Spatial Harmony Color Consulting and Design

I engaged the services of Spatial Harmony for the building of a new contemporary home and decided to hire Marisa to stage an Adobe home that needed to be transitioned from Contemporary Styling of furnishing to a more South- Western theme. She quoted $225/hour (up from $150) and advised me that the project would take 14-20 hours. She agreed that I would purchase the items, and without a marked-up purchase relationship, it made sense. She budgeted that the furnishings would cost approximately $20,000. Although this hourly rated was extremely high, I moved forward assuming that she would honor the budgeted time. I had a deadline to be met for staging and she was to help me meet this date.While working on this project together, I noticed that she seemed very distracted. There were times when I would remind her that the item that she was selecting might not work (i.e., chrome bed legs with gold legs on an end table). She then said, Oh Yes, I forgot. She was busy opening a retail space and appeared to be stretched. I felt that the level of service was not commensurate with the hourly rate. One of the design decisions involved selecting a rug for the living room. She had her "Rug Person" recommend rugs for throughout the home. They were all found on the first two pages of the Karastan website. Counter to our agreement in styling the home in a southwestern style, they were all contemporary, the very style we were trying to rid ourselves of. She was upset that I didn't approve of them and then advised me that they were out of budget anyway and cost $20,000 (our entire budget). I found and sent her other selections, and she approved one that I liked. I ordered it and when it arrived, it would not lay properly on the floor and was returned. My efforts to move this project forward resulted in her walking off the job. She was angry that I had not purchased rugs that were not appropriate and beyond our agreed upon budget (she also felt they were too expensive). She charged for 19.25 hours with no prior advice that she had run up this number of hours. I have a deadline to meet which will now not be met and this is of no concern with Marisa. It appears that she is leveraging her time with other vendors and charging for it. She is not focusing on her customer. I would strongly not recommend her. She has left me in a very bad situation.