I contacted Lee Design almost immediately after moving in to my DC apartment. I presented them the…read moreopportunity to do a lot of different work and furniture touches. They accepted. This included re-doing the bathroom, kitchen and upstairs loft carpet. They also replaced the light fixtures, painted and sold me higher-end dining room table, chairs, rug, couch, pillows and a lamp. Not everything was a disaster and/or a disappointment, but a lot of it was.
I'll start with some positives. The interior pieces, although pretty expensive, was pretty good. The rug, glass table and general color schemes were nice (as a then-bachelor, I needed help with the colors). The light fixtures all look great, especially the one we chose for the kitchen. The kitchen appliances are great, although I should have been consulted on the size of the sink because it's small -- I make due, but feel like it was a decision made for me.
The four upholstered chairs are horribly crafted. They all wobbled after a month due to poor craftsmanship. I have to get new ones now that I have a family because I'm afraid someone will get hurt.
The paint job looks fine...BUT if you so much as bump a wall it leaves a big greasy mark. I like the look and color, but I need to repaint after only 1 year. Also, during the painting process, they painted most of the windows shut and didn't use painter's tape around edges of the trim (really rookie mistakes). I still find paint drips and random things painted over/shut. Changing the filter for my air conditioning system meant having to pry open the grate and crack a lot of the of the paint job into an unsightly mess.
The bathroom was redone without a thought to wear one gets their toilet paper. I installed my own later, but I was dumbfounded that they would replace the tiled walls (that included a normal dispenser port) without a solution for the first time one would sit on the throne in their "new and improved" bathroom. The shower is fine, but there was no discussion on the fixture -- they look great but you can't regulate the amount of water that comes out. It's either hot/warm with a lot of flow or cool/cold with low flow. The shower stream also splashes onto the newly installed walls and, as a result, the paint is now bubbled and I'm worried the wall is going to rot.
The kitchen appliances look great. The installation of the stove was half-thought out, so it sticks out quite a bit because of the gas nozzle. They didn't work out a solution to do some backsplash tiling around it or otherwise try to adapt to this unforeseen issue. The backsplash is generally fine, but I still find some incomplete silicon edges, globs of silicon, etc. that you don't expect from professionals.
I do project management for a living, so I think I know what I'm talking about with work planning, but my standards are not overly lofty. I will sacrifice pretty organization for a good end result. But, this was often a combination of incomplete planning and poor performance as a result. Moments of good work were mixed with mediocre to shoddy work. I was always left having to point out the bad because they would try to concentrate on the good. So, they leave the customer feeling like he's the jerk for asking for what he paid for. Days, weeks, and MONTHS would pass between stages of the project and/or communication on the next stage. Excuses were the norm. A week for a sick friend; a few weeks for an unexpected landlord situation at their office; unavailable workers; things on order; always something and I was always left feeling bad I even asked.
My last communication was to ask them to come back and repair fixtures on my blinds that were broken during the painting process; and, to do a few touch ups to the painted over A/C grill. Someone was supposed to come over in a few weeks after their August vacation. Then, when I followed-up the second or third time, I got an excuse and an explanation that they couldn't get anyone there soon because of Thanksgiving... I gave up after that. I just wanted to move on with my life.
I waited over a year to review, because I wanted to gain perspective. I don't want to rail against some of the good work that was done and some good intentions that went into it. And, I'm sure some of the excuses were legit. And, I'm sure during the process a corner or two needed to be cut in order to come in under/at budget. When things ultimately went over, they didn't charge me for the bit remaining. I would have fought them if they had, but they willingly acknowledged that things had taken a year to complete and had not gone smoothly. I'm hoping this can be constructive criticism in the end. 2 stars for some of the efforts and always being nice on the phone. They were good with interior design, but not so much with management and execution of work projects.
