When local Chicago designer Kristen Coultas began her relationship with Prints Unlimited, she was providing interior design services for model homes. It started with Kristen’s simple decision to check out a local frame shop that was closer to the city compared to her old frame shop. We were lucky that Kristen chose us, “They offered great service and the pricing was good. Twenty years later I’m still working with Prints Unlimited.”
Years later and Kristen still utilizes our custom framing services with her self-owned interior design business, Kristen’s Interiors, where she works with private residences. During our most recent collaboration, our staff worked with her to source and frame artwork for high-end luxury apartments in the West Loop. “I went into Prints Unlimited and let them know my color palette, here’s the direction I want to go in. Then they help me source the artwork and bring it all together.”
Kristen describes the color orange as one of the elements that tied together with the design between the lobby and the fitness room. “We’ve created a nice lobby where folks can sit on their laptop or wait for their rideshare with three large canvases with beautiful dark frames.” In the fitness room, there’s some “wild wallpaper” that Kristen wanted to break up the pattern of with sports-themed art.
We custom framed five sports-themed, vintage giclee reproductions for their fitness room as well as the large-scale canvas triptych that now hangs in the lobby. “I’ve done a couple of different lobby projects with [Jill]. Those are always really big pieces of art. Those are kind of fun. They add a lot of drama.”
Jill, one of our resident custom framing experts and Kristen’s longtime collaborator, explained the ideas behind the art selection, “For this high-end building, Kristen needed three large pieces on canvas for the lobby. So, I provided a bunch of choices that we could create in huge sizes and cut into three.”
Having the ability to provide suggestions and collaborate is one of the reasons our selections of art and custom frames rise above the rest. “I love working with Jill. I might question if we should use something or not. She will assure me that’s the direction we should go in and when it’s done it always looks great. My clients are happy. They’re getting a great product at a great value.”