Allure Design

Terrible. Paul Kauranen of Allure Design never completed a job at our home he started in late January 2017. Allure had agreed in writing to redo our pool deck and replace our automatic pool cover for $25,000. I made all payments as requested, including “reimbursing” him for payment to a pool cover subcontractor when he stated on January 24, 2017, “I paid for the automatic cover kit and components on our company credit card”, which ended up being a false claim; the subcontractor was never paid. With work about half completed, but us having paid in $20,000 of the $25,000, Paul stopped showing up. He has refused to issue a refund for the unfinished work. All winter and into the spring he left our pool deck torn up, and equipment and material stored in our yard. For a while (like, months) he made all sorts of excuses, said he would come on a certain day but would not show up (repeatedly), and explicitly and repeatedly reassured me he would finish the job. He did not. In June 2017 he referred me to his lawyer to negotiate a refund for unfinished work. His attorney and I agreed on an amount, which the attorney said Paul approved: $5,000. However, Paul has not actually paid the refund. Do not hire Paul Kauranen or Allure Design.

I can not recommend Paul. He showed us a great plan, but did not execute the plan we discussed (changed nearly all the plants from the original plan), escalated the cost more than 50% of the originally discussed price due to a bad estimate on his part. He had big delays, was not a good communicator and we learned he'd been lying to us all throughout the project. His crew works hard, but we had trash & cigarette butts left in different places on our property, Paul can not stick to the agreed upon budget and he is not an honest business man. I can not recommend him to anyone--you could hire him to do a plan for your property but I would hire a different company to execute it.

Paul and the Allure Design team started the project many months (late October 2016) after our original deposit (early July 2016), without any notice (I came home to find a Bobcat in my yard). They worked for about a week and with the project about 30% finished they just took their tools and left. Paul's communication was horrible throughout the project and we are currently working through avenues to get our money back (which he is contractually obligated to do). I had to get another landscaper to finish the project and as it turns out, the work Allure did was subpar and not to current industry specifications. Do NOT use Allure Design or Paul Kauranen for any work. His communication is severely lacking and he does not follow through to his contractual obligations. Please don't make my mistake!