Aaron Black Design

A very late post from a project I was deeply honored to contribute to — Cutie's Bar in Portland, Maine.
This one was especially meaningful. Working closely with the creators, shaping the space, and helping bring their vision to life was a genuinely rewarding process — rooted in a shared goal of building something beautiful, welcoming, and made for people.
If you haven’t been yet, go check it out — all-day bar, great food, better drinks, and even better staff.

Photos not by me. I'd like to tag everyone involved to give credit where due. If you see this and you contributed, let me know and I'll take you.

Cheers.

White oak fronts I made to replace original failing fronts on a contemporary credenza, for a client in NYC.

A small kitchen from two years ago, gets a small companion table. Flame box elder.

All walnut, all day. An armoire, for a client downtown.

Brooklyn kitchen in white Venetian plaster. A large pull out pantry to the left of the fridge offers space for canned goods, oils etc. A maple butcher block counter adds a bit of warmth with durability and an oil finish that patinas well with age.

Walnut and ash record console. Built from locally sourced black walnut from and finished with .

Hot Tub banquette. Coming soon to a Portland bar near you. Wharf street is about to get a serious upgrade. Stay tuned.

The built-in library from the same project as the previous post. If you go back in my feed, there’s a photo of it before it was complete and fully stocked and staged. A room without books is no room at all.

Walnut and white wet bar, for one of my last NYC projects before the move to New England. The whole brownstone was pretty much gut renovated, while saving many original architectural details.

A kitchen from pre-pandemic times. A wonderful design, mostly by the clients keen eye. I handled the walnut fronts and the rest was elicited by another contractor. A nice example of a positive collaboration effort.

I didn’t built these built ins, but I did and doors and drawers. Rush and roller finish to match the existing pieces, hardware picked by the client and that’s a wrap. It definitely changed the spaces for the better and added a lot of functionality. Both seem to have been TV cabinets from back in the day.

Here's one side of a kitchen island that got delivered and installed to Brooklyn, NY, last month. I love the asymmetrical, architectural feel of its form. More photos of the rest of the project coming soon.