Saddleback Design

We were referred to Saddleback by Boulder Creek builders to select the particulars for our future home in Stapleton.
Charity Johnson was our contact at Saddleback, She was efficient, accurate, and pleasant to work with.
We received a full accounting of our selections including prices.

We worked with Saddleback Design when we purchased a new home in August 2015, and the homebuilder required us to select our finishes through Saddleback. Unfortunately they would not give us a price sheet, which seemed shady and unprofessional. My mother-​in-​law came along with us because she has built several homes with several different builders, and she was astonished that Wonderland and Saddleback refused to give us pricing information.
Although the designer we worked with was very kind and friendly, she insisted that the computer system wouldn’t let her get the pricing, and that she would send us our quote later. Yes — she made us go through and pick «whatever we wanted» COMPLETELY BLIND with ZERO PRICING. We were not comfortable with this, and we kept asking for pricing, but she kept shutting us down by saying that’s now how they do it here, and that the computer system wouldn’t let her do that.
After taking time off work to spend several hours making these selections, the designer waited until just after we left to send us our price quote. I about dropped my teeth when I saw that our selections would have cost over $ 40,000 extra on top of the home purchase price, on top of the extra lot premium, on top of the landscaping, plumbing, and mechanical upgrades. I knew we were going to spend a percentage of the purchase price of the home on upgrades, but this was way, way higher than that.
I should also mention that the builder’s standards were atrocious and were extremely limited, so there was no way we could go with the standard finishes. The standards were all in a warm, rustic, «Tuscan» theme which obviously did not match the modernist design aesthetic of the exterior of the home whatsoever. Not to mention that the standards were dated and would not age well with the home. I shouldn’t have been, but I was surprised to research the materials that the designer helped us spec, and realized that these exact same brands and products were available at Lowe’s and Home Depot, although we were being charged high-​end prices by Saddleback for these finishes. They wouldn’t even seal our grout — in the documents they specified several times that this is a homeowner responsibility.
Since I had taken the day off work to choose our finishes, I had to take MORE time off work to go a second time and «value engineer» our selections with the designer. Of course, this time after sending an email detailing my extreme disappointment at their business model, the designer «magically» was able to give us pricing. Not only was there this huge waste of time so that I would succumb to the «sunk costs» fallacy and the escalation of commitment, Saddleback wouldn’t even help us come up with a budget and then select finishes to match it.
I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I really wasn’t prepared for how painful and even emotional it was to downgrade our choices. I’m sure this is part of their sales tactics so they can make a bigger profit, because most people are going to be reluctant to downgrade after choosing exactly what they want in their home. I am completely disgusted with Saddleback’s business practices. We still ended up spending significantly more than we had budgeted for the finishes, yet we had to settle for lesser quality at premium prices. I don’t like the way that Saddleback does business. I really hope that I will be so impressed by our final finished home that I will take back my comments about the selection process.
Our home hasn’t been built yet, but I am not feeling great when I see reviews from other folks who discuss poor quality materials, poor workmanship, and an inability for Saddleback to take responsibility. I really, really hope that in a few months I can edit my review and say that our home was finished with high-​quality materials and with excellent workmanship and quality.

Short version — bought new home. Saddleback did interiors. Needed service on almost all the surfaces. The biggest issue, they refused to fix.
I tried not to be petty, in what I asked to be repaired — there was plenty that I pointed out, but didn’t force a repair. I requested mostly the larger items that really stood out. Though they repaired some things, they did not miss an opportunity to imply that a. it was my fault, or b. that I bought cheap materials. The materials, cheap or otherwise, did not seem to be first quality. The workmanship was poor quality, and I feel for anyone who is forced to deal with them for any warranty issues.

I hardly ever write reviews (thought I always read them before choosing a company!) but this time I felt like I needed too. We stumbled upon Saddleback Design when looking for countertops. We walked into their show room and it was a complete different experience than any other kitchen/​design showroom. The owner (which we didn’t know at the time was the owner) was SO helpful in giving us samples of cabinet colors even though she knew my dad was doing the cabinets for us. She also gave us samples of the countertops we liked. I got an email of the person to contact to give drawings to for the countertop estimate (Erik Haberland) and he worked so hard to find slabs of the counter we wanted. They templated and even installed a day early when I was struggling to be without counters or kitchen plumbing with 3 kids, and a husband out of the country! The price was the best we could find and the service and professionalism were outstanding. Thank you Saddleback for my new counters!