We worked with Susan on the renovation of our kitchen, creating a space which included a new kitchen, mud room, laundry room, and half bath. We are about an hour away from Susan, and used our own contractor, with whom Susan had not worked before. We ordered custom cabinets through Susan, using a custom cabinet builder near her, with whom she works regularly.
The bottom line: our kitchen is beautiful. We love it. (It is well documented on Houzz: I don't know how to link to it, but it has grey bamboo cabinets with horizontal grain, and has been featured as part of Susan's work.) We have hired her again to work with us on our master bath renovation.
Susan brought great design ideas to the table. She is very thoughtful when it comes to thinking through the way one uses each space, and we spent quite a lot of time working through details that might make a difference once one is working in the kitchen. (Sometimes I think she was more worried about this than we were! And we're pretty detail-oriented.)
When it came time to choose materials, she presented us with a wide array of combinations from which to choose. This was great. She took into consideration the relation to the rest of our house, listened to our description of what we wanted, and showed us multiple great options. She also showed us multiple price points--she didn't just act as if our coffers were bottomless. The options were interesting and unique--it wasn't as if she had just picked the best colors off the sample wall at the local hardware store. So: she brought us things we would not likely have seen on our own, and she sorted through colors and styles to provide combinations that worked well together and complemented the rest of the house. I want to emphasize how great this was.
Our contractor, who had not worked with Susan, was concerned before we started because sometimes designers will ask them to stop work until the designer is able to get to the site, say, to locate the light fixtures or whatever. We didn't have any of this. Susan worked with the contractor to establish this stuff ahead of time, and she always picked up the phone when I called when work was going on. (This isn't to say that she didn't pick it up other times--but she was super responsive when she knew they were working.)
You won't believe me if I write that she's perfect, so here are my key areas for improvement: We had some timeline delays. Most projects do. One key delay was due to our flooring sitting in customs, and I can't blame this on Susan. But when I looked back on the project, we could have made some choices early enough to prevent some of the delays. Because I hired the contractor, project management fell more on my shoulders than it probably does if she does a local job. Ultimately the timeline was owned by multiple people. Could she have helped me to understand lead times better, and make earlier choices? Probably. On our next project, I will press Susan more to make choices and get things ordered as early as possible.
The drawings for our kitchen were created by the cabinet maker and the GC. I would like it if Susan developed some sort of capacity to create drawings of her designs. Had we not ordered our cabinets through her, we would have had little to show for the design time she put in. So depending on exactly what you have in mind, make sure you have this aspect covered. In our new project, our contractor is creating the drawings first, so this is less of a worry.
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I think her hourly rate is reasonable. I felt like this was a more transparent pricing model than the folks who sell you cabinets and "design for free". We talked to those people, and they seemed to "phone in" the designs. They all just stuck cabinets in spaces. When you look at what we paid Susan as a percentage of the kitchen, it wasn't a huge percentage, and without her we would have had a far, far less cool, unique, and functional kitchen. We found that the expense was well worth it. (Anyway, I am skeptical that the folks who hide their design fees within a larger scope charge a much different rate. They probably put in fewer hours. But ask yourself whether you want control over how many hours your designer thinks about your project.)
Bottom line: we are very happy that we chose to work with Susan on our kitchen renovation. We have been living in it for 15 months now, and there isn't anything we would change about the space we created. We were happy enough that we have already started to work with her on a new project. We highly recommend her services.
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