Lux Interior Design

My husband and I needed the service of a designer to furnish our condo. As  we downsized from our house, we needed to buy new furniture that was suitable for a condo rather than a house. We chose Lux Design as they received many positive Homestar reviews, were featured  in trade magazines and Nazneen, the affable office manager, indicated that they are willing to  meet our tight  timeline. Negar Aghebati was assigned to us as our designer. It was totally a 10/10 experience.

Efficient : Negar gets things done. Period. I needed something, she would find the items for me quickly. 

Communication: Wow. Negar deserves  bonus point in this area. However I communicated by messages, phone calls, text, or Whatsapp, she responded to me quickly. Sometimes we would be talking past 11pm to work out ideas. 

Professionalism: Negar is very dedicated to her work that it shows. She showed up on time. Several times she would just pop by if she was  in the area in order to work out any issues . She was also  calm and patient. 

Service: things do go wrong  and the hallmark of truly good service is how you fix problems when they occur. I received one dining chair that was defective. Negar already ordered a replacement before I asked her to. 

Result :The place looks great. My husband and I love it. We couldn't have done this without Negar. 

Highly recommended. 

One of Lux’s up sell is their designer access to many stores along with their designer discount. Firstly, it is part of the agreement where they do not disclose the name of the store where you as a client wouldn’t really know how much the actual cost is. Secondly, if they do receive a discount, LUX will charge you a one time fee! Thirdly, if there was something specific you wanted outside of their list of access stores, expect to be charged a fee. Everything is a fee! Custom closets, they hire and set up the appointment and in my case was not there 7 hours to watch the workers on site, when technically that’s what I paid for. So the closet company bills Lux, and Lux will add another fee for what?! If you wanted to paint your walls, put up wallpaper, Lux will charge additional fee for nothing. Oh I forgot, they actually made the appointment. So add $250-$300... like many of you I also read the reviews and maybe they value their larger book of business clients but for Toronto condo owners, do not hire Lux Design Toronto. They barely did anything and really doing it yourself will save you $$.

Project Description
We asked LUX to furnish our new condo and contacted them once our offer had been accepted but prior to actually moving in. We showed our designer Neha some past design photographs from the LUX website that we liked to give some guidance but still tried to give LUX the autonomy to design and select pieces based on their style. Our condo is a 2-bedroom unit in a 5-year old building in downtown Toronto and since we liked the existing finishes, the project was primarily to furnish the unit since we wanted to sell our old furniture and start fresh in the new space. Our initial budget was planned at $30k-50k.

Timeline - 3/5
The project took a fair bit longer than we were expecting, perhaps because our expectations had to be reset once the project got underway. In our initial design consultation, we were told verbally that we could have everything in and installed in approximately 3 months and contemplated not even moving in our old furniture since based on that schedule, we thought that the new pieces would arrive within about 3 weeks of moving in. We ended up moving in all our old furniture just in case and that turned out to be a good decision as the project ended up taking nearly 10 months start to finish. I can appreciate that furniture (especially custom-ordered pieces) can take a while to receive and setup so I'm not entirely surprised at the longer timeline but what was a bit frustrating at times was that some pieces that we saw in the design presentations ended up being on back order when our designer tried to order them so we ended up either having to wait 3+ months for the back ordered items or to try to choose something similar instead. It wasn't the end of the world, as everything we ordered and received was well worth the wait in my opinion.

Quality of Work - 5/5
The quality of the items we received, as well as the various services included in the implementation of the design plans (i.e. painting of accent walls, installation of light fixtures, installation of trim and smoked glass for our gallery wall) was all truly top notch! Paint was applied very evenly, light fixtures were sturdy, centered and hung at appropriate heights, all garbage and leftover materials were disposed of and the unit was always neat and tidy at the end of the day. Any service work that was subcontracted out (such as painting or electrical) was managed entirely by LUX and rolled in to their service fees so we didn't need to worry about this at all.

Communication - 4/5
Overall, the communication from LUX regarding the status of the project was timely and helpful. We were generally given only a few days to book the service elevator in our building when LUX intended to come in and receive deliveries but this wasn't generally a problem as they were flexible on their entry dates and times if the elevator was fully booked on a given day. We ended up working with 3 different designers throughout the course of the project (the first went on maternity leave and the second left the company near the end of our project) so the communication frequency and thoroughness varied a bit from person to person but generally it was quite good.

Design Sense - 5/5
We were thrilled at the quality of the final designs. We absolutely loved nearly every selection, especially the light fixtures, rugs and bedroom furniture. Everything worked very well together, was reasonably priced and made for very elegant and functional living spaces. I really think LUX would be hard to beat here - their work is truly excellent!

Cost - 4/5
Our initial planned budget was $30-50k but ended up being a little over $60k and the design fees for LUX accounted for only a little under 10% of this budget. The cost overrun was surely a consequence of the furniture we chose and I know LUX was willing to scale back on anything had we asked them to but we ended up loving what they picked out for us so we decided to just increase the budget and go with it. The extra cost was a bit of a drag but LUX's design fees were reasonable and we're very happy with the result of the project so we don't have any real complaints here.

Service - 5/5
The service provided by LUX was outstanding. Their design fees were very reasonable and they not only designed and planned out the entire project but they also came onsite to receive all the deliveries, clean up packing materials, organize and schedule all subcontractor work, deal directly with the building concierge, communicate project status by email, etc., etc. It was truly a full-service endeavour and it was wonderful to be able to go to work for the day and to come home and have new furniture setup, new light fixtures installed, new artwork, etc without any traces of dust or garbage leftover in the unit.

Overall - 4/5
All-in-all, we were quite happy with the work and the result. Our place is the envy of most of our friends now and we're very comfortable and happy to be living in such a professionally designed space! I can recommend LUX with confidence as I know they are very talented and capable of doing quality work.

I couldn't recommend Lux highly enough for the design of our new condo. Our designer was Catalina and she came up with a great design that matched our personality and style and then saw it through from painting and installation to the purchase and placement of furniture and the final reveal. She oversaw the whole process and that meant that we did not have to be involved with any of the trades or with the purchase or delivery of items. The whole process was seamless and took all of the stress out of the renovations.

I hired Lux to decorate my condo - I wasn't bringing anything with me so it was a blank slate. I met with Erin a couple of times so she could get a sense of what I was looking for and that was all she needed to give me a bunch of great options. At that point I just handed her the keys and she took care of the rest - building closets, all the light fixtures, window coverings and all the furniture. Place looks great. perfect service for people who don't have the time or inclination to do it themselves.

I hired Lux to do a condo quickie for a recently purchased two story condo. Their work was done well. The look book they created with the initial design was the best part of the whole process as it really illustrated the vision well. We had some project management issues and invoicing issues during the process that were frustrating. However, once Christine was made aware of these issues, she worked systematically through them to rectify them all. Overall, we are very happy with how our condo design turned out.

I bought a condo at 700 King Street West that clearly had not been updated since the building was converted for residential use (2000).

Lara Cupido was the lead designer on the project. She was friendly, energetic and seemed genuinely excited about the project. She was prompt(ish) with emails and was helpful with her feedback.

The designs and product selection proposed by her was solid, and awhile we did go back and forth a bit on some items, her taste was solid.

Friendly, professional and capable. Exactly what you want in a design firm.

I hired LUX Design to design my new condo unit. I worked with Sharifa and she's done a wonderful job putting together the overall design of the place as well as helped in buying and arranging shipping the furniture. Sharifa always responded very quickly to my questions and my request of revisions. She gave my place a stylish and personalized look also she's very responsible. Everytime a shipment of furniture arrives, she would also be here to arrange the placement, to make sure the furniture is placed exactly as shown on the papers. I look forward to working with Sharifa again for my new homes in the future.