As we prepare for all of the excitement and new projects that 2020 will bring our way at Huston & Company, we find that it is just important to take a moment to reflect upon the past year. 2019 was an exciting year for us. In addition to wrapping up various academic & library projects and partnering with a variety of new interior designers on custom furniture for residential projects, we had lots going on around our own Kennebunkport workshop & showroom.
In shop news, we completed the addition of our on-site finishing shop we began with Douston Construction the year before. Additionally, we outfitted the entire workshop in new rubber flooring, which make the days spent working on our feet feel much for comfortable. These two projects necessitated a deep, thorough cleaning of the workshop – the kind we do once every five or so years – and it felt great to undergo a massive purge during the middle of the summer.
On the showroom side of the business, we said goodbye to Kate Mastrangelo, our former sales director of 15 years, as she left to begin a new chapter with her family in upstate New York. Kate’s departure opened the doors for us to meet and hire Brenda Roukey, our new office & sales manager. It’s been a busy few months for Brenda as she settles into the new role, but she has jumped in head first and we feel so lucky to have her on board.
Below are a few visual highlights from another year full of beautiful furniture, inspiring projects, and wonderful clients. We hope you enjoy!
Our 2019 began with seeing the South Portland bungalow Saer shares with his family on newsstands in the January 2019 issue of Down East Magazine. The article features a number of Huston & Company pieces alongside Saer & Genell’s creative talents.
We delivered and photographed this custom metal and walnut island to a loft in downtown Portland. The piece was a big departure for us and we are so pleased with how it turned out.
Another piece with a great back story that was a joy to see come through the workshop was this Wormy Chestnut case piece that we photographed at Laudholm Farm in Wells.
Another fun bit of press was an article featuring this custom oval Gates Table in the lovely New England Home.
Another residential highlight was photographing the home of the shop owner of Whimsical Maine in Saco. A longtime fan of Huston & Company, this particular client owns six pieces of our furniture plus sets of Camden Stools and Shovel Chairs. We are honored she has chosen to incorporate so much of our furniture into her beautiful home.
We were thrilled to see three of our tables featured in Erin Gates’s new book, Elements of Family Style. As always, it is an honor working with Erin and collaborating on timeless custom furniture for her clients.
We were thrilled to partner with our dear friends at Good Medicine Collective on the furniture for the upstairs yoga room, used by patrons of our favorite yoga studio, Lila East End Yoga. Good Medicine opened their doors in the summer and we were honored to be a part of the wonderful work they’re doing with the space and their non-profit.
We were honored to be asked to contribute a six page article in a summer issue of Private University Products & News about custom library furniture.
We wrapped a very big residential project with Douston Construction and Whitten Architects on a lovely new home near Higgins Beach in Saco. We provided a lot of the built-in cabinetry, a custom island, dining furniture, and more.
We officially completed a year long project with the Thomas Memorial Library in Cape Elizabeth when we installed their new “battleship” display bookshelf over the summer. See more from the complete project with TML here.
After operating a finishing shop off-site in Arundel for years, we couldn’t have been happier to move the operation over to our new on-site shop when Douston Construction completed our addition this fall. The whole process is so seamless and efficient now – it’s wonderful.
We hosted a goodbye celebration for Kate and the entire team in the summer before she moved to New York.
We had the honor of partnering with interior designer, Meghan Shadrick, on designing and building a custom bar cart for the Heading Home to Dinner auction which raised over $170,000.
Bill joined our longtime friends and clients at the UNE School of Pharmacy for the dedication for the custom display case we built for them earlier this year.
We had a few exciting press mentions in the fall, including this two-page spread in Zest on Huston & Company.
Work began on the first of many Harkness Tables we’ll be building, now that Huston & Company is now the sole builder and provider of these patented collaborative learning tables. We’re so excited about this partnership with Phillips Exeter Academy and look forward to providing other institutions with these legendary tables.
We partnered with so many talented designers in 2019. Though many of them were new design partnerships for us, we also wrapped up a number of projects for longtime design clients. Pictured below are projects from Tyler Karu (left) and Morrison Design House (right) – both photographed by Erin Little.
We’ve spent the last few months on-boarding our newest hire, Brenda, our office & sales manager. It has been a joy to work with her thus far, we cannot wait to tackle 2020 with her helping to steer our ship!
Thank you all so much for keeping up with Huston & Company and all that we do in the workshop. With such a full year under our belts, we are feeling incredibly grateful that we’re able to do what we do. Cheers to another year filled with beautiful furniture, inspiring projects, and wonderful clients!