Kristine Kennedy: Excellence in Interior Design Content
Kristine Kennedy is the Editorial Director of wayfair.com, the largest online-only retailer of home furnishings, selling 4.5 million items from 5,000 vendors. An experienced creative leader, Kennedy is known and regarded for her excellence in cultivating home furnishings and interior design content.
Prior to joining Wayfair in 2011, Kennedy spent 17 years with the Better Homes and Gardens brand, her last 8 years as East Coast Editor. Her career there entailed assessing, visiting, styling and writing about homes from coast-to-coast. She has directed countless photo shoots, directed digital edition videography and has worked with some of the best creative talents in the industry. Kennedy knows how America lives. She is committed to offering inspiration, ideas, advice and conversation to everyday people. She believes in helping others achieve more beauty and function in their lives regardless of style preference or budget.
At Wayfair, Kennedy is implementing a rich visual and editorial content strategy aimed at enhancing the customer experience everywhere the customer interacts with the Wayfair brand. Social media is a fundamental pillar of that plan, which includes a dynamic new blog called My Way Home, scheduled to launch in early 2012.
A graduate of the University of Southern California, Kennedy began her career as a hard news newspaper reporter, covering events such as the LA riots and California’s wildfires. After a few years she discovered she could combine her hidden interior design talents with journalism. In addition to her work for Better Homes and Gardens, Kennedy co-wrote New York Times bestseller “Trading Spaces: Behind the Scenes” and has written for publications such as Traditional Home, Decorating, Quick & Easy Decorating, Window & Wall Ideas, Bedroom & Bath Ideas and Do It Yourself. A native of Portland, Oregon, Kennedy recently moved from New York’s Hudson Valley to suburban Boston with her husband, two children, Great Dane, two cats, sewing machine, pile of paint decks and about 340 linear feet of books.
Hi,
Kristine is one of many cousins I hadn’t heard from or seen in decades… her dad, George, ran Joe’s Mattress and Upholstery of whom she wrote an article about for BH&G. It was really awesome to find she hit the big time as a magazine editor. I’m really glad for her that her career has flourished… Until reading this post I didn’t know she moved on…
If she returned to her old stomping grounds she wouldn’t recognize it. I left there 15 years ago… and Portland as a whole has changed dramatically… it is a city now overrun with gentrification, high density housing, huge office towers downtown, horrible traffic, and thousands of homeless panhandlers.
Even the old upholstery shop that her dad and grand parents ran is now a “hacker space,” what ever the heck that is. With all the high density cookie cut out shotgun homes being crammed into every parcel wide enough to accommodate one, I don’t recognize our old neighborhood anymore.
If she only knew of whats happening down where the Overlook restaurant is, and the Daily Bread was… or what happening to the wonderful old houses, like her Aunt Mary’s are being flipped into, or demolished for… she’d cry, not only over the homogination of design, but the loss of neighborhood distinction.
So way to go kid! Glad you escaped Portland!