Rae Duncan Interior Design

Do not hire this “firm”!!!! Rae is unpredictable, unprofessional and completely irrational. You cannot hold a conversation with this woman. She is very disrespectful. Stay far far away! Rae looks good on paper and her website is put together well but this is NOT a reflection of her everyday design. She hires and fires employees left and right. She is unstable and screams at her new employees when they ask her questions regarding what the tasks are. There is no training for new employees and you’re told to “just figure it out!” She is in debt and will take on ANY project and bombard the client for payment constantly. Don’t let the website fool you. This is a revolving door and if you work with her, you’ll start with one designer and go through 5 more. She puts up a front acting like she is this busy high end designer, when they actually only have like 2 clients. She’s been fired by multiple clients and also has dropped clients as well. She has no stable contractor contacts, as they all decided they cannot work with her. There’s PLENTY of design firms one can work with. Stay FAR FAR away. The reason why I’m not giving out my real name is because she loves to sue and call the police on anyone she feels like doesn’t do exactly what she wants. This woman is completely irrational, explosive and manipulative. This is a real review, versus the ones that she pays people to make and the fake ones she creates herself. This is NOT a luxury firm - all just a front. If you don’t believe me, just meet with her and her “team” in her basement and you will get the full picture.

Rae is a master at what she does and a true visionary. She and her team spent time getting to know us -- how we live in our space, our personalities and our design aesthetic. We had an idea of what we wanted going into this process, but she elevated our vision beyond our wildest expectations. Rae incorporated innovative elements and artistic value in each room she designed for us --- things we would have never thought of on our own. She and her team of contractors executed the design flawlessly, with precision and the highest attention to every last detail. And the project came in on time and at budget. To say we had a positive experience with Rae Duncan Interior Design would be an understatement. I never thought that redesigning my house would be such a fun, inspiring and stress-free experience. She has made our house a home and a real show stopper. Rae is now our 'designer for life' and we have plans to work with her again to design more rooms in our home. I can't thank Rae and her team enough; I wholeheartedly recommend them to anyone looking for a talented, professional and fun interior design firm. Thank you, RDID! Side note: We came to RDID after months of working with another well-known interior design firm in Chicago. Long story short, that design firm completely missed the mark and presented a design that was nothing like what we wanted, after months of working on it without any check ins. We were out tens of thousands in design fees with the other design firm, but the end product with Rae was worth hiring her instead of continuing with our previous firm and a design we weren't excited about.

Rae has turned what should have been an exciting, enjoyable experience for us into an absolute nightmare. We hired Rae to help us with the design of a kitchen and bath remodel after meeting at our home, explaining in detail our vision and budget, and being assured that the number Rae had provided was a reasonable estimate. Despite Rae's claims that she has worked with the same contractors and materials providers on her jobs for years and had completed a number of projects with them recently, the estimated project costs provided were nearly double our estimate. While we had been prepared for the potential that the costs may be a bit higher, we were flabbergasted at how far off the original estimate was. When we questioned why the costs were nowhere in the ballpark of what was discussed and asked her to stop work until we determined how to proceed, Rae attempted to blame us and responded in an unprofessional, offensive manner that included personal attacks on us. She then unilaterally terminated the contract, leaving us with thousands of dollars of bills for her alleged "services" on the project and without a completed design for our project. Perhaps recognizing the overreaction, shortly thereafter, Rae's firm offered to enter into a new agreement, under new terms, including the material provision that her colleague (not Rae) would be the point of contact on all matters related to the project. However, Rae's firm failed to honor this agreement. Among other things, when we asked to speak with our point of contact about the project, much to our surprise, we were informed that she was no longer working for Rae's firm. Later, when we attempted to negotiate the contract with the contractor, Rae intervened unnecessarily, and, remarkably, despite working for us, began advocating against our position and interests. The contractor's proposed contract lacked terms and a performance schedule and included payment terms that were wildly unfavorable, as it would have called for us to hold back only a small percentage of the costs until completion, forcing us to front nearly all of the money and giving the contractor no incentive to finish the project. We asked for a construction schedule (since half of our house would be torn up for this project) and proposed reasonable terms that would have tied the payments more closely to the contractor's actual progress on the project, as is common practice. When we did so, Rae's colleague responded on behalf of the contractor stating: "This is not something we are willing to change." When we inquired why she was speaking for the contractor when she was supposed to be representing our interests and informed her we would handle the negotiations directly with the contractor, Rae stated: "[W]e gave our terms. You can abide by them or you can terminate." This was followed once again by additional unprofessional, offensive communications and Rae's attempt to unilaterally terminate the second contract. No client should ever be treated like we were on this project.