Area Aesthetics Interior Design

06/29/10

buyer beware

by gilbert group at Citysearch

I hired this person after reading the reviews on this page and I am left without the furniture we ordered and paid for plus legal fees...Ms Berk is not affiliated with any major design society and most of her credits on her webpage can be bought. her contract and her promises are deceiving at best and worse is what you are left with after signing...We also never got a design plan (which should have been the first alarm bell) but lots of ranting emails about how she could not draw one until we had bought ALL the furniture...well any good furniture store can draw up a floor plan for pieces free of charge and we finally went to Kreiss and they did an amazing job. Anyway, with the help of real licensed showrooms and designers from Ann Sacks and other great stores our condo is amazing. A design plan is very different than a furniture layout.

We framed her so called "design" plan as a joke drawing for our bathroom....buyer beware...

• Pros: none especially unprofessional
• Cons: read fine print...

05/14/09

A room for Nelson

by sharoninelson1 at Citysearch

Peggy Berk is a genius! We won a contest to have our nursery made over by Similac and Peggy was assigned to us. We had never worked with a designer before so we were a bit apprehensive.

As soon as we met her, we were right at home. Her warm personality, charming wit and sense of humor really made the redesign an adventure. Our baby is 8 months old and we wanted a room that was clearly a boy's room that was also educational at the same time in a fun way. We chose a nautical design as it was colorful, interesting and I am a decendent of Admiral Nelson of the British Navy.

At first I didnt know what to expect as I was unsuccessful trying to find the materials on my own when the theme was not as popular. Peggy pulled the whole "look" together in a few months and easily coordinated pieces, fabric and even found me a wonderful seamstress that put the finishing touches on Peggy;s signature design. I wholeheartedly recommend Peggy for your next redesign venture. You will not be disappointed.

Best regards,

Sharon

• Pros: The coolest room you will ever see for a baby
• Cons: someday he will grow up and change it

05/20/08

Bravo!

by jenadelea at Citysearch

I highly tout this New York designer. I am an architect from the U.K. just recently relocated to the states on a part time basis. I had begun the process with another designer but it became obvious to me that she had her style and I had mine. I hired Peggy Berk after a couple of weeks of false starts with the first designer. Peggy is all business and got us off to a fast start. She is fabulous with color and paint and fabrics. She is very practical at the same time as she is amazingly creative and came up with absolutely gorgeous and very innovative ideas for bespoke items. I am so excited and very impatient - I can't wait for everything to arrive and be in place. Bravo, Peggy, bravo!

• Pros: creative, innovative, practical
• Cons: none

05/01/07

wonderful experience A+

by bdavid11 at Citysearch

My partner and I had a wonderful experience with this designer. She is full of great ideas and even our painter kept remarking how wonderful her color choices were. We had a lot of disparate funishings, some of them we wanted to keep. She pulled everything together beautifully and is great at solving problems that had my partner and I baffled for months. She is also a warm, engaging and generous individual with a great sense of humor. We always looked forward to our appointments with her. When we went to the design cener with her, every showroom we walked into greeted her with smiles and the salespeople couldn't have been more eager to help. It was obvious that Peggy has their respect as well as ours. They made us feel like VIPs and what might have been a chore turned into a number of wonderful and very productive afternoons . Peggy clearly enjoys her profession and the time she spends with clients and that made the whole process that much more enjoyable for us as well. A+ all around.

• Pros: A+ for design, A+ for service, A+ for making it so enjoyable

04/30/07

Much more than we ever expected - excellent design and service

by esnith at Citysearch

My husband and I moved to Tribeca in Dec2005 and in Jan2007 could not yet agree on how to paint or furnish our 2 bedroom condo. I talked to 5 designers from citysearch and we decided to hire one because she had an immediate availability 2 days later. After spending one day (which was only two hours long ) with the other designer and paying her top dollar for her time, all we had was a one page document which was supposed to be a design plan, but had nothing in it to do with design. It was mostly a shopping list of things we should buy at Room and Board. Instead of helping us find the color we wanted, she toldus to keep our walls white. When she left, my husband and I looked at each other and knew we made a mistake and had to start all over. We decided to hire Peggy Berk even through it meant waiting 2 weeks for an appointment because she was the one who seemed most interested in US. Unlike the first, Peggy showed with a huge rolling suitcase and a whole case of paint chips. She spent 7 hours with us designing our layout, sketching a built in for our home office, putting color chips on the walls and watching through the changes in light, measuring our windows and showing us furniture which we loved that we had never seen before. She gave us very detailed design plans, sketches of the layouts, even how the art should be hung. Many of the things we could do ourselves and Peggy encouraged us to. For other things like fabrics and finding furniture, we looked to her for follow up help. The experience was EXCELLENT. Our home doesn't just feel furnished, it feels DESIGNED, and exactly what we wanted - beautiful,warm, comfortable and very much us. We both love the colors and can't hardly believe we ever had trouble agreeing on what we wanted before Peggy worked with us. We got much much more than we ever expected and the service was outstanding from that first very long day right through the delivery of our last piece of furniture today. Very Highly Recommended.

• Pros: excellent service and designs, passionate about her work, love this company