Red Orchid Designs LLC

Itohan was, quite literally, the 4th designer we hired for this project, so we can say with some authority, Itohan is the BEST. We were doing a whole house remodel and needed to do everything from floor plan layout, to cabinets, to tiles and flooring. She is a Zen master when it comes to colors and, as we learned, that is what it is all about. Her positive attitude was always a relief and no problem was too big. She found creative solutions to some pretty tricky problems, and found some amazing materials when it was most important. It was a joy to work with Itohan and everyone who sees our house asks for her contact information. Smart, creative and budget conscious, Itohan was the perfect partner for our multi-year whole-house remodel. Inside and out, we couldn't be happier with the layout, colors, textures and designs she help us pull together.

Diligent, meticulous, and passionate, Itohan will take your project from "scratch" to an "exact match" of your aspiration, no-holds-barred. As a general contractor with continual business alongside Red Orchid Designs, Itohan is our one and only go-to designer for a vast variety of fascinating projects.

We hired Itohan to redesign our living spaces, including the living room, dining room and kitchen. We moved walls and a low ceiling, and expanded our kitchen without changing our total square footage. Having Itohan help us with it was the best decision we made. When we met her, Itohan immediately set us at ease. She was calm and reassuring and listened patiently. We had been thinking about redoing our space ever since we moved in 7 years earlier, so we had a lot of thoughts but hadn’t been able to come up with a good plan. We had some ideas saved to a Pinterest board which gave her an idea of our style, and she had us fill out a questionnaire to determine what was important to us. Itohan came up with a design that exceeded our expectations. We interviewed contractors with Itohan’s help, then hired a structural engineer to draw up the plans for our permits. Our contractor, structural engineer, and Itohan worked together seamlessly to keep our project moving. She handled all of the details that we had no interest in micro-managing, and helped us avoid decision-overload by giving us 2-3 choices anytime we had to decide which tile, which colors, which furniture or which faucets we wanted. She is extremely detail-oriented, picking just the right rug pads to go under our new rugs (to handle our dogs), adjusting the height of our custom hood above the stove to accommodate my husband’s height, and many, many more details that I would never have noticed myself (except after she took care of it!). She came up with several ideas that we would never have thought of on our own but which just fit perfectly in with our “new” house and with our tastes. Our living room rug is beautiful but we would never have picked it out! The teak paneling surrounding our TV - we would never have thought of that, but now it’s the feature that everyone notices when they walk into our house. She always validated our choices, too; I never felt that she was pressuring us to go one way or another with our design decisions. She really felt that whatever we chose was the right choice for us. Having never gone through a remodel before, we definitely learned a lot and there are probably things we could have done differently. I probably would have preferred to have all of our major expenses laid out for us BEFORE beginning our project, so that we had a good idea of what we would be spending before we got to the end and had to make some difficult decisions about what to cut or spend less on - but that might be somewhat realistic. Ultimately, Itohan worked amazingly well with our contractor, and by trusting the two of them to do their jobs, we ended up with a more beautiful house than we could have imagined. We are thrilled with the end product.

I am extremely grateful to have had Itohan Ellis on board as the interior designer for an extensive remodel of my home. Itohan worked exceedingly hard to bring together and implement many ideas that would form the over-arching design for the downstairs area of my home. Itohan produced exceptional renderings that accurately conveyed our shared vision and gave me full confidence in the design well before construction began. In addition to her fantastic eye for design, her planning and organization were exemplary; she worked very closely with suppliers and contractors to ensure minimal deviations from the design and original budget. A remodel is a daunting and stressful undertaking but Itohan was there every step of the way to ensure that everything went as smoothly as possible and was faithful to the original vision that we both shared. Any queries or changes required to the design were dealt with swiftly and tactfully. I am beyond satisfied with my 'new' home and I owe a great deal of that to Itohan. I would recommend her in a heartbeat and I very much look forward to working with her again in the future!

I love my new apartment. Itohan's product was far better than expected. She took the time to listen first asking me about my decoration style, living style, and potential future plans. She also measured EVERYTHING :) I enjoyed working with Itohan to pick out furniture and other decorations and seeing them in the 3D model. When everything was set, Itohan came to install everything at once and all I had to do was come home and approve :) There were a few items that needed to be returned and this was also handled very professionally. It was fantastic feeling knowing that she had our best interests in mind and would go the extra mile to get items returned on our behalf. Lastly, I am happy to say that her work expanded my tastes to areas I would not have been able to reach on my own.

I'm at Designer at Signature Kitchen & Bath Design in Cupertino and I've partnered with Itohan on a number of different projects. I always love getting to work with her! She always has her client's best interest at heart and works tirelessly to achieve their goals while staying on budget. She is full of creative ideas and is a wonderful project manager. I never hesitate to partner with her because she's professional, creative, and a blast to work with!

After interviewing 4 other interior designers, we were very pleased to meet Itohan and develope a working relationship with her. She is posivite and encouraging about working with what we already have and love. She is very knowlege about light and color and balance. She was able to flex her schedule and keep up with the rapid pace of our contractor. She made herself available for phone conversations or home visits when we needed her. She was very well repected by our architects and our contractor. She pays close attention to the specific details. Itohan shares novel ideas and is great at forseeing needs and at problem solving. Her fees are resonalbe and she is very apt at working within our budget. We are achieving our vision with Itohan as our interior designer.

Itohan was extremely helpful in refining my ideas for a laundry room renovation, capturing them in renderings and requirements for contractors, and assisting with both purchasing and project management. She went way beyond the call of duty and I much appreciate her commitment to the project. She met deadlines and was willing to communicate on my terms when I was (too) slow to respond to email. Her fees were extremely reasonable for what she delivered and I am glad I didn’t try to go without a designer’s help on this project. (Project cost is for entire project, not just the design consulting and project management provided by Red Orchid.)

Itohan is great to work with and we look forward to collaborating on more jobs together in the future. She is thorough and thoughtful and very professional. Highly recommended.

Choosing Red Orchid Design to do my kitchen remodel was the best remodel decision I’ve made. I knew what I wanted to do with my kitchen/dining room remodel but I had no idea where to start this gigantic project I waited 12 years to do. Itohan Ellis came in and from the beginning I knew she would be the right person for the job. She listened to me and she observed me in my kitchen. She’s intuitive and her designs are custom made for the person who uses the space the most. She did not only design my kitchen but she followed the project and construction from demolition to the last little cosmetic details. After the whole project was completed and the contractor came over to install the knobs and pulls, she came over and spent an extra 3 hours to make sure the hardware was installed absolutely correct. She also helped me choose the materials from start to end, going with me to several flooring shops, counter tops stores, besides the many phone calls to different vendors to make sure I had the right professional for my project. She is knowledgeable, smart, honest and also a great person to have around. I do recommend Itohan Ellis 1000 times over as an excellent designer and all around superb project manager.

We interviewed several designers that we found on our neighborhood email group called NextDoor. Itohan was by far the most professional and personable of them all and we knew we didn’t need to look any further. We’ve never hired a designer before and were hesitant/nervous to spend money on a task we thought we could do ourselves. Boy were we wrong. Little did we know how much we would save with Itohan! Before Itohan, we kept struggling month after month on what to do with our living space for our family with growing teenagers. Red Orchid Design, specifically Itohan Ellis, came to our rescue for our open space remodel and a luxurious master bathroom. She moved our project along quickly and got us breaking ground earlier than we expected. All our questions were addressed in a timely manner and the project stayed within budget. Itohan has an extremely strong work ethic. Most importantly, she listened to us and worked diligently to create an incredible bathroom and great-room for our family. She even considered our family dog’s needs. There are so many features that we love about her work that we struggle to pick our favorite. Our remodel was a great experience and we will use Itohan again. Itohan did a great job getting inside our head and then making recommendations. She has the ability to listen well and then apply that to amazing 3-D design recommendations. Both my husband and I struggle with visualizing the space so Itohan’s 3-D options were crucial to our project's advancement. Seeing the walls in light brown and dark brown, not to mention all the other iterations were amazing for us. Then she gave us options of a full wall, half wall or no wall at all. What makes her unique is her ability to see the whole picture AND tend to the details in that context. Itohan is fantastic at recommending things you hadn't thought of, especially with lighting. To top it off, she was extremely personable and friendly. We love Itohan.

We were framing our new home when we realized the amount of design decision and material choices during the construction process was completely overwhelming. We needed professional help. Itohan was an obvious go-to person as I have collaborated with her on several of her other projects for various clients (as her photographer) and saw firsthand how committed she is to her work ethics and excellency of the customer service, on top of the true design talent. As anyone who’ve been through home build/remodel knows, those are some of the most challenging projects family can undergo. Hiring Itohan was the best decision we did as she helped us navigate 100s of decisions, pointed to quality, beautiful materials within our budget and introduced us to the right vendors. All this she did with grace, tact and patience I am in awe of. Every single time we had design dilemma, Itohan clearly presented pro and con arguments and proposed solution we both were happy with. We are both grateful for her hard work and her expertise and since our home was completed we have recommended Itohan’s services to all our family and friends in need of design help. We love our new home. Thank you Itohan!