Reviews of Red Bean Interior Design (Interior Designer)

Howard Brodie

We initially met Amanda in her retail store in Port Carling and was happy with the furniture purchased. She was helpful in scheduling the delivery and showed up herself whereby we started chatting about wanting to redo our kitchen. She made mention that she offers design/build services and could overlook the whole project as we were looking into moving a wall and lifting a ceiling in addition to a complete gutting and rebuild of the kitchen/mudroom area. Her contract and fees were 2600$ in advance, for design boards and complete drawings, that she would have her trades quote to build and we could also shop it ourselves. The process proved to be a painful one. After several phone/zoom discussions, and providing her with many Pinterest/IG images of what we were looking for, she never came remotely close and I was confused as to what the issue was. As time passed, her response time became unacceptable and each time communication was made, we followed up (sometimes a month later) asking when we may hear back from her. She provided no direction nor design ideas (which she claimed she could offer for a highly functioning kitchen) and worse, did not seem to have the skills promised in navigating/leading this small renovation. Eventually, she sent drawings to us that i forwarded to two millworkers to quote, and both came back to me apologizing that the drawings had very little detail and technical information and that they were unable to provide any costs from these drawings. When i forwarded her the emails of what I was told by these 2 vendors, she then replied with, ‘I will edit the drawings if i provided her with a list of information’. That ‘list’ was technical information that i was unfamiliar with and I responded with ‘that’s why i hired you, as I’m not a kitchen designer’. She never responded back. We got nothing for our money and lost 6 months of planning time. Her retail store is lovely with beautiful things. Buyer beware on the design/build side.