AKG Design Studio LLC

Our house burned down and all that was left was the foundation. We needed an experienced interior designer who could work with our architect and builder to design the entire house, not just specific rooms. Anna was the right choice. Very creative and straightforward, she kept us on track and relieved a lot of stress. Anna listened to our needs and desires and used her creativity throughout the home. In designing the floor plans, she included a private Zen yoga room behind the master bathroom; this is the gem of our house. She used her kitchen expertise to design a beautiful island with special drawers for ease of cooking. Even our laundry room is elegant with designer tiles! After two years of helping to plan, build, and furnish it, she recently coordinated the final touches of the installation of our artwork, taking care of every last detail. Our ‘new’ home wouldn’t be what it is without Anna.

We lived in apartments for many years before buying our own home. Thanks to Anna, we now have the kitchen of our dreams. Our kitchen is not big so it was important to maximize the layout. Anna reconfigured the floor plan for a better flow and turned a small closet into a big pantry. We had an initial vision but really needed someone to put it all together and bring it to life, from layout to selections. Our new kitchen has deep green custom cabinets that pop with honey bronze hardware, white quartz countertops with gold veins, and many other details that really make the design uniquely ours. Anna is fun, energetic, playful, and quirky—in a good way. Whenever we go into our kitchen, we think how lucky we are that she designed it.

Our home was stuck in the 1970s, with the worst wallpaper, cheap tile and builder-grade cabinets. After interviewing several interior designers, we chose Anna because she also had extensive project manager experience and a strong network of experts. We both work and didn’t have the time to "herd cats"—Anna and her team kept track of all of the moving parts. Anna did an amazing job remodeling our kitchen, bathrooms and foyer. She’s upbeat and no-nonsense when it came to getting things done, and offered patience and guidance when stuck on one of the many decisions involved. Most of all, we felt Anna really listened to us and understood our desire to bring a lot of color and light into our townhome. Our kitchen is so bright, spacious and inviting now. We no longer get in each other’s way when prepping and cooking together, and love entertaining our family and friends. Our bathrooms are as beautiful as they are practical, from the vivid wallpaper in the powder room to the stunning primary shower, featuring a lush, botanical tile mural with birds. Thanks to Anna, it’s like we’re living in a brand-new home.

After Anna did my first kitchen, my home sold in a day. I bought an outdated luxury condo that needed a full kitchen and bathroom renovation. The kitchen was a very big room with little storage space and functionality. Thanks to Anna, we now enjoy cooking and spending time at our coffee table in a space that’s peaceful and full of light. I love the rich cherry cabinets and a pale green buffet that looks like fine furniture. In the bathroom, we traded the bathtub for a huge shower. She brought my vision to life with greens and purples by finding a unique countertop, purple sink and custom storage piece. Anna is so friendly and responsive. She takes her work seriously and knows the best tradespeople and resources. We’ll soon be working on two more bathrooms. I recommend Anna to all my friends. She’s worth it.

Anna thought of everything when she renovated our dark, cramped kitchen. It’s now a bright space that flows and functions beautifully. We had a decent size kitchen, but there was lots of unused space, not enough storage, and an oddly shaped island. Anna listened to our needs and came up with a fantastic design that solved all our problems. We now have multiple wine storage units and a great pantry for all the kids’ snacks and bulk shopping. We weren’t ready to redo the hardwood floors throughout the house, so she designed an accent tile to frame the new island. Anna made some bold choices, like the chevron design backsplash. We weren’t sure about it, but we trusted her and it’s one of our favorite parts of the kitchen. Because she’s so knowledge about the latest products, Anna helped us select unique items, such as a touchless faucet that’s Wi-Fi enabled and a downdraft hood that works with a range and allows us to keep the clean design with no hood hanging overhead. Now our kids can be more self-sufficient with cabinets and the drawer microwave at their height, with plenty of room on the island for cooking, homework and enjoying a glass of wine. Anna was always professionally direct and specific with our contractor to keep our project moving along. We highly recommend her.

I was thrilled with the design, construction process and outcome of my kitchen renovation! AKG Anna is more than a designer. She respects your budget. She supports your decision making and offers guidance with a gentle hand. She pays attention to detail. She knows products, quality and prices. She understands the construction process. Her designs are contemporary and timeless.

I really wanted to get my mother's kitchen renovated so that she could have her dream kitchen. And I needed to find a company I could trust with this project. They have high end materials for counter tops and cabinets. These guys have nothing but quality.

AKG is the perfect step company for all your kitchen remodeling, They went above and beyond to make sure we were completely happy. They have excellent communication skills. Great design and price! Every member of the team that we worked with were wonderful. Felt very safe with them in our home and were impressed with the level of service we received. Highly recommend!

Anna has the most impeccable taste. I would have been overwhelmed with decisions. I was so happy with her direction and style and how the rooms turned out. She stays on top of everything and is very responsive.

Terrible, untrustworthy, and a scam. To date, AKG Design Studio has been the worst experience with any professional service that we have encountered. We engaged Anna in Spring 2019 and gave her a deposit for design services. We gave her a hard deadline for delivery and she offered a ballpark estimate for the total home renovation during our initial 1 hr consultation for which we paid $500. That money was wasted entirely as at our our second meeting two weeks later, Anna advised that the measurements that had been taken of our home had been lost so she couldn't give us an exact design. Instead, she gave me a "ballpark" design for a kitchen. The design was slapdash and poorly constructed. Measurements were clearly off, she had installed cabinets where there were existing stairs, and had not incorporated our ideas. The second meeting was a total waste of time. At our third meeting, we were to meet with an architect and general contractor for extension plans. Anna arrived at the meeting over an hour late and was only present for about 15 minutes of that meeting. She advised that we would get a quote for the renovation based on the architects drawings in a week. The week passed with no word or quote. We followed up continuously and were anxious to get moving as our start date for construction had already passed. When drawings were finally received, quote was nearly double what she had mentioned at first meeting. Furthermore, the drawings did not reflect what we had discussed. Given Anna's poor performance and our lack of faith in her abilities, we opted to move forward with a different company. We requested a refund of the unused portion of the deposit, which was significant. At this point, Anna refused to answer emails. We sent emails to her requesting copies of invoices, time spent and a copy of the contract. All went unanswered for nearly 8 weeks. Finally, we contacted the architect to get a copy of invoice which was delivered immediately. Anna still refused to give an estimate for time spent or return unused portion of funds. We contacted Fairfax County to file a formal complaint against AKG Design, as Anna has failed to deliver an itemized invoice. AKG Design has ignored two notices sent by Fairfax County and we continue to be pending the results of the complaint investigation. Sadly, Anna has ignored both our requests and that of FFX County. Do not engage this company. Service is poor and business practices have been deceptive. Edit: Despite Ana's empty comment below stating that she wished to make her services as agreeable as possible, she never reached out to offer the invoice, contract or accounting that we had requested. She continued to ignore our requests for substantiation and has avoided all emails. She has additionally ignored the three written requests from Fairfax County Consumer Affairs Branch advising of the filed complaint against her company and requests for her written response - to include copies of invoices, contract and account for work done. To date, she still has not offered any of the above and litigation unfortunately appears to be the only option. Completely dishonest and fraudulent company.

1.What was the main concern that would have prevented you from hiring a designer? We were always going to hire a designer, but originally thought we would work through a full service kitchen and bath design shop. After attempting to work with one or two full service organizations to no avail, Anna was recommended to us by the same friend who helped up find our house over ten years ago. After a single meeting, we were confident she heard us. 2. What were you able to achieve/realize as a result of working with me? Anna listened, not just to us but also to our space. I know that everyone likes to think their house is unique, but ours was a custom build from the late 1960s with several updates, not all of them nice to the house. When we were finally ready to make the updates, Anna made sure she paid attention to the unique pieces of the house, respecting the original intent of the home – to bring the outside indoors. 3. What specific feature did you like most about working with me? I think that listening was the most specific feature we enjoyed about working with Anna. We’d tried working with two other groups before working with Anna, even got as far as a design with one of the other groups. Neither of the other two groups heard us. The other design we got was basically the exact same design as the kitchen we already had but updated to meet current standards – not much change at all. Anna, on the other hand, heard our dreams for the house and helped us update not only the kitchen area but lead us in our design choices for the rest of the house even though she was not involved in the design. 4. What would be three other benefits of working with me? Anna is local to our community. Being from Reston, she understood the uniqueness that is Reston. Between live, work, play and nature, she truly helped us capture the culture of Reston in our design. Anna was incredibly patient. We began our design process in late 2016 with a meeting. She got back to us with designs in early 2017, but we did not begin the building process until early 2018. Now, in 2019, she is still working with us to ensure the finished product is perfect by working with vendors to fix warranty issues. Other designers or general contractors might not be as patient with as many issues as we’ve had. Anna is as invested in our design as we are. She worked with us to ensure that the design was executed as envisioned and is continuing to work with us to ensure that the products we purchased are the quality we expected. 5. Would you recommend working with my firm? If so, why? I would absolutely recommend working with Anna and AKG Designs for all the reasons I stated above. If we ever need to do another design, I would be happy to work with her again. 6. Is there anything you’d like to add? Working with Anna was likely the least stressful part of what was a very stressful redesign and build experience. Definitely consider Anna and AKG Designs for your next project!

AKG Design helped us redesign our kitchen in 2018 and we couldn't be happier with the experience working with Anna and the final product. We were hesitant to hire a kitchen designer because so many places offer free design assistance, but I'm absolutely certain that hiring AKG Design ensured we got a better final product, an easier process, and saved us in overall cost because of her expertise with the entire process from cooking/living, to design, to materials and to contracting. An overlooked aspect of any personal service is patience and Anna had lots. We initially contracted with AKG in the Fall of 2017 and it took us probably 8 months to arrive at a final design and move forward with a contractor. This delay was entirely because our hectic life with two very young children and excessive consideration of many parts of the kitchen as we figured out how to rework a 60 year old kitchen to meet our current and future needs. Anna took her time with us and also served as a great sounding board to help us navigate various choices in the design layout or materials, even directing us effectively when it was clear we didn't know what we wanted or didn't know what we were talking about. That patience paid off because we cannot be happier with the final design's functionality or appearance. During the process three things stood out about AKG Design: modern kitchen design knowledge, a great relationship with a wide variety of products and suppliers, and her insight into the execution of the design by contractors. It is clear that her background is well suited to kitchen design. Design Knowledge: We had a rough idea of what we were looking to improve with our out dated kitchen flow and some key aesthetic we had picked up from various places. Anna worked through the impacts of physical design elements in how we would use the kitchen now and as our family grows up. We ended up not knocking down any walls and having a large peninsula in our kitchen rather than an island into a great room, which we are very happy with. The 3D renderings and discussions with Anna gave us a lot of confidence that this was the right design option for us. She also helped a lot with determining the optimum layout of cabinets in the remaining space, even taking the time to talk through what we would put where in the kitchen and what type of cabinets would work best. We love all the cabinets features that Anna helped to design in that really make the space that much more efficient for us. Materials and Suppliers: We finally found an "ah-ha" inspiration kitchen on Pinterest that drove the aesthetics with Anna and she was excellent at helping us to find reasonably-priced options to mimic the kitchen. She knows many contacts in the supplier world that would help with cost reduction and she is not tied to a single supplier like many design firms, so we were able to find just the right things to match the look but in our smaller space and budget. She ordered our cabinets and backsplash tile for us and I think helped us to get a good price for the quality. It really hit home when we needed our quartz countertop and our contractor's preferred supplier was way over quoting on price and Anna helped to get a more reasonable price from another supplier, saving us thousands of dollars. Execution and Contracting: Anna has a good knowledge of the process taking a design from plans to a contractor and has worked with a few that she recommended. While no contractor or experience is perfect, we found Anna's independent knowledge useful to help balance when it was seemed the contractor might be taking an easy route. Having another voice in the contractor's ear to help resolve or prevent issues was invaluable, especially because we considered her to be very independent and honest with them. We really feel like we lucked out in finding Anna and it seems she's become busier and busier since our first meeting over a year ago. She was able to help design the perfect functionality into our kitchen, which in many ways was different than probably most clients that want to knock down walls and have a great room. She communicates well and we were very appreciative of her patience in both the long time it took us to finalize our design and in helping us through the big initial aspects of the design. We also feel like her rate was a relative bargain compared to much of the rest of a kitchen renovation. If we ever get the guts to renovate a bathroom, we'll be contacting AKG Design and we certainly will recommend her to anyone who asks. Thank you Anna and AKG Design.