IMAGINE THAT INTERIORS

My wife and I recently relocated to Maryland where we purchased our new home. We decided to engage an interior designer to assist us in fulfilling our dreams for decorating our home. Our goal was to have a professional to not only help us to incorporate our own tastes, ideas and some furnishings we already had, but also someone to offer some alternatives and fresh perspectives. We were also looking for someone, who in addition to having the experience and necessary design skills, was also a person who listened and was responsive to our opinions and lifestyle objectives. We were indeed thankful that we were able to find that person who embodies all those qualities and who at the same time has a positive and endearing personality. That person is Barb Johnson of Imagine That Interiors. We have been meeting and working with Barb for about a year now and over that timeframe she has helped and guided us and together we have transformed our combined design vision into a reality. We are exceedingly pleased with our progress to date. We highly recommend Barb as a professional, imaginative and innovative designer, as well as being a wonderful person to help implement your design objectives.

Barb arrived on time, and was at my home for about an hour and a half. In that time, we had plans for every room on our first floor, including color schemes, complete with paint color chips. I was comfortable with her immediately, and was thrilled with her ideas and input. We are completing the renovations, and are thrilled with the outcome.

Barb was very pleasant, on time, and a joy to work with. She took her time and gave me excellent suggestions on what would work in decorating a difficult kitchen/dining room space. She was able to find things I already had and move them around and I saw them in a whole new light. I’m very grateful I found her and would use her again.

Barb was excellent. She was punctual and very professional. She came prepared with ideas and suggestions that were great. Her insights were appreciated and her honesty was a pleasant surprise. I'm not experienced with renovations and had ideas of my own, but it's helpful for a professional to tell you the truth about some ideas so you get the best outcome. Almost all of her suggestions were used and our house looks great. We will definitely use her again. Also, she communicates very well and follows up when she said she will.

unknown

Barb provided advice and input to our basement (painting recommendations, furniture placement and type, and overall use of space).  In addition to the basement, she re-arranged our formal family room, and gave us suggestions for new paint in the master bedroom, and provided some advance for our in-formal living room.  
Overall she is a very knowledgeable and insightful decorator.  We took her suggestions and ran with them.  Have since painted the basement, master bedroom, and ordered furniture per her direction.  Can't wait to get it all in place!
We have absolutely no reservation about referring her services to our friends and family.

Barb, who did a great job helping us choose paint colors and carpet designs for our entire home back in January, came back to visit us in October, 2014.  We were looking for suggestions on where and how to hang pictures throughout our home, and make decisions on some modest furniture and curtain purchases we were contemplating.  We also talked about replacing some ceiling fans and adding some decorative tile to our master bath.  As before, Barb covered a lot of ground in our 2.5 hour visit, and we feel we received excellent advice and good value for her visit.  Over the last month or so we have implemented most of Barb's suggestions, and we are happy with the results.  Barb has been kind by confirming a follow-up details after our visit, allowing us to be sure we were implementing things as she suggested.

I will definitely be using Barb again.  I know what colors I like but do not know how to put them together in a home. I recently purchased my first home and stressed over paint colors at the various stores while looking at color swatches.  I thought I would give Angie's List a try and found Barb. Oh my goodness -- her ideas saved me a lot of time and money. If it wasn't for her, I would have chosen the wrong colors. She gave me a lesson on warm and cool colors, how your various color choices should flow in the house, and how to create a dramatic affect with correct color choices. Barb was on time, professional, and reasonably priced. It was well worth the hour we spent together.

We loved Barb!  This was the first time we have used a decorator and are so thrilled with the results.  She has a great eye for taking your personal style up a notch.  She was able to help us choose colors for paint and decide on a plan all within the first meeting.  After that it was on our time table to choose furniture and other items we wanted help with. 
She encouraged us to use items that we already had and fit the new concept as well.  Barb is willing to do as much or as little as you ask for so we didn't feel pressured to spend more than we were comfortable with.  We also were able to ask for advice via email or phone anytime we had questions without having to have a formal meeting. She was on time and very prompt with her responses.
I am happy to say that she was able to choose fabric and other items I would not have chosen on my own.  It really gives our house a whole new energy.  We have completed the first phase of our decorating and  will be calling her in the future when ready for our next phase.  I should also say that she was able to help us choose other contractors for our construction and maintenance projects as well.  Her experience in this area was very helpful. 

Barb was fantastic!  She responded promptly to all of our inquiries and on the day of our consultation arrived on time.  This was important to us since we took time off work.  
Throughout the consultation Barb took time to get to know us, what we liked style wise, and what our personalities were.  We were looking for animal friendly designs as we have two large puppies and she had great ideas!  She took pictures as well throughout her visit so if we had questions later she could refer to them.
Barb had GREAT ideas, she steered us to a flooring material we had not initially considered that was very dog friendly that we are THRILLED with.  Also she gave a great lesson on how to decorate a mantel place visually.  After our initial consultation Barb was quick to respond to our little questions or clarifications before we started construction and during construction.  Often she responded instantly or within the hour.
Ultimately she gave us the confidence to move ahead on our first major construction project.  I cannot recommend Barb enough, we hope to use her again in the future!

We had recently purchased a house and it needed complete re-painting and re-carpeting.  Given the significant amount of money we were going to spend on these two improvements, we desired to have a professional decorator assist us.  We called Barb, and a couple days later we met and she suggested paint colors and finishes for our entire house.  She also provided guidance on carpet styles, which was great because we were wrestling with flooring choices.  She suggested we consider using a specific style of pattern carpet  in a place where we were debating whether to carpet or install hardwood flooring.  The pattern carpet was a great option, since it seems more interesting than traditional pile, but is not as costly as hardwoods.

Barb followed up our meeting with a detailed listing of the paints, including numeric color codes.  She also offered to answer follow-up questions we may have on the specific carpet selections.  We took her up on her offer, and this too was a great help.  There's no question in our minds that the money spent on this service was well worth the investment.  We appreciate Barb's assistance and will likely reach out to her again when we need additional decorating guidance.

I took Barb's ideas and made my living room over.  She and I had discussed the general feel that I wanted to have and went over color schemes with me.  I then painted the room.  She also helped me pick out some new sofas (I called her from the furniture store panicking over which light or dark brown to pick!), and gave me ideas for window coverings.  I do plan on calling Barb again.  She seemed very flexible, reasonable, friendly, and professional.

We truly wish we would have found Barb 4 months prior!  On our own, thru a local furniture store, and with an employee they called a "decorator"...our furniture pieces were ordered...and several accessories purchased as well. That in itself is an experience we are so glad is in our past as all of our pieces have now came in...many didn't work either the wrong size or wrong color etc. 
We found Imagine That Interiors through a search engine. The design process prior to discovering Imagine That Interiors has been very overwhelming! Barb has just put us at ease from the very first time we reached out to her by e-mail. Barb is so very professional and personable. Her prices are actually lower than several other equally qualified designers! Barb came to our home to meet us, see our home that we recently moved into and go over our remaining needs for a decorators touch. 
On her first visit we were still awaiting several of our previously ordered furniture pieces. Without those items in place, we really didn't want to add, accessories etc. just yet...she agreed. However, what she did do, was measure all of our windows for custom window treatments. We discussed some likes/dislikes, suggested styles of particular material prints, fabrics, colors etc. On the spot she sketched out draft designs for each rooms window treatments and described what type of window treatment would be most appropriate for each room, explaining to us the pros and cons for her suggestions. Within a week, in the mail, we got completed sketched window treatment drawings and material swatches. They were amazing! We only requested an alternate fabric selection on our Master Bath, we wanted the window treatments to be more subdued as that's our relaxation spa get away. She immediately sent an alternate selection which then made every window treatments custom design spot on!  I just can't say enough good things about how Barb's designer expertise has lifted so much stress off of our shoulders, we truly trust her and immediately clicked with her...which believe me is so very important.  A designer with her expertise, her ability to get to know your style and if needed blend two different styles, be as prompt and quick on turn around time as she has been are very very rare in this field!  She is at the top of her field!  Our window treatments are currently being custom made at a workshop, we can't wait to see her elegant curtains as we know they will just add more value to our home.
Phase two of Barb's expertise has been one that has been pretty emotional for me...in a good way. This past weekend, Barb showed up at our home with a car load of accessories. Before she brought them in, she came in to see all of our furniture pieces now in place and we went from room to room discussing changes that we wanted due to us initially dealing with an alternate "designer", and also some things she suggested that our home needed to make it remain elegant, but feel cozy and warm at the same time. She moved a few furniture pieces around on the spot which made such a difference!  She discussed a few walls that she felt some soft paint features needed to be added.  Painted scrolls on our 2nd floor wall that is visible from our entry way, later adding different style and sized mirrors as right now it looks like a runway to nowhere.  She also suggested a few 10" soft vertical stripes painted on two walls next to our MB fireplace along with mirrors placed there as well.  These are design elements we never thought of but absolutely can't wait to see completed. After our walk about, Barb went to her car and was looking through her carefully wrapped inventory that she brought with her.  She brought inside an assortment of accessories. We stepped back, went about our own business within our home and let her work her magic. I have got to tell you that her over 20 years of experience and expertise sure was noticeable in each area she completed. I walked around with tears in my eyes. We all did, everything is coming together better than I could have ever imagined... IMAGINE THAT LOL  had to do that. Seriously, she has turned things around in our what used to feel like a cold home, things not flowing properly, things missing, to one that feels warm, cozy, smooth transitions, just the right amount of accessories added.  Everything is so very elegant looking.  
Over the weekend we had several family members over for a cookout and they all had outstanding comments to make about our now beautiful home. We have Barb to thank for that, I can not say enough great things about this lady. We are eager to get her back for window treatment installation and her next phase of her golden touches to our home.       
 

She was not very bad. I had her come to my house before I move in to make sure that I could be looking at it as nice as it could and she couldn't do it unless I had all my furniture so I took her to my other house so I could show her everything I own, my furniture and art and see. I spent 3 hours with her and she goes "I don't know, we have to get everything here", I needed it house painted before her coming in so it didn't work for me. She was not good and I let her know, I was really disappointed, I sent her I don't know a hundred dollars an hour and I was very unhappy with it. She was really offended and I said "I didn't mean to offend you, I just need you to understand that I needed this service and it wasn't right" so that's what happened with her. It was terrible, the service was bad and the price was bad. She responds immediately to everything.

Barbara responded to my email inquiry.  She came to my house.  Talked to me to see what kind of preferences I had, how I'll use the rooms, any suggestions I had, etc.  She took that all into account to create a lovely color palette of Sherwin Williams paints.  I have two very different styles and colored duvet covers and she was able to select a color that will compliment both.   The rooms were painted last week and look fantastic.  They colors compliment each other incredibly well, just as she imagined that they would.

Barb was recommended to me by a friend who was thrilled with her work. I was about to move from my home of  25 years into a house as different as it could possibly be. I thought I only needed suggestions for repainting, but realized quickly that she could help with so much more.  On her initial  visit, she inspected my first house from top to bottom, took photos, asked questions, took notes, and came away with a clear understanding of my decorating preferences. Then she did the same with new house. Her color choices were very unique and lovely to live with. She was able to recycle almost everything from the first house, and I only needed to buy a few new pieces, making her services quite cost effective overall. Pieces were put into new arrangements and used in ways I'd never thought of.  It worked so well that friends thought everything was new, purchased to fit the new house. When we  tackled the unfinished basement, she had wonderful ideas for room flow, lighting, carpeting, and even the closets and storage areas. I trust her judgement and have been thrilled with the results. Over the years, I've called her back many times and she's happy to help no matter the size of the job. Often, after working out the initial project, she'll end up tweaking something else by just wandering through other rooms and coming back  with an armful of stuff. Before I know it, everything looks better. She boggles my mind. She's wonderful.