Caryn Bortniker Design

We are a family of five (including a large dog). We worked on two home renovation projects with Caryn -- one at our summer house in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts and one at our house in Riverdale, New York. Each project was a complete renovation of the house. I am attaching photos from the Martha's Vineyard renovation in this review. Caryn is delightful to work with -- she is smart, creative, professional and fun. Her designer taste is impeccable and practical. We feel grateful to have worked with Caryn on these two projects. We are enjoying the designs that she created for us in our kitchens, bathrooms, mudrooms, and closets. We highly recommend Caryn without any reservations.

As a Project Manager and Owners’ Representative - it is a pleasure working with Caryn Bortniker Designs. Caryn will listen to a clients' needs and provide creative solutions to meet design and budgetary objectives. She is resourceful and well respected by vendors and trades people - which makes the process go smoothly. You will appreciate her professionalism and the end result is always beautiful!

Caryn is amazing to work with and really understood and carried out the vision we had planned for our kitchen renovation. All the details were carefully planned out and finished the project on time. My family and I couldn't be happier with our decision to hire Caryn!

Upon moving into our first house, my husband and I were anxious to make the space feel like our own. We hired Caryn to help us redesign our kitchen and she over-delivered! The original kitchen was cramped, outdated and dark - our new kitchen is spacious, fresh and a true showstopper! Caryn understood our design and lifestyle needs, helped us build and deliver on a vision and opened our eyes to things we hadn't considered before. She is candid, reliable, hard working and an all-around wonderful person to work with. Outside of the kitchen, Caryn has helped us with several smaller projects throughout our home and we couldn't be happier with how it's turning out. Don't think twice - hire Caryn for your design needs!

Working with CJB design was a great experience. My projects not only turned out better than I could have imagined, but the the process was fun, I learned a lot and everything ran so smoothly. I think the best endorsement I can give is the fact that I returned again and again each time I began a new project!

Caryn was a pleasure to work with. We have done multiple projects over the past 5 years- big and small (large renovation, a kitchen, 3 bathrooms, and a butlers pantry). She always listened to what I wanted and then she would bring her years of experience and her exquisite taste into the design. Sometimes she would warn me of the practicalities of living with certain things I requested and other times she would tell me of important items that we would need to add that I would never have thought of. She was alway price conscious but would tell me where/when it was important to spend money. She always designed with my desires and needs in mind never letting form get in the way of function. I highly recommend her and personally plan on using her again in the future. Every project came out beautifully!

Caryn has a great feel for coming up with creative solutions to satisfy personal tastes and executing them in the most practical manner. We have retained Caryn to design crisp and clean yet cozy office space from scratch as well as to redesign a country kitchen and bedroom into a more contemporary feel. All with a great personality too!

Highly recommend CJB Designs. Caryn completely understood the style and feel we were going for, her suggestions and design ideas were fantastic, all while remaining extremely budget conscious. She was time sensitive, and was great at managing our project while we were away on vacation. I could have never come up with all of her design suggestions, yet can not imagine living in any other space than the one she created with our new bedrooms and bathrooms.

I hired Caryn in the early phases when building my custom home. She had a real understanding of the functionality of the rooms and how they would flow. She had a lot of input on the architectural plans and designed my kitchens and baths, from elevations to materials. Caryn kept me focused; she understood how to choose and mix materials that would achieve the look and feel I was going for. She worked with my budget and was able to communicate with the builder and subs. When I would show her a picture of something well out of my budget, she was able to come up with a concept within my means to achieve it. Working with Caryn was productive, cost effective, and beyond fun. I have recommended her highly since, and have told her that she will be designing my next house as well!

In the last decade, I’ve watched several of Caryn Bortniker's projects evolve, so when it came time to renovate my own spec kitchen and make it something truly unique, it was only natural to call her. I wanted something modern and clean, yet warm and functional for my large family. Caryn listened to my thoughts and wish list and was fun to collaborate with. She was helpful in determining a realistic budget, has fabulous resources, and an amazing eye for design details. While it made sense to keep the floor plan similar, she improved its function. She understood exactly the look and feeI was going for, as well as understood the importance of how it integrated, functionally and decoratively, with the rooms around it. I could not be happier with the finished product. It is a wow on every level. I would recommend Caryn in a heartbeat!