During construction of our home, we have interacted with several vendors and businesses and Liz…read moreCrider (HAD owner) is hands down the most unprofessional and inexperienced. We approached Liz because of her Google reviews, (which I now must question the validity of those reviews), and she was paid a deposit to design our whole home. In the span of over one year, Liz never requested a face-to-face meeting or video meeting to get to know our design style. She never asked us a single question either verbally or in writing about what colors and fabrics we like or what to avoid. She never asked if we had pets or children or how we will use each space. She simply went off on her own and designed our living room based on photos we pinned on Pinterest. The designs required multiple revisions and hours of our time to get it to a state where we felt we were just okay with. Then came the estimate. Liz submitted a bill of $18k for our living room, but would not provide any details on where the products would be sourced, what fabric would be used, warranty information, reviews, etc. We were expected to hand over that amount of money with no guarantees we would be content with the items purchased, and, she only allows two returns per room.
She was also tasked with our primary bathroom, which turned out to be another disaster. She never made one trip to the house, and she asked us, her customers, to take measurements of the bathroom and provide them to her. Her initial designs for the bathroom were confounding. It was a mix of tiki bar meets the Golden Girls. Again, we went through the same exercise of hours of input to get a somewhat okay design. This is when we realized we were doing her job. She purchased all of the items, had them delivered to our current home, and charged us her design fee plus cashed in on her trade discount. In addition, she relied on us and our GC to pick up orders and I had to coordinate all deliveries. At this point, we decided to cut ties with her because it was obvious she was in over her head, we were handling all logistics and her design aesthetic was not in line with what we envisioned. Perhaps Dorothy or Rose would appreciate it.
We were stuck with the items she purchased ($9K), and we discovered that ALL of the bathroom fixtures are various shades of brushed gold. None of the items she ordered would work and it was a waste of money. When approached with our concerns, Liz lacked the business acumen to listen to our concerns and make things right. She wanted to retain 100% of the deposit for the whole house even though she worked on two rooms. When asked why she never requested a meeting, she responded with "I don't make friends with clients". Making friends was never my intention, but creating a thoughtful design was. One last point to her lack of engagement is that to this day, Liz does not know my husbands name and refers to him by his gmail handle despite being on multiple calls with the both of us.
Do yourself a favor and research/interview interior decorators before deciding to go with HAD. I really wish I had performed more due diligence. This would have saved me a small fortune and a good amount of frustration with someone that is in the wrong business.
**Everything stated in this review is documented in email exchanges with Liz Crider.**