Area Aesthetics Interior Design

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

Editorial Review by Citysearch Editors

by Contributor at Citysearch

Residential and commercial decorator offers a full range of interior design services.

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

04/15/07

Highly highly recommended

by abean at Citysearch

One of NY's top and most acclaimed designers - who politely informed us that they don't handle budgets under $100,000- recommended Peggy Berk to us to handle the color and furnishings for our new coop with our mid-5 figure budget. We began the process in early December, meeting with her to develop plans the day after we closed on the apartment. Within a few minutes, we knew we had the perfect designer. She was delightful, had great innovative ideas, just fabulous color development and impeccable taste. She also has a great sense of humor and encouraged us to take our time making decisions, which we really appreciated because even though our budget didn't make the big time, it was a lot of money to us! Most important, we knew that she got us, that she understood what we wanted and who we were. She designed an extraordinary built in home office (our contractor who built it said it was one of the most beautiful designs he'd ever built) and taught us a lot about idenitfying quality in furniture. Her design fees were very resonable and she split her trade discounts with us so we were able to upgrade all of our purchases and get items that we thought were beyond our reach. She also took us to the best antique dealer in the city. (We know, we've been collecting for years and never even knew about this place.) We'd recommend her to anyone - we often have.

Alan Bean

• Pros: truly expert design, creative, very professional, a delight to work with

04/15/07

A+ for this designer

by jastino at Citysearch

I want to be totally above board about this. Peggy emailed me saying she was upset about a phony review and asked me to contribute a real review based on my real experiences with her. She did not tell me what to write. I am doing this because she is incredible to work with and is so supportive of what you want for your home. I am 28 and employed in the financial services industry by a private firm. I bought my condo in March and asked Peggy to help me after interviewing 6 or 7 people over the telephone. Peggy is the only one who didn't try to railroad me into an immediate booking - she sent me materials and encouraged me to think about it and make the decision very carefully. She is also the only one who described a process for her one-day consultations that included a lot more than the one day on site. She interviewd me over the phone a few days before our consultation for about 45 minutes. When she showed up for the flat rate consultation (she let me choose between flat and hourly rates), I saw how she put this interview to use. She came with a whole suitcase of materials based on what I discussed with her. Everything was on the mark with the modern style I requested and some really interesting ideas that I never would have on my own to add some comfort and a warmer feeling. After seven hours of working with her, I had a very specific written 16 page design plan for the three rooms. I also had paint chips and what she calls color scheme "shopping" chips for each room. I also had pictures and places to go for things I needed to buy. She included free follow up phone and email consultation on the plan and still speaks with me to this day about it and has never charged me another cent. She emails me pictures and links without being asked. With the cost of the condo, I couldn't afford to hire her to do the whole job for me. But I feel that she is here for the whole process just the same.

I am proud to sign my real name,

Jen Astino

• Pros: Includes much more than most one day consultations
• Cons: Very busy, had to wait a few weeks for a Friday appointment

01/31/07

The best experience I ever had with a designer...

by bashley at Citysearch

I have worked with many designers over the past couple of decades as my family has moved no fewer than 8 times in the last 22 years. Working with Peggy was by far the best experience I ever had with a designer. We love the home she helped us create, but for the first time in all these experiences we also loved the process and felt that it was really all about us. She is also very practical in her approach and provided excellent guidance on how we should spend our budget to get the most value and the very specific look and feeling we wanted in our home. We ended up with a home that was uniquely ours, totally us, full of the color and life we wanted so much and is the absolute envy of our friends. How do we know? They keep telling us.

Thank you Citysearch for leading me to this wonderful wonderful designer!

• Pros: fabulous, fabulous, fabulous

06/08/06

Great Guidance

by ilonamelyokhin at Citysearch

I called Peggy at Area Aesthetic and one other place who appeared to provide a similar service. After speaking with both Peggy and the people from the other place (who were rude and condescending, they asked who else I contacted, and when I told them, they made some negative comments about their competitor, Peggy, which was really inappropriate and unprofessional), I was left feeling that with Peggy I would be getting a great deal more, but most importantly I felt that if I was to use the other service I would be left disoriented and not know what to do once they were done with me for the day. Peggy spent a significant amount of time with me on the phone, before I ever committed to using her services and when we were done, she left me with a huge file, in an actual folder that she provided, which enabled me to go and find whatever it was I needed with great ease. I am not very good with measuring and knowing what things should look like and where they should go. Peggy was not only extremely helpful for the day, but left me very capable/prepared and enabled me to really find the appropriate things, knowing what size they should be, what they should look like, and where to find the items. She is great about keeping in touch and answers any questions, post the job, responding free of charge and very promptly. I am shocked to see any negative feed back. I would recommend her to anyone for a small studio job or a huge Park Avenue place.

Very important, she didn't try to get me to spend ridiculous amounts of money on things I didn't need, but helped me to make the most of what I had. As a matter of fact, I expected to have to throw out a lot more items, but Peggy showed me how to work with what I already had in ways I didn't know were possible.

06/07/06

The best company I ever saw.

by bognat at Citysearch

This company is great. Very nice and hardworking. I just love that company for their love to do their job they just great.

Barbara ^^