Design Me By Mahlah

As a real estate listing broker I generally plan staging well in advance with the seller of the property. Once in a while you run into a seller that waits to the last minute for most things. Mahlah and I have been connected thru business networking and community for sometime and when the last minute staging was required for this property I knew who to call for help. Another challenge on the sellers end — he didn’t have alot to spend… Mahlah stepped up to each and every challenge, got the property staged with the minimum at a great price. I was able to get some great pictures for the listing and get it sold. THANK YOU MAHLAH! Great job!!! Call Mahlah for design options of every kind and of course staging.

We needed a home stager at the last hour for an open house. Our agent recommended Mahlah. She came through and we were hopeful due to the good reviews and cute marketing photos on her website. She promised us very little furniture (2 chairs, a small area rug, a twin mattress covered in a flat sheet to look like a mock daybed, a full mattress set, a couple of tables, some towels, and orchids and décor throughout the house) for $ 950.
After she was done the agent sent us the photos. We were really disappointed in the quality of her furnishings and her layout of the main living area and kitchen. Believe me I was not looking for super high end, I love simplicity if done right, but the placement of the chairs in the living area was awkward and did not highlight the best features of the living room as she had promised in her contract. The rug she brought in was stained, I could see it in the photos and our agents confirmed it upon visiting the house. The kitchen and dining room were empty with the exception of one cocktail tray on the kitchen counter making it look like someone had forgotten something behind. Artwork, accessories and orchids were not supplied throughout the house as per her contract.
I emailed her the same evening to express my concerns. She never responded. We were very disappointed with her lack of professionalism in responding to my email so my agent set up an appointment to meet her at the house the following day to remove her staging. Not only did we have a lackluster open house, we lost time and money on the homes advertising photography too as we couldn’t use any of the photos taken of her work.
My husband called her in an attempt to resolve the final billing because she charged us the full staging fee anyway, even though we asked her to remove her things within 24 hours. She replied with an email that basically said «too bad so sad». I couldn’t bare the injustice so I replied to her email in a bid to resolve the matter fairly. Since she had told my husband that the set up and break down are the most labor intensive part of the work and that the staging fee primarily covers her time, I asked if we could simply pay her for her labor and not the full $ 950 staging fee. I proposed to pay for her $ 361.25 for 4.24 hours of work she put in at $ 85/​hour (her hourly fee). I expressed to her that I did not think it would be ethical for her to collect the full $ 950 staging fee since she didn’t end up technically staging the house and we had it removed in a day. I never heard back from her. She simply took our money and never looked back.
In her email to my husband, she did express that we should have lowered our expectations. This is a direct quote from her:
«I realize that expectations may have been altered by images on my website. I am primarily an Interior Designer and the majority of the photos on my website are interior design work. Under services the „home staging“ tab shows staging images and also a brief description of what I do.»
Hmm…ok so let’s get this straight. You admit staging is not your forte, yet you market yourself as a professional and take money from clients, even when they are unhappy with your work. Nice.

Mahlah is an experienced, creative and intuitive interior AND exterior designer. Did I mention that she also excels at home staging?! She has a wonderful eye for color and will make your space BLOOM!

Mahlah came to our house to help us organize our office nook. She helped us consolidate item in the space and change the design in the room. Now we can walk into the office and find the things we need immediately. Thank you Mahlah for helping my husband and I get on the same page about how things should be organized in our space.

What a delight! I’ve had 2 consultations with Mahlah and we’ve reinvented my office and lounge room.
Mahlah has great ideas, she’s a wonderful listener and a huge help with making my space pretty — highly recommend her!

Mahlah’s interior design skills are not limited to the inside of your home, she’s quite gifted at exterior living design also! She is working with me to create privacy in a busy area and her ideas are practical, affordable, and look great! Thank you, Mahlah!

«Oh, now I understand», said my friend with admiration in her voice as I opened the doors to a few cabinets. This was after I had been raving about my newly organized cabinets. We stood and looked at the organization, order and cleanliness of the cabinets. Everything had a place. THIS is the magic of Mahlah! Mahlah’s expertise when it comes to organization is invaluable. She helped me come up with a great system for a new project in my business and then organized it so the system would flow smoothly. And her eye for style and design is inherent in everything she does so not only does the system work, all parts of it look inviting and beautiful. Since this project is run out of my small home, it’s important that it is clutter free and beautiful to the eye. Mahlah achieved this.
In addition to being a talented organizer and interior designer, Mahlah is dependable, friendly, warm, caring and has a great knack for helping you question what you REALLY need — this leads to cleaner, simpler and more beautiful home & work environments. If you need some help getting organized with any aspect of your home or business, give Mahlah a call and be ready to experience some magic!

Mahlah loves what she does — and that is why she is so great at her work. I first hired her over a year ago to help design my new home — and she was simply the best at listening to what I wanted — and finding all the right pieces. She took things I owned and matched it up with new stuff — she took me shopping for furniture — and when we finished — the house was perfect!
Mahlah is so easy going and friendly. She knows her stuff — but she listens to her clients needs to get the design just right. She has a large network of contractors and stores that she works with — so everything is done with her supervision. There is no one I would trust more with interior design then Mahlah!

Mahlah offers a fun, collaborative and professional approach to interior design. She is helping us remodel our bathroom. With her imaginative and keen design expertise, Mahlah is transitioning our bathroom into an updated bohemian, but not too modern design that suits our taste and our home perfectly. She has also stayed within our budget and has a great network of construction and trades companies. I highly recommend Mahlah for her interior design and/​or professional organization services.

The wonders of Mahlah… not only is she super talented at knowing what goes where and how to organize in a way the makes sense, she has an eye for beauty and design. She came to help settle me in to my home office and I learned a lot about how to bring beauty to organizing. She was very generous with her ideas and energy while at the same time being sensitive to my need to make the finial decision. She is skilled at establishing systems that are efficient, aesthetically pleasing and functional.

In addition to having a great sense of style, Mahlah has a natural knack for organization (almost bordering on obsessive, but in a good way!). She can turn even the worst jumbles into a peaceful oasis. In just a short 3 hour session, she tackled my entry hall and a large, awkwardly shaped walk in closet. Both had been constant sources of stress, but now with Mahlah’s help, are well organized. And the closet appears to have tripled in size due to so much free space. As soon as I finish getting rid of the junk from the first round, I’ll be hiring to deal with other closets and rooms that lack closets. This was money well spent!

Mahlah has amazing talents in the area of organization and design. As a working mom, I have a hard time keeping up with the clutter, kids toys and projects around my house, but Mahlah can find a home for everything. She can get you organized and help you stay organized by offering you great tips to minimize clutter. Mahlah is not judgmental and is very helpful in the sometimes painful process of letting go of «stuff». I highly recommend her!

We started using Mahlah as our primary Interior Designer for our Design build construction company (Elite Construction Services) in Santa Cruz a few months ago. So far we’ve done two Kitchens and a bath design. I was very impressed with her open mindedness and creativity. She does not come in with a preconceived idea of how things are going to be. Instead she listens to the clients and asks the right questions to draw out what is most important to them. From there she comes up with a couple of concepts that we can use to create our preliminary estimates.
The most important thing to me is that our clients love her ideas and that helps set our company apart from the competition.
I look forward to many more years of working with Mahlah!
Eric Lamascus
President
Elite Construction Services Inc.

Mahlah helped me organize my office… a very daunting task if done alone! She is excellent at organizing items that belong together and finding the right place in the room for them. I look forward to having her repeat the process in other rooms!