we would say you received an excellent value. Our time billing records also indicate several credits to aid in your budget constraints. As an educational component, expecting any interior designer to not charge for design work, site visits, phone calls, or emails that are design or project management related is not a fair expectation. Providing people our expertise is how we make a living, just as I’m sure it is in yours. We are disappointed to hear you have been upset for a year, and sincerely hope being “traumatized” by your experience was a bit of an exaggeration. We are delighted you are happy with your condo, the remodeling work conducted by our tradespeople, and that you are enjoying the paint colors we selected. Best wishes to you.

I can't express how happy it made me to work with you again. Your home feels so much like you all! Thank you for trusting me and having faith in the process!

Thank you Christa! I have been so fortunate to work with you and your beautiful family! I love the way your bathroom and closet turned out, and I particularly enjoyed working in your family room. You have some amazing treasures that were so fun to work with and display.

Our process with all clients starts with a signed design agreement that covers our hourly rates, and our overall design fees were within the range quoted to the client. We bill all of our clients at regular intervals, and all products are ordered via order confirmation with a client signature. If a client has a question about any particular line item, we immediately respond to their concerns. With this client, no billing discrepancy was discovered in our process. The issues stemmed from the client reducing her budget several times after the project had already begun. This resulted in significant design modifications and rescheduling subcontractors, not to mention phone calls, meetings and emails with the client educating her about costs and construction. (We performed a fair amount of re-work without a fee, though we contractually have the right to bill for all these services.) Once construction was scheduled a second time, we explained to the client that we had to stop project managing or doing additional design work in her best interest to keep costs down. We did this kindly noting that she was in good hands with her contractor we recommended, but we were unable to continue to work without hourly design fees. Several times following this message, she sent emails to our team with a message at the top of the email that read, "IF YOU ARE GOING TO CHARGE ME FOR READING THIS EMAIL, PLEASE DO NOT READ IT OR RESPOND." We did the best design possible under these difficult circumstances, and we stand by the quality of the design considering the meager funds that ended up being at our disposal to complete her original scope.

We have an otherwise impeccable record of happy clients, integrity and great design. We love what we do and we are very sorry we could not continue work under these circumstances. Our office has worked with this particular contractor on many projects in the past, and we will continue to work with this contractor in the future. As a matter of fact, we met with this contractor today regarding a new remodeling project. The contractor in question was always fully informed about the progress on Leah's project, knowing full well the client's concerns about the budget, and our challenges with continuing to work without full compensation.

Thank you Chown Hardware! It is our pleasure. We appreciate your showroom and staff in Portland. Your expertise, quality and customer service is top-notch!

I can't tell you how happy it makes me when a contractor of your caliber compliments me. I am beaming after reading your post.

Dr. McClaren - thank you. I immensely respect the work you do and it is has been my pleasure to help you better serve your patients with better function and an aesthetically pleasing and a healing, tranquil environment in your clinic. Portland is lucky to have your expertise in injuries and recovery.