I met the Lockwood group a couple of years ago at a home show and was very impressed by their professionalism, therefore when I decided to do a renovation of a 25 year old house I recently purchased I went to them for a quote. Our initial meeting went well and they told me they would be able to do the work I wanted within budget however they told me that in order to get a proper budget we would need to hire them to do a design. I was leery on paying money before I had a quote however since I needed someone to do a design I decided to proceed – this was a huge mistake. During our initial meetings Lockwood made a huge deal about their kitchen designs and how they are able to view them 3D. Therefore when I paid $5000 for the design which include a 3D presentation I assumed that the kitchen design would be included.
Even though I was told I needed to have the design done in order to get the quote I received the quote a couple of days before the design was complete. The quote was $275,000 above the high end of my budget.
Instead of sitting down and discussing my ideas and having the designer coming up with a design all that they did was put my high level sketch into blueprints without any additional thought put into it. I eventually got part of the design but still do not have a complete design of the outside with the front and rear elevations and I still do not have a kitchen design. When I asked about these items I was advised that I needed to give another $10,000 to keep the process going. Lockwood has continuously used high pressure tactics to try and get more money from me.
I have now walked away from my $5000 and do not have anything of value to show for it.
