Studio D

Do not hire this staging company, unprofessional, complete lack of respect and poor quality.

I get to know Studio D when they were still at their old address. When they moved, I was interested to occupy their store on Sutter street, but found a place full of mold and mice … that says a lot about people who call themselves Designers. Living in the neighborhood, I recently learned how they acted with their two years tenants. Disgusted by so miserable actions, I want to share it and exposed who they are. Business doesn’t have to be dirty.

Not to get all Stage Mom about our stagers, but Studio D is the GREATEST STAGING COMPANY ON EARTH! We received multiple offers significantly above asking price on our Oakland home and I am confident that this is a result of the incredibly beautiful staging by Janci Deetz and her crew at Studio D.
Basically to sell a house in today’s Bay Area market, it needs to be «turn key» ready, aka in our case, transforming a 1951 house with many years of «deferred maintenance» into a brand-​new home. The BEST part of this whole experience for me was working with Janci Deetz. She is a dream come true to work with! Believe me, preparing a home for market is an exhausting, emotional, and extremely stressful endeavor. Bottom Line: You want to work with people you respect and like.
Our realtor had recommended 3 staging companies. Based on the companies’ websites alone, I liked Studio D best. Check out their gorgeous website and you will see why!
Once I met Janci for an in-​home consultation, I knew for certain that we should have Studio D stage our home. Janci is an amazing and extremely talented designer, and to top it all off, she is a friendly and warm person! She is a true professional and a great communicator and listener. In addition to staging, she selected the paint colors for the interior and exterior of our home which we received numerous compliments. She provided excellent feedback on all of our potential new lighting fixtures and purchases for our newly remodeled bathroom. What really impressed me was Janci’s ability to enhance the features of our home with the staging, e.g. she placed a long and narrow white glass table with thin-​backed blond wood chairs between two wall mirrors in our dining room. This selection of furniture really made the dining room look spacious and highlighted the picture window to the garden. Once Janci was done with her staging magic, I seriously did NOT want to sell our home! I wanted to move back in with all of the Studio D’s furniture intact. I could not believe our home looked so lovely and beautiful! I actually wept with happiness.
Everyone at Studio D is wonderful to work with. I owe a BIG thank you to the incredibly talented and hard-​working staging crew, Stacy, Wayne, Edwin, and Rob, and Lionel, the Home Staging Manager, who made scheduling a delight.
Hire Studio D to stage your home. You will not regret it.
Tip of the day: Wait until Studio D stages your home to set the sales price. You will not believe how incredibly gorgeous your home will look. Or maybe you will decide not to sell your house after all…

Wednesday of last week, Studio D’s Marin stager Florence Attinger came out to my house to see what would need to be done to stage it. She promised me a proposal within a couple of days, and it still hasn’t shown up, despite my calling and leaving a message reminding her about it. She also still hasn’t even called back, nor has anyone else from this company. Today is Friday; that’s *nine* days.
They do beautiful work according to their website, but their business follow-​up is obviously the absolute pits. Even if I got the proposal now, I wouldn’t trust them to actually show up when they were supposed to if they can’t even get a simple proposal together in a reasonable amount of time or return a call now.
Florence also showed up for our appointment dressed super casually for the beach, literally coming here on her way back from it, without changing! It was a cute outfit at least, but it sure sent a loud and clear message that I was not at all important enough to be bothered to even try to make a good impression.
Apparently they don’t need the business, so I’ll oblige them by not using them or referring them — and have already informed my rather prominent realtor (who recommended them) about this failure to come through on even the proposal.

I worked with Studio D for design services. I had bought dining room chairs from them previously and while there saw that they did design and staging. I found them to be affordable, professional and I loved the results. They transformed my living room and I will definitely use them again. The only complaint was that it took about 5 weeks longer for the rug I purchased to arrive but since this was not their fault but the manufacturers I still gave them 5 stars.

My experience with Studio D was profoundly despicable. I worked with a designer on a custom couch with a built in sleeper. When the couch arrived the bed mechanism is obviously hanging below the frame of the couch. Argh. Aesthetics! I immediately went to their office with photos. Their response — it was not their problem — rather it is mine. Their solution: t I would have to pay to ship the couch back to LA where it was manufactured and pay additionally to fix the problem. A CUSTOM couch. Shifting the manufacturing defect to my responsibility. I have attempted multiple times to come to a solution with them — their owners are never on site, do not return emails or phone calls. I had to file a SMALL CLAIMS LAW SUIT in order since they refuse to alleviate the responsibility of the problem. I am surprised they are able to maintain a business in SF. Save yourself the headache and huge waste of time, resources, creativity, and energy.

I just used Studio D to stage the home we are selling in the Bay Area. The work was inspiring. The furniture, live plants and art make each space radiate warmth, sophistication and livability. This house reached it potential thanks to their creative eye and appropriate use of mirrors, properly sized furniture and aesthetics. I look forward to working on them on any other endeavors we might undertake. Awesome. Just awesome.

I used Studio D to stage my personal home a few years ago and was very satisfied with their work. This week I paid to have them stage a client’s home. I am dissatisfied with the quality of the pieces they used (many are quite worn and scratched, the lamps shades are bent and dirty) and they were not very imaginative. I expected more based on my prior experience.
I wouldn’t be reviewing them if my complaint had been heard. I sent an email to them and let them know that I wasn’t satisfied. I immediately got a response from the admin person saying that she would have Florence call me and they would «make it right». I’ve yet to hear from Florence. Since, the first open house is tomorrow and the photos were taken yesterday «making it right» at this point is a little late.
I’m disappointed.

As a real estate agent I have the opportunity to use several staging companies. Different projects call out for different staging solutions. I have used Studio D to stage newer, high quality, higher end projects, all in the desirable Rockridge community in the East Bay. I am very particular, as are my clients at this level so we are not easy to deal with as we have specific and high expectations. The responsibility for a successful staging project requires MUTUAL communication and clarification of what you want and expect, up front! The folks at Studio D have a proud sense of aesthetic and carry quality furniture, artwork and accessories. While they don’t like to make changes to their design solutions due to the pride they have in their artistic and design flare, they have on all occasions accommodated changes we’ve asked for to make us happy, even if they didn’t agree with our requests. Sometimes this exchange gets uncomfortable if you push for what you want with a talented, strong minded designer. That’s part of the process as this is a key part of selling a home successfully. In the most recent job, they showed up with two trucks and a large team to complete the staging of two new 3500sqft 5BD homes. Within 48 hours it was complete, including minor change outs. In the end, we always have an excellent product as a result of a collective effort that every time has received rave reviews from agents and buyers alike. I hope you can appreciate that this isn’t a one sided review, but a complete and straightforward picture of what to expect so you don’t have to read between the lines. I will use them again for whenever I need to ‘step up’ the level of staging. I expect the need to communicate what I want and push for it and know we ultimately will get a fabulous result. Better than this review, feel free to check out the work they did for me and my seller clients to see if you like it.
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I owned and sold a home in the East Bay. Used Studio D at the suggestion of my realtor. This company is unorganized and unprofessional. Very poor communication, scheduling and coordinating. The stager had her own agenda and initially staged the home using furnishings completely unsuitable for the Craftsman style of the home. When the realtor and I insisted she remove most of the items and re-​stage, the stager told me I was too emotionally involved and made other inappropriate comments to me, her client. To their credit, they did remove the unsuitable items and restaged the interior but the realtor had to supplement with her own furnishings and artwork. It was not the professional staging job I had contracted for and I would not use them again.