I hired Melanie and Laurence to design and see to completion the interior of our commercial space at the start of 2020. While I fully understand the project taking longer than usual given the circumstances, the duo disappeared after working with me for a few months, leaving the space unfinished (see photos dated just after my last email correspondence with them), making me responsible for taking over their work.
I ended up spending Sept 2020 (when they disappeared) to July 2021 making the space what they had promised it might look like in their initial moodboard on my own. I felt completely abandoned, and it was such a slap in the face when a year later—Aug 2021—their team reached out with invoices to pay (after having already Feb 1, Feb 28 and March 28 invoices). Most of the lines were listed as "time spent emailing" or "sending links for items to be purchased" (most of which didn't even ship to Quebec) billed at $110/hr.
That being said, Laurence created decent schematics to visualize the space (although the carpenters and contractors said some of the measurements were incorrect, so it seems she didn't take the time to double check which, when working with contractors, is very important), and they have a good rolodex of suppliers for things like rugs and fixtures. It's a mixed bag, but in the future, I'd rather just work directly with a contractor. I did not leave happy with the experience I got.