And it’s Another Edition of 5 Under 40!

Our display, featuring the coffee we gave to all of our "best friends."
Our display, featuring the coffee we gave to all of our “best friends.”
Vivianna Balbusti of Saffraon House, with Steve & Nancy Sorensen.
Vivianna Balbusti of Saffraon House, with Steve & Nancy.
Nancy, Steve, Bill & Evan Struhl of Cutting Edge.
Nancy, Steve, Bill & Evan Struhl of Cutting Edge.
Nancy & Bill mug for the camera.
Nancy & Bill mug for the camera.

Last Thursday we had an absolutely great time at New England Home’s 5 Under 40 event, which we were thrilled to be a sponsor of. This is one of those fantastic nights that brings New England’s design community together. Its purpose is to celebrate emerging talent in residential design, including architecture, home-design products, accessories, interiors, furniture and new this year–landscape design. But the truth is, it’s just fun. We saw lots of our good friends, including Vivianna Balbusti of Saffron House, Jennifer Griffin of Jennifer Griffin Interiors, and Francoise Thies of Ligne Roset.

The winners were an impressive bunch. For interior design, a standing ovation goes out to Tiffany Eastman of Tiffany Eastman Interiors, Stamford, CT, Rina Okawa (ZEN Associates, Woburn, MA), and Phoebe Lovejoy Russell of Lovejoy Designs, Allston, MA. For furniture design, we congratulate Sara Ossana and Jonathan Glatt of O&G Studio, Warren, RI, and for the newest category, landscape design, we put our hands together for Matthew Cunningham of Matthew Cunningham Landscape Design, Melrose, MA.

After the winners received their awards at Landry & Acari, the rug auction took place. This is a totally cool and very unique part of this event. Each winner is given the opportunity to design a rug, which L&A then produces. It’s auctioned off, with the proceeds going to the very worthy charity, Barakat, Inc., which is dedicated to education and literacy in Central and South Asia. The rest of the evening was spent on fabulous food and plentiful drink. In fact, we couldn’t get enough of the sliders!

We love to sponsor 5 Under 40 because the talent in New England is spectacular, and we like to support it in any way we can. This year, we sponsored Rina Okawa of ZEN Associates in our town of Woburn, MA. She is exceptionally talented, with over 14 years of experience. Rina artistically utilizes her Japanese heritage in all of her designs. Every project she works on has perfect proportions, and meticulous details. You can count on her work to be playful, but focus on refined materials. And we just loved that her mother came all the way from Japan to see her daughter receive her award!

Once again, we give a shout out to all the winners. And we invite you to use Back Bay Shutter Company, Inc. on your next project. Whether you need interior wood shutters, manual motorized shades, or any type of shutters, shades, or blinds, for that matter, we’ve got your back, or rather your project!