Habitar Design

We used Habitar/​Strategem to create a lofted area in our second bedroom, and to makeover the kitchen. The designs were creative and satisfied our requests. The whole crew was responsive to our needs and did a good job troubleshooting or correcting any issues that arose. We are happy with the finished product.

Mitch’s team recently designed and built 2 sets of built-​in bookshelves for our home, as well as a couple of small fixes. The design was perfect for our needs. In particular, the design for an awkward area under the eaves in our attic bedroom was amazing — I didn’t think it was possible to make the space work, but they did it! The built-​ins look great, are extremely functional, and add a lot of value to our home. The crew was professional and courteous, minimizing disruption during the installation. They took the time to do a really excellent job — everything done perfectly and exactly how we wanted it.

I hired Habitar to help me do a design overhaul of a newly purchased condo — new paint, new kitchen back splash, light fixtures and furniture. I worked with them at my old place, too, and they are excellent. Very responsive they are careful to follow the budget you set (mine wasn’t huge, so I appreciated that). They also have a partnership with a construction company so once they’ve helped you pick out things like paint and tile they can also arrange to have everything professionally done, which eases the burden of telling a contractor what items to order and how much.

We used Habitar Design /​Stratagem Construction to help us makeover a condo that we recently purchased. They designed a digital floorplan of the building, helped us select options for new furniture within our price range, selected paint color options for every room and arranged for and executed the painting quickly and at a very high quality. We were very happy with the work, impressed at their ability to paint our entire place within 3 days, and would use them again. Highly recommend!

Mitch and his team were great to work with. Our home looks GORGEOUS! Mitch and his team did high quality work, the team was professional, and was very responsive to our needs. I would highly recommend them. You won’t be disappointed!

After we moved into our new house, I was looking for some help with furnishing/​decorating it. I talked with several different companies, and neither one felt quite right for me — until I contacted Habitar Design.
I worked with Hannah, and she was absolutely amazing: fun, great listener, and what I appreciate even more — she pushed me just so slightly out of my comfort zone, for which I am grateful. I also liked and appreciated the fact that Habitar took what I already had (some colors, existing furnishing) and «built» from there, rather than having me make a 360 and start from «scratch».
To date, I worked with Hannah/​Habitar on furnishing several rooms in my house, and I am absolutely happy with the results.
Highly recommend.

I have had the ABSOLUTE PLEASURE of working with Kapan Shipman twice now — first as a residential client, she designed my vintage condo in 2011, and recently I used her on a commerical project to design my chiropractic office in Andersonville. She is so fun and really listens to what you say and more importantly, how you are going to USE the space. It was more like designing my home and office with my friend. She can do comtemporary designs but she really shines on funkier projects and mixing new and old pieces. Kapan can make a vintage bar and a west elm light fixture fit right in with an ikea bookshelf. She taught me to organize my travel finds in vignettes that tell stories. She reupholstered a gaudy chair with her own hands — she got rid of the red velvet on the cushions and replaced with fun yellow chevron and then painted the chair dark gray. So amazing. Even the way she moved furniture around the rooms changed the way the space is used and now it feels much warmer. She ran with my idea to use a dark brown in my bedroom and even suggested navy for the foyer for a dramatic effect. She did renderings to show me her ideas and incorporate some of mine. For my office we did reclaimed wood (warm) and a matte black oversized Sputnik light fixture (dramatic yet fun). I am so happy with the color pallette she chose. She knew where we should spend money for the biggest impact and where we could save money. For my commercial project, I used her partner Mitch and Strategem Construction after getting several quotes and am thrilled with the overall result. My vintage condo could be in Apartment Therapy, and the design of my office is part of the reason both my patients and myself love being there! Many thanks to Kapan and I know I’ll be working with her again in the future & so should you.

When my wife and I enlisted the help of Mitch to spruce up our barren open-​floorplan, we knew it make a huge impact on the space and would alleviate all the stresses that I tend to bring on myself as a DIY-​er. What we didn’t count on is how much better the space functions!
Mitch tapped Hannah to head up our project. Hannah perfectly executed our very vague direction — modern, yet welcoming, comfortable and kid-​friendly. After a few iterations of measurements and computer mock-​ups that we emailed about, we settled on a design and started with some much needed furniture (we’d been holding out since college). The design gave us a TON of very clean looking storage (built-​in pantry, entertainment center, storage window bench and coat hooks/​cubbies) and seating area (breakfast corner bench, window bench, sectional with chaise, and entertainment center) while still managing to stay within our budget. Their design was VERY well thought out without being superfluous. We moved outlets, junction boxes, removed ceiling cans and put integrated lighting into the entertainment area and under-​cabinet lighting in the kitchen. Air ducts and entertainment wiring were accounted for and they even unmounted and remounted my TV.
I could nit-​pick the tile guys that did the backsplash and tile around the fireplace, but in general the contractors were outstandingly meticulous, considerate, and professional. Hannah’s taste matched and augmented ours, and she even helped pick out blinds and little decorative things to compliment the design.
We will definitely be using Mitch and Hannah again if we decide to sink more into our money-​pit… I mean… house. Joking aside, we have more-​than made up for the cost of the modifications with the increase in our home’s value. Thanks guys!

I have worked with Habitar (Kapan) for more than a year getting our new home set up with paint, furnishings, etc. She’s great to work with and appreciate her balance of guidance and listening to our preferences. We also worked with the construction side on painting the house before moving in. They did a great job with quick turnaround.

I have worked with Habitar (design) /​Stratagem (construction) twice. The first project involved turning an office into a baby’s bedroom and the second involved adding a bathroom and moving /​remodeling a laundry room. On the design side we worked with Kapan both times. She came up with a great design for my son’s room and I am very happy with the colors — not too «cute» so he won’t outgrow it quickly. On the bathroom we had limited space but wanted to have a full bathtub so my son can take baths. Again the design was great and Kapan incorporated a wall mounted toilet to save space — a perfect choice. On the construction side we worked with two of Mitch’s GCs (Mitch owns the company). I was very happy with the quality of work and the speed. They were there to get things done and the project did not drag on as I have experienced with other builders. The quality of work was great.
A final note on pricing — they are very transparent which I really appreciate after having dealt with other builders. On the design side they charge by the hour and on the construction side they price the whole project with different options that can be added /​dropped to manage costs (ex would be built in lighting for a cabinet vs no lighting). One could use just the design side or the construction side if desired. I will definitely contact them when we embark on our next project.

I give Habitar Design my highest recommendation and I would use their services again in a heartbeat. We recently had 2 bathrooms remodeled, the addition of another bathroom, as well as a fireplace remodel by Habitar Design.
We can’t say enough good things about our experience from start to finish with both Habitar and Stratagem (I have reviewed them separately)
We worked with Karl for our design project and he was amazing. He designed our dream bathrooms and gave our home a facelift with his fresh ideas. He made what I thought would be overwhelming decisions easy and helped keep us focused.
His design work was outstanding and he was able to think outside of the box to make our home a more functional and beautiful space.
Mitch and Karl were professional, detail oriented, honest and reliable and I look forward to working with them again in the future.

Though I find the staff I have worked with to be generally friendly, I was ultimately disappointed with the product I received. Upon closer inspection I now note that all the positive reviews on Unilocal were for the same lead designer with whom I did not have the opportunity to work with.
The initial portion of the design (22 hours) yielded a few things that missed my needs and a few things that was not my taste. Though Hannah was very nice and quickly offered to «play around» with it a little more and get back to me, REMEMBER you are being billed for this. The hazard to this process is that if the designer is not listening to you or does not ask enough questions, you ultimately pay the price or that. I then received a bill for an additional 39h (the entire estimate for the job was for 36 hour with 30% of my punch list left to be completed at this point) where the only tangibles I received were that the convertible sofa I requested would not fit, the table I originally forwarded to her that she rejected was now the perfect piece, and a lighting solution that required the kitchen and bedroom lights to be on simultaneously. After I incidentally found out that the lights would be on at the same time, I asked Mitch why she would not inform me of that. His answer was that her job is to design and his was to manage the feasibility of the design.
After learning this (as Hannah was working on window treatment designs) I asked his opinion on whether there was enough space to move up my existing blinds 2″ and mount a curtain rod in front of that. His reply to me was «If you want to do it that way, that’s fine. We can’t be responsible if it doesn’t fit on your unit or the door closer doesn’t work or fails in the future. We’ll do the job time ($ 58/​hr per man and materials) and we’ll keep plugging away until we have them up or we give up because it won’t work. No guarantees. Succeed or not, the charges will apply. When my foreman comes out, just tell him what you want him to do and he’ll do his best. It might work out.» When I told him I was looking for his professional opinion & if he was uncomfortable in doing it just say so. He then suggested I seek the assistance of a «professional» and though he didn’t think there was an easy solution he wished me the best of luck with that. I was able to talk it over with my contractor and it turned out to be a VERY easy solution.
Mitch will assure that you could not have done this on your own, but seeing that about 30% of the design concept came from Habitar, I beg to differ. I was told they were providing me design assistance that could not be qualified. Apparently 70% of what I paid for was so behind the scenes I could not see it, nor could they qualify it for me. Mitch also assured me that the designers would keep me updated on the hours billed (as you cannot tell until you received the invoice) so as to not exceed the estimate. Since this was not done, he adjusted my bill to the upper limit of the estimate and after I told him I was not interested in paying for any more services to complete the punch list he offered me a few more hours of design time. This is the only reason I did not give them 1 star.

I highly recommend Habitar Design. They are total professionals and do beautiful work. Mitch and Kriz and Artur were a pleasure to work with.
They built two beautiful walls of cabinets and bookshelves and also two fireplace surrounds/​mantles.
The work was done on schedule, and they left my condo completely clean. I can’t recommend them enough!

Having never worked with an interior designer before I really didn’t know what to expect. Now that I’ve worked with Karl Sponholtz of Habitar Design I know what I’ve been missing. I contacted Habitar after finding them on the web and Karl called me back within a few hours. He was so friendly and his personality so engaging I went from skeptic to excited while explaining what I thougth the project was on the phone.
Once I met him, Karl really helped me focus and brought up ideas and information I would never have thought of. My kicthen is small and my bathrooms were very outdated. Karl walked in and within 3 hours we had a high level plan to work from. He was not only creative but also very technically savvy. It turns out Karl is also an architect so he brings more than your average designer to the table. Because I wanted to open the kitchen up and make it bigger he was the perfect fit for my job.
My kitchen is incredible and my bathroom is like a spa. Even in this economy I know I’ve added value to the overall to my condo price. Karl struck a great balance of researching materials, colors, design documents and overall project details to help ensure my time was very well spent. He stayed within my budget and I couldn’t be happier with the end result.

I recently worked with Habitar Design and Stratagem Construction. This review is for Habitar Design. I will review Stratagem once they are done with our place.
Kapan is the designer for Habitar Design. I was timid about having her come over as I thought interior designers were only for high end condos/​houses with a large budget. Boy, did she make me comfortable (made me want to befriend her right away). She is enthusiastic, sweet, and easy to work with. She listened & understood our style and budget right away. She helped me with various items. Most notably, she helped pick our paint colors and tile & tile layout for our bathrooms. I had been researching and looking for paint colors and tiles for months. I hadn’t come close to finding anything I liked. Within 1 — 1.5 hours of Kapan’s arrival, we had picked out paint colors for all the rooms of the condo and even the tile for the bathrooms. I also had her walk through our condo to ask her for her advice on furniture layout/​color schemes/​types of furniture pieces that would better suit our taste next time we are looking, etc. She was great about providing us with cheaper alternatives to stay within our budget without compromising «the look.» I think having a designer can really save you money & time.
Overall, I would recommend her to anyone/​everyone. I am thinking of having her back at our place to help us hang our art/​pictures/​decorate.

I would definitely recommend calling Habitar Design before starting any home design project. I had never worked with an interior designer before but I knew how I wanted my place to look, and I needed help getting there. I called Habitar to inquire about their services and spoke to Kapan Shipman, their designer, for quite some time and she immediately knew what look I was going for. We had two, four hour sessions to discuss room layout, choose the best paint colors, update lighting, and so much more. Kapan even helped reorganize my bookshelves, and they immediately looked a million times better– she definitely has an eye for design and listens to her clients so that they can achieve the look they are after. Kapan told me about stores and websites I would have never found on my own, and where I can get more inexpensively designed items than what I was seeing in the décor magazines. She was also so fun and easy to work with. I’m loving my stylish and comfortable condo now, with much thanks to Habitar Design and Kapan!

Habitar (design) and Stratagem (construction) designed and built our fireplace and bookshelves. The result is worthy of a design magazine. Kapan, a senior designer at Habitar, also helped us select paint colors for the entire house, carpet samples, tiles for mudroom, drapery for kitchen and living room, discussed about furniture layout, gave us ideas about space usage.
Kapan was very professional, experienced, personable, and easy to work with. First we had a 4 hour meeting, which was highly productive. She was very conscious of our budget. My husband and I have hard time in agreeing on any design choices for the house but she managed to find solutions that fit both of us. She acquainted us of several time saving web sources for drapes, light fixtures, and tiles. The results are great and we hear a lot of compliments from friends. We highly recommend Habitar and will continue using their services for years to come.
Their sister company Stratagem also did some crown molding installation, window frame repair, french door frame repair, carpet installation, miscellaneous repair, mudroom tile installation.
Mitch, principal at Stratagem, is very professional and knowledgeable. We are very happy to finally have found a contractor we can trust. It was hard to find a reliable contractor to get the crown molding done because the profile was hard to match and the ceiling had parts with very high ceiling (21 feet). Their price was very competitive and the craftsmanship was excellent. The fireplace and bookcase look like taken from a design magazine. Chris is a great carpenter and very resourceful. He was able to fix our french doors that other contractors recommended us to replace. The carpet installation was smooth and the pricing was very competitive, with sizable savings relative to Home Depot. We highly recommend Stratagem for any home improvement or building projects. We definitely will keep using them in the future.