Reviews of Total Home (Interior Designer)

Eric & Shelley Stendal

Hire this man. We are so thrilled and blown away with the quality of Gilbert's work that I am actually finding it hard to articulate here for you how thrilled we are with the results of his installation of our hardwood flooring. Gilbert is a consummate professional. He takes his craftsmanship, knowledge, skill, attention to detail, and brings it all to the job at hand. I was able to watch Gilbert work on our installation for a couple of hours and the way he works is inspiring. He took the time to get the job done correctly. If you're trying to decide whether or not to hire him for your job, please read on. The first part of the installation required him to start from our kitchen because of our transition pieces (see photos). Due to the height differential between the tiled kitchen and living/dining room, he had to custom make wedges to achieve this. When I had arrived he had already had a plumb line drawn on the floor at this starting point to act as his guide. He also had a little chunk of the flooring that helped him measure and set up the whole rest of the floor based off this plumb line. "Get this part wrong", he said to me, "and the whole rest of your floor will be crooked and off." He checked each piece as they came out of the box for consistency, size, and fit for the floor. If a piece wasn't up to snuff, he simply repurposed it later on or discarded it if it was scratched. He laid out each piece ensuring that the wood was the right length based on the wood around it. He also took care to make sure that the wood with 'knots' in it were strategically placed around the room for positive effect. "You don't want perfect wood throughout your floor until the end and then end up with nothing but strips of hardwood with knots in one section," he said to me. Smart feller. Gilbert works efficiently and at a strong pace. I admired his work ethic and the sense of professionalism. I want to say that in watching him work I knew that we had made the right decision in contracting him to do our floor. We are SO HAPPY with the result. We would most definitely contract Gilbert to do any of our other projects as they come up without hesitation. Well done, Gilbert, and thank you. Eric & Shelley

Alan Pieroway

Working with Cindy was a great experience. At first I thought hiring an interior designer meant leaving all the complex decisions to her and just waiting for the big reveal. While that was one way to go, we opted to work with Cindy to re-vamp or boring living room. Cindy helped with paint color selection (had to paint the entire house first) before we could get to the main event. She patiently, very patiently, worked with my wife and I (and son) to narrow the near infinite choices for high end furniture, artwork, lighting choices and accessories to a few well coordinated design ideas that our minds could encompass. Without Cindy to guide us and help us make our choices from her hand picked options we would never have arrived at the end of the road to enjoy our new, lovely, comfortable and, most importantly, inviting living room. We went from using the basement TV room exclusively to now spending most of our family time in the living room. Because of Cindy's professionalism, and artistic design flair, and patience with indecisive clients, we finally get to use the space that, until now, was very under utilized. Thank you Cindy!

Saralyn Hodgkin

We are very happy to have had Cindy back again for another interior design project. She is professional, thoughtful and creative in approaching the situation, designing options, and executing on decisions. We are very happy with Total Home services.

Gilbert Lutes

Quality doesn't cost it pays

Susanne Ledbetter

For my new bathroom design I used the services of Cindy Lutes at Total Home in Kemptville. Cindy was amazing and a huge help in pulling together my ideas and planning the space. I was quite overwhelmed with the idea of designing an ensuite bathroom from an adjoining bedroom. I had many ideas that I had collected over a 6 month period but had no idea where to start. Cindy was patient and checked in during the construction phase. She caught a few issues before they became a problem because she was so conscientious. Her attention to details that I would never have thought of meant we had a beautiful, functional, bathroom. Cindy spent the time going over my ideas and then putting together a couple of design boards. This was so helpful as I could visualize the space that way. If I was underwhelmed by an item she would go back to the design board and provide me with a few other options. I was happy that she really worked with me rather than taking over the whole process. She is the professional but kept in mind that I was going to use the bathroom and needed to feel comfortable in the space.

Andrea Gordon-Val (Fibre Maven)

I would wholeheartedly recommend Cindy from Total Home. She is wonderful to work with, very professional, talented, friendly and I am still in awe with how beautifully she staged our home! She came with so much advice, so many ideas and options for us to choose from. I honestly believe it made all the difference and I would work with her again in a heartbeat. Seeing before and after photos, there's no doubt that her staging brought out the very best in the design of our home. I never thought it could look so amazing! I've already recommended her to friends! Thank you Cindy!

Pauline Houlahan

We downsized from a 5 bedroom to a 3 bedroom home and along with this, the principal rooms are much smaller. Cindy has designed our main living space beautifully maximizing on the space available and creating a modern yet warm feel to the room. She made an otherwise very challenging and burdensome project for me very enjoyable. She listened to my needs; very patient with change; full of ideas and visions; punctual and flexible in her services allowing me to save on her costs by doing some of the shopping. All of her recommended trades' people were equally as professional and provided top quality work. Her services were invaluable to me at this time of starting over. I highly recommend her services to anyone requiring advice on interior design.

Patricia Paul Carson

I had a virtual consultation with Cindy for two hours. First of all, it was lots of fun!! Cindy gave me some really good ideas about floor plans, buying a sideboard and lamps as well as paint colours. I had not considerd the things she suggested so I am really glad to have got a different perspective. I changed the arrangment of the furniture right away and loved the new look. Cindy worked hard and I felt her reasonable rates were worth every panny.

Angela Mooney

It was such a pleasure to work with Cindy of Total Home as we prepped and she staged our house for sale. Her eye for design and organizational skills took a seemingly overwhelming project and transformed it into doable tasks. What a relief! We wanted to move the process along as quickly as possible. Cindy was readily available and provided us with a great balance of options and clear direction. Before staging she gave us detailed and valuable advice about how best to prepare the house. During the preparations she was available to respond to any questions or concerns. Her clear communication and step-by-step instructions made the staging and de-staging process hassle-free and easy. Her design invited others to imagine themselves in our house and was appealing whether viewed in photos or real life. The de-staging process was just as pleasant. I highly recommend Cindy and Total Home.

Debbie Deacon

We have had the pleasure of working with both Cindy and Gilbert. They helped redo our kitchen, choose paint colours for the rest of our home, and stage our condo. Our condo sold very quickly, and I’m sure that their work is what helped to sell it. We found their work to be reasonably priced, and they followed up to make sure we were satisfied. And, yes we were! It’s great to work with people to care about what they do, and who are very thorough and meticulous. We will certainly use both of their services in our new home.

Beverly Brenner

Cindy was amazing, we started out with a brief in home consultation and completed all my design questions over zoom and I couldn’t be happier with all her suggestions. I highly recommend Cindy to anyone, she is personable, professional and most of all knowledgeable!!!

Stephen Layton

Total Home (Cindy) provided a very complete and thorough review of our home pre-staging. This allowed us to both understand what she would be doing for the actual staging and to prepare the house for her staging work. The staging was beautifully done - the house never looked this good!! And she did so using our own furniture, paintings and decor with a minimal number of items from her own inventory. Her arrangement of pictures, furniture and accessories complemented each room. Cindy was very easy to deal with, very professional and very organized. We were extremely satisfied with her work and really enjoyed working with her. We would highly recommend Total Home and we would hire them again.

Jennifer Petric

I want to thank Cindy with her help in redecorating my home. She made amazing suggestions from paint to artwork & decor items, helped organized my thoughts and had a great deal of patience taking me on shopping trips. I’m very happy with how things came together and I get lots of compliments on the changes. Thank you Cindy for all of your help.

Jillian Smith

We worked with Cindy at Total Home to have our house staged for selling. She was professional and communicated clearly and quickly. Staging and de-staging was done efficiently to minimize disturbance to our family. Our house sale was a great success in part to the beautiful furnishings and details that Cindy added. We would recommend her to our family and friends.