Dana's Designs

Where do I begin with the fundemental business and professionalism problems? It goes beyond differences in design tastes. Dana has fundamental problems being a professional and a designer. 1. First, she went over the agreed-upon budget and still attempted to invoice more. After billing us $400, I set $1000 in budget in total design fees. She agreed. She went over and billed over $1100. I stopped all work at that point because we had little or nothing to show for it at that point. She later tried to claim that she did not understand the budget. 2. We agreed upon weekly invoices. The first invoice was 3-4 days late. The second was a week late and that invoice ran over the budget. She was still billing time after being late on invoices. That was the unacceptable part of it to me I am in engineering designer myself and design service providers do not go over budget without notifying the client. Designers notify the client with 95% of the budget is used. You don?t got over and then attempt to include the overbilling in a late invoice. 3. During design, she wanted to go to Nebraska Furniture Mart. I agreed to one trip to facilitate her completing a design. I made it clear that I did not want to pay someone to go shopping. She went 3 times and billed time for all visits. She did not get approval for subsequent visits. She just went anyway. We wanted her to recommend fireplace tile, wall colors, wall tile, wall hangings, etc. We were clear that we wanted permanent features in our home. Not furniture and pillows. We did not need her to go furniture shopping much less pay for it by the hour. 4. She told us early on that her design product would include a scaled room layout and color schedules. I had to push hard at the end to get it. I had to withhold the final payment to get it. She first agreed to do it. Then, later she left me a voice mail indicating that she needed more time. She repeatedly said "design takes time". I am an engineer myself with 20 years experience. I know that, but at the end of the day you have to show something for your time. You must finish. And there is always a budget. 5. We explained upon the first phone call that we liked contemporary/Asian style. She later claimed several times that she did not know what we wanted. Our realtor did us a favor and got us access to a house that had all the interior design features we wanted. We had seen it prior to buying our house. She still claimed later that she did not know what we wanted! She took hundreds of pictures of someone else's house. We never saw them. 6. I asked her to price out some fireplace tile from a local gallery in 8"x8". She gave use the 12"x12" price. The dialogue was by email. She just did not pay attention and did not listen. 7. In the first couple of meetings, we selected wallpaper for the utility room. We later repeatedly asked for pricing and ordering information and status updates. It took entirely too long to get it ordered. It took a month to order four rolls of wallpaper. She verbally quoted me a $20-$25 per roll price, but stalled on ordering it and never presented an invoice before ordering it. When she finally ordered it, we finally got a written invoice for double the cost she quoted. I think she put a markup on it. 8. She does not know how to operate a professional. The entire experience was unprofessional to the max. We looked at many magazines and catalogs cuts for hours without anything ever being synthesized into a complete room design. Items and pieces that we liked and flagged were scooped up and taken by her at the end of a session and never seen again. We got the distinct feeling that she was purposefully stalling and withholding product information, ordering status, and her design product to drag out the process and increase her hourly billing. We eventually fired her. I don?t know if we would have ever gotten anything professional from her. A lot of money spent and little to show for it. Stay away from her!!