Design Drapes and Decor

BUYER BEWARE Cindy charged us a design fee of $1200.00 to produce design drawings for our house and demanded the full fee up front. She seemed nice, we paid. We were clear in our first meeting and in hiring her that we wanted "Casual." Her first designs were completely formal including walls of formal drapes, boxed canopys, and her fabric choice was formal also. We noted this and asked her to try again. Second time, similar problems. It was like she didn't listen to us at all. We had asked her to do a general budget for the house based on her experience and she agreed. No budget delivered to date. She promised us the design drawings, still no drawings delivered. We agreed on liking a Merlot color and some swatches, she kept showing us yellow and blue. She did deliver a 3 ring binder, but without the designs she showed us. Instead, it had pages from a furniture circular and she suggested that if we liked the picture, we could purchase similar furniture from her thrift shop and paint our walls blue just like in the advertisement! While we were deciding what to do with our 3 main rooms, we agreed to have her do our daughters bedroom while we waited for the full designs of the rest of the house. She had showed us a hand drawn custom made canopy bed with headboard, suggested painting the furniture and showed us a hanging light. Cindy drew the picture and measured the room so she had full responsibility for the result. When finally delivered and installed, the custom headboard was too big and covered up a light switch and of course the canopy pictured could not be built because of the existing ceiling fan. I never got the full excuse as to why the light fixture we selected wasn't delivered and installed. Her excuse about the headboard was that she thought the bed was a queen. The bed never changed, there the whole time during the design and measurement, clearly Cindy just screwed up. Never fixed her problem, just left the too large custom made headboard covering the switch plate and extending past where the bed ends. No canopy, mal-fitting headboard, no light, Certainly looks nothing like the picture Cindy drew!!! Cindy did not deliver what she committed to in character, quality, fit or finish. We asked her for whatever drawings she made for us, however, she was too busy getting ready for vacation and promised them when she got home at the end of June. It is now late August, nearly two months after her anticipated return date. There has been no call, no drawings. We feel like she was interested only in ripping us off.