Archive for the ‘In the Press’ Category

Sharing some of the last details on the higher end option on the BHG project!  Below is another amazing rendering that BHG’s illustrator Ann Weiss that showcases our selections in such an amazing way. (Hello. can you imagine how long it took to make the vent hood look like brass like that!)

Below that are some quick study sketches I did working out our initial ideas before Kelly took the entire design to detail in CAD. Definitely in love with those tall bypassing windows … drool worthy. Totally wish I had this budget for my kitchen!

Kristina Crestin Design_BHG Blog post

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I am a bit in love with this scheme. It doesn’t help that I used my own kitchen for this exercise, so now I am in trouble! The following are pieces from our higher end option of our Better Homes & Gardens Kitchen and Bath Ideas spread ‘One Kitchen, 2 Budgets’.

Kelly & I started with a couple materials or ideas that we really loved – I’ve always wanted to use a truly fabulous and mood setting chandelier at a kitchen island, the Winston from Arteriors being a perfect choice. Having this piece in mind with antique brass and black cording accents was a great starting point to pull in a custom brass hood surround and the shimmery patina of bronze on a massive farm sink.  Not wanting to go overly glam I brought in the idea of massively tall metal windows on a vast majority of the perimeter, some even bypassing so you could use it as a serving window for grilling or entertaining outdoors! The dark black metal of those windows resonating with the light fixtures cording all made sense – but then this is me, of course we needed a bit of color! After lots of selections we settled on a deep blue/teal tone in a semi gloss; which looks so amazing on the cabinet door we designed and had our friends at Premier Builders make for us! I’ll take it all!

Kristina Crestin Design_ BHG post

Sources: Custom Cabinetry fabricated by Premier Builders , Sink Rocky Mountain Hardware‘s Altura Apron Front Sink, Faucet is the Henry by Waterworks, Pair of pendant lights the Winston from Arteriors, cabinet hardware by Rocky Mountain Hardware, the ‘tab’ pull and Ted Boerner’s ‘tab pendant’, herringbone walnut floors from Hunt’s, bar stools are Anna Karlin Chess Stools by Brespoke Global, mirrored chicken wire tiles are Versailles Mesh by Ann Sacks and walnut herringbone floor by Hunt Custom Milled Wood Floors.

Back on sharing some more background on the BHG project ….. Below is the amazing rendering that BHG’s illustrator Ann Weiss did that brought all our selections to life. I SO wish we had the time to spend on renderings like this for our projects! I haven’t developed perspectives like this truly since college – when you could work at it as long as you want without thinking about how much billable time was adding up!

Below that are some quick study sketches I did working out our initial ideas before Kelly took the entire design to detail in CAD. I do love a good hand sketch!

Kristina Crestin Design_BHG One kitchen 2 budgets

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As a follow up to sharing the Better Homes & Gardens Kitchen and Bath Ideas spread ‘One Kitchen, 2 Budgets’ I wanted to share some more of the materials and images behind the design since not everything we selected showed up in the magazine. It was exciting to see the spread but at the same time weird since it was just a design exercise, it wasn’t actually being built!

Below are pics of the materials and colors as we were evolving the design.

kristina crestin design BHG  one kitchen 2 budgetsAs we were working through the design process Kelly and I had this active ‘tray’ of materials as we kept playing with colors and finishes, really working through how much color to bring in, and of course where to stop with the color (since you really can go overboard)

kristina crestin design BHG one kitchen 2 budgetsMaterials in the photos: bubble door & cabinet knobs from Anthropologie, multi colored scalloped tile is custom colored Tabarka moroccan tile from Discover Tile. The lovely rich indigo blue cast iron sample is a stunning sink color from Kohler. The green shiplap cabinet door is a custom cabinet design that Premier Builders made for me.

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Speaking of Cooper – she just showed up in a new magazine spread! This summer an editor from the group that does Cottages and Bungalows reached out to us about a new magazine coming out year end ‘American Made Living’.  They were interested in using some photos of our camp project. Great, more exposure nationally – why not! I had no idea which pictures they chose to use and it was rather fun the other day when my Mom ran in with some copies she just found and we all got to see it for the first time.  They chose a picture that Jamie the photographer captured of our Cooper on the clients dock – how fun! I brought quite a team for this photo shoot, even Cooper for a few days. I am sure that in future photo shoots it will be like ‘where’s Waldo’ – ‘find Cooper’…. I see a theme starting here ….

Kristina Crestin Design_American Made Living Magazine

Photographs taken by  Jamie Salomon.

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It’s amazing the lead time in working with larger publications. We started talking with Better Homes & Gardens last year this time about working on their Kitchen and Bath Ideas quarterly magazine’s spread ‘One Kitchen, 2 Budgets’. Kelly and I worked away this summer on it and submitted it at the end of the summer. So much time has passed I almost forgot when it was coming out! I found out yesterday it came out this week! Mom of course got her hands on a couple right away – so excited!

The spread is basically an exercise of designing without a client, taking one existing space in need of love (and I used my own kitchen!) and redesigning it – first on a budget and secondly at a higher end. There were no constraints to do the same aesthetic for both, in fact looking back at other spreads the designs were all over the place. Seeing that I decided I wanted to work on the 2 as my 2 split design personalities – the colorful, creative and fun as the first and the second being more sophisticated and chic. Sharing it with some friends last night it was interesting to see which space each person liked better. Even more interesting to see which one my husband would prefer if we could actually do either! (Take note, the higher end one – since I was living in the world of unreality I decided we’d take the 2nd floor off to get more ceiling height on the first floor and bring in these amazing metal bypassing windows, opening up the kitchen to the outside. Ha! That is never going to happen here – but a girl can dream, right?)

See some scans below. There is SO much that didn’t get chosen to be spotlighted by the magazine that I’ll be sharing all of our materials and products in a next post, stay tuned for that. Props to BHG’s renderer, I am so floored by her beautiful watercolors!

Kristina Crestin Design BHG

Above: scans of Better Homes & Gardens special Kitchen and Bath Ideas quarterly magazine. So many people to credit with helping; I’ll be sharing in my next couple blog posts!

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Those sneaky folks at Boston Magazine Home! They asked this summer to include a room of ours year end as part of a story but we had no idea it was for Best of Boston Home! Sweet! We won for best Kid’s Room. I absolutely love the bunk room, it’s pretty darn gratifying that other people love it too!

A big thanks to my collaborators too as this project never would have happened without the team: architecture by Art Dioli of Olson Lewis and the GC was Dunn Builders.

Blog Post_138_Best of Boston Home 2013Bunk room photo taken by Jamie Salomon

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Just finally saw the new New England Home Magazine and Designer Bath’s new advertisement using our ‘Designers Shine’ win. Surreal seeing this project everywhere. I promise, we’re planning the next big photo shoot soon so you can start seeing other projects of ours! This photo by Eric Roth.

Kristina Crestin Design Designers Shine

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Though I know the big win last night was the Red Sox, I also took home 2 awards last night at the Prism Awards, a Biannual awards given by the Builders and Remodelers Association of Greater Boston!

If I thought I was going to win I would have brought my staff and hubby! I had Mom at my side for the evening which was lovely and my friends Susan & Steve Howell of Howell Custom Building Group also won a couple awards – congrats to them too!  I took home silver awards for Kitchen Design and Best Creative Use of Space categories; both my Camp project which also took the Grand Prize at Designer Bath‘s ‘Designers Shine’ awards this year. The little project they could! (or not so little). The best part of the evening though was after texting the homeowner a photo of my win her reply was ‘Your own World Series! You Rock! Congrats, I am so proud of you’. OK, that made my year and it’s why I love what I do, we work so hard to understand what a client is looking for and help make their dreams come true. Sharing this win with them and their happiness for us is what keeps me going. Wow, I didn’t mean for that to sound so sappy! But it’s so true. Have a good day all!

Kristina Crestin Design_Prism Awards

Pics: Mom & I and Jason & I (from Designer Bath)

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I came across a bunch of blog posts about me recently (so weird to start seeing my photos on other folks sites or blogs!) and many people just seem to post my pics and thankfully give me credit, but some take the time to write about the work; which is really nice. I came across this post from The Artsy Forager and it just made my day and I wanted to share! Click through to her web site to read the full post. Thanks Lesley!

Kristina Crestin Design_Artsy forager JPGSee the rest of the post here.

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