Austin-Murphy Design

I have worked with Rob multiple times over the years and have always had excellent results on my projects. My current project is a kitchen backsplash and pendant lights. Rob has an innate ability to see what works best for design and then also (most importantly) describe it in a wonderful way that clarifies things. He is always professional and does an astounding job of listening to what you want and validating your ideas while expertly guiding you toward the better option if necessary. I have always appreciated his warm, personal and non-judgmental manner. It is a pleasure to collaborate with him. The end results of his designs are always original, beautiful and inviting.

Rob was recommended to me, by my contractor. Having not worked with a designer in the past, I wasn't quit sure how to go about it. Rob was terrific, he walked me through his process and I hired him for a bathroom re-do. He is also a architect, which was a great help in my re-do. He has excellent taste and was able to give me what I asked for. We are now going forward to the next step.

As a general contractor I worked with Rob on several projects and I found his design sense and attention to detail exceptional. He is particularly good at color selection. He did a partial house/ kitchen remodel design and a full house remodel design for two clients of mine. He is now designing a bathroom remodel for another client of mine. He also selected the palette for the re-painting of my house.

I am so pleased to have this opportunity to review and recommend Austin-Murphy Design. I have known Rob and his design work for over fifteen years. Rob has a special talent for creating/transforming environments that you not only want to be in, but also want to stay in! There is a wonderfully inviting sense of warmth and calm resulting from the touch of his interior design. A fabulous sense to details, without being pretentious, these interiors have a simple natural resonance. As an artist, I can attest to Rob’s sensitivity to environment. But his professional expertise excels in his commitment to his clients; accompanying them with delight through all the steps of the process.

Rob redesigned our living/dining/kitchen space creating a mudroom and an open concept design with a foyer for the rest of the space. Our house, which was built in the 1950's was very outdated and dysfunctional, especially the kitchen. In all fairness, he did a good job coming up with the layout and addressing our needs. The problems we had with Austin-Murphy Design had to do with time management, billable hours and lack of professionalism. I spoke to Rob, the owner/sole employee of Austin-Murphy Design early on surrounding time management issues and billable hours. One example of this problem is when he came over and was offered tea (which he accepted) and then included in billable hours the 15 or 20 minutes spent making him tea while he chatted before we got down to business. At $70 an hour, that's like somebody charging you $17.50 to over $23.00 to make them a cup of tea and chat. When I found out he was doing this I spoke to him about it and he agreed to adjust the billing not to include this time. He said he would work on staying on task when we met. Another example is time he spent on extra drawings which were not part of our contract, with elements I specifically said I did not like or want. He initially included the time he spent on them in billable hours as well saying it was "part of the process" until I approached him about it too. Rob was very charming and very chatty. He wasted a lot of time talking about and admiring finishes that were already done, complimenting his ideas and chatting me up. I did originally give him a very good review because I liked the work he had so far completed but also because he sent me an email with an attached link and this message: "As I complete my work with you on the remodel, I'd like to ask you to write a review of my business on Houzz.com, a directory of remodeling, building and design professionals. It should take just a minute or two and would be a great help to me." He also called me a couple days later pressuring me to complete this review. I thought it was a little bit strange to ask me for a review when he wasn't finished. The line "As I complete my work..." sounded like he was going to finish so I went ahead and wrote him the review. I didn't mention some of the mistakes Rob made in my original review because these were not apparent at the time the review was written. His original drawing had the main support beam a foot away from where it was supposed to be which was caught by the contractor and fixed. One of his drawings caused re-work for the electrician as lighting fixtures were not drawn in the correct locations and then later had to be moved. He also advised me to paint the fireplace a color he, himself, later described as looking like "baby poop". After paying Rob for 3 additional hours (which I should not have done) to complete tasks from our original contract, he still did not finish. I decided to downgrade the original rating I'd given him from 5 to 3 stars due to his time management issues and some of the mistakes he'd made. The review still contained many compliments regarding the work he was able to complete, but I felt the revision was accurate and fair and was a more complete reflection of my experience with him. Rob did not like the revision so he called me up and yelled at me over the phone. He told me I was the worst and most horrible client he's ever had. He said he hated working with me (he said the exact opposite of all these things while he was taking our money) and then hung up without warning. All he cared about in that call was that I'd changed my review and that it didn't reflect well on him. He didn't say one word about making things right which I would have been open to. The behavior was unprofessional and unbalanced. That is how he has earned this one star rating. There should be no confusion over cost and tasks when they are in a written agreement. Our agreement had all the tasks listed and the costs to perform those tasks written clearly. The bottom line is that we had an agreement. The agreement had a low and high end cost and a list of what was to be done for that cost. After reaching the high end and paying (3 hours) additional, Rob still did not complete the agreement, nor did he do any tasks that were outside of it. He took additional money and did not honor our agreement. This is my honest experience with Austin-Murphy Design which I am entitled to share and I would warn anyone to be wary of doing business with him.

I was referred to Rob Austin-Murphy while standing in the paint store waiting to have some paint colors mixed. Rob came out to see the house and the colors I had chosen. After a lengthy conversation with me, he said that he didn’t feel the colors that I had selected would give me the effect that I was looking for. So I hired him to select new colors for my house. When he showed me the colors, I wasn’t sure that they were right. But when he said to me “could you imagine just for a moment that these colors are the perfect shade for your house”, I decided to go forward with his choices. When the two siding colors were painted out I was sick about how it looked. He patiently and confidently suggested to ‘hold in there’ and so I waited for the trim color to be applied. It was totally amazing, the whole color schemed just snapped into place. The house stood proud and elegant! I learned that I needed to wait for it to be completely painted out in order to see how the colors would play off each other. Now I cannot imagine my house being any other color than it is today. From time to time, people stop by and ask me what the colors are. They love the house as much as I do!! Now I am working with Rob to help with my Master Bath design. Working with Rob, I decided that I really wanted natural stone so the process took some time to find the right selection of materials. But as the project started to unfold I would find myself going into the master bath room and getting so excited about how it was going to look—it felt like taking two big handfuls of Neapolitan ice-cream and squeezing them out between my fingers. The colors are so rich and creamy that you can almost taste them! Rob, thank you sooo much for all your help. You totally understand how to capture the right feel for your client by listening to their dreams and desires and then making it come true.

My husband and I remodeled our 1920's farm house 20 years ago but decided we wanted to "freshen" it up and make it more comfortable for our retirement years. Rob Austin- Murphy of AM Design was recommended to us through aquaintances. Rob took the time to get to know us, our lifestyle, and our house and where it is sited, to help us determine the direction of our current redo. The direction we took was "country cottage" with Craftsman elements; custom cabinetry, rug, tile,fabric/upholstry, and color accents.The major focus places were the bathroom, the livingroom, and the laundry room. Rob worked closely with us, offering choices tying in "color ways" to tile, fabrics, cabinet hardware, wall color, and cabinet finishes, to name a few. This is a level of involvement I have been comfortable with and have thoroughly enjoyed working with Rob in all of these aspects. He has a great ability to creatively collaborate.From our conversations, it seems that Rob is willing to accomodate many ranges of client involvement. We are probably in the most hands-on catagory. Rob works with many talented and quality crafts people. On our current project, the laundry room, we have appreciated his willingness to meet with the contractor and subs to make sure that what is in his design will work and to compromise if necessary. He is very detail oriented. Through quality work and design, our house has become warm, comfortable and inviting.

Being an architect myself, and having known Rob for over 20 years, I have engaged his services as a consultant many times over the years, to provide a fresh and creative perspective for design problems I had difficulty resolving. He is especially gifted in the areas of space planning, interior design and proper use of scale and proportion. He is a stickler for details, and the fine results speak for themselves. While an encyclopedia of knowledge and a creative wonder, he is very down to earth, and can work with all types of clients and professionals at any level. He enjoys educating his clients about the design process and the reasons behind the "why's and what's" of the suggestions he makes. I find this openness very unique in the design field and helpful for the clients who work with him. In the area of interior design, he is a marvel. He can take even a very modest budget and create a space that is charming and warm. So often the arrangment of furniture is almost an after thought, but Rob takes it to an art form that really enhances even a small space and makes it appealing and inviting. The project I referenced below is a new home that I engaged Rob to consult about exterior design elements and interior space planning and detail.