Archive for June, 2016

I find dining chairs are always one of the hardest items to source and settle on. So many options, such a variation in comfort and and even bigger variation in price! On this This Old House North Shore Farmhouse project we talked early on about farmhouse or industrial, about which direction was right for the house. I love this inspiration image below of how graphic the backs of the black chairs are. We also were looking to see if we could find something that was vintage or antique, ideally sourcing locally.

Kristina Crestin Design_dining chairs Chairish A

Since finding something vintage that works and has the quantity locally can be so hard without endless hours of design time scouring I thought about mixing it up. I love these images below that shows mixing and matching of dining chairs can work really well.

Kristina Crestin Design_dining chairs Chairish B

Kristina Crestin Design_dining chairs Chairish C

Mixing is totally an option. The idea of the farmhouse chair started percolating as the right look for the space, really driving that farmhouse feel forward. I have an obsession with the ones below. I love the graphic visual of the traditional Windsor chair!

Kristina Crestin Design_dining chairs Chairish D

I found these guys on Chairish and they totally have that modern farmhouse look!

Kristina Crestin Design_dining chairs Chairish E

Follow along to see where we ended up with our chair selection!

Photo sources: Image 1 from O&G Studio, Image 2 from Style by Emily Henderson Blog, Image 3 from Elle Decoration. Chair sources: Colt Highback blue chair and black side chair from O&G Studio, 1950’2 Mid-Century Metal Dining Chairs – 6 from Chairish

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Greetings all! If you follow us on social media you might have heard that we were working on This Old House’s newest project this winter – their North Shore Farmhouse project. It was a whirlwind of quick progress and fun. All 10 episodes have been on TV recently and now we’re sharing some behind the scenes of the interior design development! I’ll be sharing concept, ideas and progress photos over the next couple of weeks. I’m breaking it out by space so you can really see how the design and the project evolved on site – and lets be honest, if we hit the framing progress point and all the photos were of the framed house you all would be bored!

Kristina Crestin Design_this Old House_Dining Room

I got involved when the house’s deck was on and a few walls up. Definitely check out the first episode to get a total behind the scenes understanding of the house’s conception and backstory. Connor Homes basically custom builds the entire home in their shop and breaks it down sending components to the site. Seeing their process and how fast it makes the construction process is eye opening! Kaminski Construction Management had the task of making it all happen on site and they were already busy making it happen.

Kristina Crestin Design This Old House - Northshore farmhouse_Dining Room 2

The clients and I started off immediately talking about color palette and vibe – focusing on the main Living / Dining space as a place the rest of the decorating could take cues from. After working through the furniture plan and building a budget, I worked on some quick elevation studies of key areas. This helped us study scale and proportion and really get an idea of what size furnishings we wanted. This is especially useful to study items that would impact the electrical plan – like one fixture or two over the dining table!

Kristina Crestin Design This Old House - Northshore farmhouse_Dining Room 1

Though the exterior was classic, the clients were looking for a modern farmhouse feel inside with some industrial elements. So we were working on balancing how we pair that farmhouse feel with the industrial elements while trying to keep it fresh. Blues and grey’s were our baseline palette for the entire house and here in the dining room was the first space I had the idea of a pop of color being green to bring some of natures vibrancy inside.  Stay tuned for more progress and final photos to see where we ended up!

Kristina Crestin Design This Old House - Northshore farmhouse_Dining Room 3

Sources: Dining Room Lighting and Leather Arm Chair from Kristina Crestin Design, Painting from Jules Place ”Coastal Cove” – Craig Mooney, Dining chair options from Chairish “Herman Miller Eames DCM Mid Century Chairs – 7″ and Primitive Country Sheraton Windsor Chair

The house was designed and shop built by Connor Homes. Kaminski Construction Management made it all happen on site.

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Recently I got asked to do a fun little project for Delta. I had to pull together a kitchen design.  Basically a mood board – a design with no client involved – freeing! At the end of the day I didn’t go as crazy as I expected but it was a fun exercise. Below is the Ad that ran in This Old House Magazine, which like all design projects ended up being a variation of the initial design.

Kristina Crestin Design_Brizo Blog Post ABelow is the 2nd variation I was working with. It all started with the Trinsic faucet in matt black.  We’ve been using allot of matte black lately and I’ve always wanted to pair it with this great copper and black fixture from Rejuvenation. Most clients have been hesitant to utilize copper, wondering about it’s longevity as a trend (and we have too). So of course since this wasn’t real life I went with the copper idea.  Classic marble, dark grey cabinets and a fabulous patterned floor tile all make a nice backdrop for copper accents to sparkle. Not to mentioned a colored range …. one of my current obsessions …..

Kristina Crestin Design_Brizo Blog Post PDF C

This last vignette was where I started with my design, loving this graphic tile. The rich blue tone with copper was just a lovely pairing, especially rounding it out with the matte black faucet and a black range. Done! I’d take it. Too bad doing my kitchen isn’t in the cards …..  This grouping didn’t make it to the cutting board as they wanted some more color for the ad, which is why the design morphed into the one above and then in turn what ended up published.

Kristina Crestin Design_Brizo Blog Post PDF B

Product sourcing: Faucet – Delta Trinsic in matte black, Sink , Rejuvenation – Haleigh Wire Dome Pendant,  Range – BlueStar Cooking, Silverware – West Elm, Blu Dot Copper Real Good Counter Stool, Tile – Popham Design.

 

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