Curated Collections
Keep your keepsakes on display and under control.
Kristin has amassed many cherished pieces over the years, and she loves to showcase them throughout her home. Her collections include her grandmother’s teacups, old seltzer bottles, milk jugs and wooden trays. But she cautions that collections can spiral out of control if they are not carefully curated and stored. Here are her tips.
• DON’T CLUTTER. The minute a space starts looking crowded,
it will look like it was done too purposefully. Less is more.
• BUY NEW “OLD” PIECES. Try to find some pieces that may be new but have an element that’s antique-like. For example, my lanterns have a brown tone to them. So if I buy a new brass lantern, I can go to the antiques store and get a 100-year-old piece of brass, and they would look like they go together.
• DISPLAY VINTAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. We have elements from my grandparents all throughout the house. There’s a black-and-white photo of my grandmother. She was a model— probably in the 1940s.
“I like the discovery; that’s the most fun to me ... So I’d much rather go to a place and find something accidentally than run a search online. I like the hunt because I think it treasure hunt.” becomes more fun, like a
TURNING THE TABLES
Kristin finds that having serving trays handy suits her lifestyle better than side tables would. “We always use little wooden trays throughout the house,” she says. “I’m an avid tea drinker and the teacup [in the master bedroom] was my grandmother’s. We had all these little teacups from my grandmother and [her tea kettle] kind of fit that time period more so than if I went out and bought a new one. I don’t actually use it—it’s more decorative—but it looks so cute when you have your actual teacups with it.”
With her talent for creative styling, Kristin found alternate ways of achieving the comforts of home. “In our living room area, instead of coffee tables I’d rather have something that’s more comfortable [like an ottoman], because then you can use it as extra seating when you have a party and just simply remove the tray … So the trays are kind of quick tables when you need one or can be removed when you need the area for sitting. For the one in the living room, I try to leave a little bit of space for people to put their drinks, but I always add some flowers.”
HATS OFF TO STORAGE
Kristin has a clever way of managing storage in the master bedroom that’s also decorative. “I use small hatboxes to store clothes. It’s just extra storage, but no one would know,” she says. “I’m actually keeping shorts and bathing suits in them.” In the makeup area, a little table adds a touch of glamour to the otherwise farmhouse-style bedroom. On top of it are small candelabras. “They’re nicer than having two lamps, and we have the recessed lighting above so we don’t really need to have bedside table lamps. I like the French country look, so anywhere that I can sneak in extra candelabras or chandeliers, I’m all for it,” she says.
“This is my favorite tablescape I’ve ever done. And it’s all completely a old new combination of and things, which is what I love.”
VINTAGE KITCHEN COLLECTIONS
“Because the kitchen is so white and gray and very bright, I think adding copper and wood gives a sense of warmth to the room.” Old milk jugs and seltzer bottles look right at home in the historic house. “My favorite thing in the kitchen is my collection of seltzer bottles,” Kristin says. “The cake in the cake holder is actually fake; I put flowers on it to make it look like a decorated cake.”
HIDDEN GEM
Kristin’s art studio, where she is creating drawings for her towel line, is a room that’s hidden in the stairs. After her grandmother passed away, the family had to sell her home. “I was trying to take pieces of the house since my grandfather built it by hand,” Kristin says. “What you see sitting on top of the bathtub, acting as a table, is actually one of the windows from their house and a tool that my grandfather used to build it. I like having it and the tool there because it’s my creative space, and what better thing to have [for inspiration] than a piece of my grandfather’s home that he built.”
mixing things
“You wouldn’t normally see a lantern in a bathroom, but that
don’t necessarily fit the space actually ends up working really well.”