DONNA COHEN INTERIOR DESIGN

Not well. We cancelled because she and her evaders did not deliver even after multiple delays. We hope we get our money back for the work not done.

See: http://www.gainesville.com/article/20150820/ARTICLES/150829978 We hired Donna through an appraiser. Donna agreed to see our place the next day. She was familiar with our home as she used to play tennis with the previous owner. We toured the house as I explained the changes we wanted. At the end of the your I specified that we had a $75,000 budget. We ended our meeting discussing payment. She explained: "It's easy: I charge 20% of each invoice I give you. But I've been doing this for a long time, so I will get a designer discount that will make it so that you'll be essentially getting my services for free..." All was clear...I thought... The next day she came with a contractor, a floor guy, a window guy, and a kitchen guy. The kitchen guy asked us if we could move a for so that he can get a good kitchen design... After they all left she told me there was a $5000 retainer fee, but I can give it to her the next time she came.... Soon enough she showed up with 4 samples of luxury vinyl planks, 3 tiles and I think 2 or 3 for styles. We really didn't like any of the samples she brought, but we made some elections and gave her the retainer fee. We did ask her to leave the samples we selected.... This day we went to a friend's birthday party and told our friends the exciting news. Two of our older friends literally screamed "FIRE HER! ! THAT LADY'S A CROOK! ! ". But we had already given her the retainer and paid a sublease to move out of our house. I guess they say our worried faces and the younger ones reassured us. I just said I can take care of us... We went to multiple floor ships looking at samples and found multiple samples that we liked much more than the ones she brought us. One store learned who was our designer. They used to work with her. They shared horror stories of her. These are not mine to share in this review... Needless to say that she wasn't happy when she heard that we were going to buy our floors from this company on our encounter. The prices they gave us were better than the ones she got us (and this was without the 20% designer discount! !). She gave us a list of appliances she wanted us to buy with her Sears account (remember her 20% cut). These were supposed to be mid grade appliances that she got us according to our budget. She left 4-5 samples of vanities for the bathrooms she searched on the internet. After she left I searched for appliances on my own and found much higher quality appliances at a better price than her. At this point I had lost all my faith in her and felt things were moving too fast. I called her and asked her for an itemized estimate for the entire project. I wanted to make sure our budget wasn't going to be consumed in only two spaces and the rest of the house left up to us. Days later she shows up with an estimate for the kitchen and floors. My fears were confirmed so we told her at that point we couldn't work with her. She tried tell us that she could be our designer for a flat fee of $10,000. We also didn't agree and asked for our retainer back. After threatening to sue her and reporting her to the internal design society (don't ask how she's a member...), 2.5 months later she told me she was going to leave a check the day I had planned meeting with our lawyer. She didn't show up, but left a $2000 check the next day. So, we ended up paying $3000 for a disappointment, wasted time in an apartment that wasn't ours and not even a sketch our idea on what to do. In the meantime and ironically, we ended up hiring a contractor that had been wronged by her and still owes him money.... We hired a designer that gave the designs we needed for half her price! This was our experience. Good luck! I hear she's a good designer...

Donna is very personable but don't be fooled, she takes money for payment in full and 9 months later you get something different then you ordered! When I investigated I discovered the part of the order was placed 4 months after paying in full and then the rest of the furniture she brought was purchased at TJMax and recovered in the fabric I chose! This woman is a con artist and a thief with a long line of law suites filed in Alachua County....DO NOT USE!!!!!