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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