Designs To Delight

Lesley Davis aka «Designs to Delight» is a competent designer, but she and I decided to part ways when it came to window treatments.
I paid her what I considered a reasonable hourly rate on the front end to consult regarding paints for my new home.
I presented her with a color pallet from Benjamin Moore that I was happy with and she liked most of my selections. Unfortunately, she successfully talked me out of some choices and those turned out to be big mistakes that she was willing to accept and we went back to what would please me.
After all the paints, and floor coverings were decided on I was willing to consider using her help in selecting the window treatments. She didn’t charge for her time, but I was expected to purchase from her on the back end. Unfortunately, that’s when everything went down hill fast.
We spent quite a bit of time going over what I consider to be cheap stuff that I would never consider purchasing. I remember sending her an email saying that everything looked like it was made of «recycled plastic pop bottles».
She responded by saying that «she wished they did use recycled material». In other words, we both agreed on that point.
Her response was to offer me some higher end products and real fabrics and she wrote up a quote based on measurements she had taken earlier. The quote basically consisted of a price and that was it. She didn’t identify a manufacturer or even itemize what I was going to be paying for and that was where I had to draw a line.
I told her quite clearly that I needed a «detailed quote» that would allow me to shop and compare. Here response was as follows:
«I have given you an honest bid on custom window treatment design. To hand all of my work over to another shop who won’t have to do any leg work will undercut me in this dog eat dog market. I have already been extremely generous with my time. Either I have offered you my best product at the best price, or I haven’t»
Her response was contained in an email and I have yet to respond to her. But, in the meantime, I have received quotes from the local Lowes store and a locally owned shop both of which have no problem at all providing me with a detailed quote.
So if you’re going to use Lesley Davis pay her by the hour and forget about using her for actual purchases of any window treatments, furniture, or anything else for the simple reason that she isn’t willing to be transparent in her dealings with customers.