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Christina Anstead's Clients Made an Amazing Deal With the Contractor to Avoid Paying $3,500

Photo credit: HGTV
Photo credit: HGTV

From House Beautiful

On season 2, episode 3 of Christina on the Coast, Ant Anstead sets Christina up with her next clients for a kitchen and nursery reno. We meet Matt and Stevie, two personal trainers who are expecting their first child. Ant knows Matt from playing soccer together—well, uh "football" as Ant calls it. Before even stepping foot in the home, we learn two similarities between the couples.

  • Matt and Stevie's Frenchie is almost identical to Christina's pup named Cash

  • Stevie is only a week behind Christina in her pregnancy (bump buddies!)

The Renovation

Matt and Stevie have a kitchen so large, it also fits their dining room table. While space is ample in some areas, it's tight in others. For example, when the fridge door is open, it blocks the pantry entrance off. In terms of what the couple is looking for, Matt mentions that he wants the kitchen to have lots of white and stainless steel accents. Stevie on the other hand wants color. With a strict $35,000 budget and a baby on the way, Christina must fashion a room appealing to both of them, allowing the parents-to-be enough time to settle in.

Christina decides on a sliding barn door for the pantry, and shifts the fridge over a couple inches to create more space. To fill up that open space, she adds an island to the center of the kitchen with seating for four. She also removes cabinets from the kitchen, but adds additional storage to the dining room area of the kitchen to compensate.

For backsplash, Christina pulls three samples—a blue one tile for Stevie, a plain black tile for Matt, and a white and gray Bohemian-styled tile, which the couple chooses. It goes great with the white cabinetry adorned with black handles and gray floor tiles that Christina picks for the couple. While the colors aren't as loud as Stevie may have wanted, Christina incorporates a lot of playful elements into the design. Also, she brings in some house plants to really add some pops of color to the room.

The Bargain

As the kitchen is getting redone, contractor Israel "Izzy" Battres (here's everything we know about him), tells Matt and Stevie that they need a new electrical panel, which will cost them $3,500. And then, in the greatest bargain ever, Matt offers to pay Izzy with fitness classes. This is of interest to Izzy, as he and Christina have an on-going wall sit competition, and Izzy is consistently beaten by Christina. Izzy takes the deal, which keeps the couple exactly on budget.

Team Functional Fan vs. Team Funky Chandelier

During the episode, the couple goes back-and-forth over whether they want their kitchen to have a functional fan for air flow, or a funky chandelier for style. Matt wins and the couple opts for the fan, however, Stevie, Christina, and Ant are all Team Chandelier. When Ant hears about this, he calls Matt up. Luckily, Ant didn't have to do that much convincing as Matt already regretted going with the fan.

The Nursery

While the main focus of the episode is the redesign of the kitchen, Christina also styles the nursery for the couple. She almost replicates the Boho-styled nursery she created for own son Brayden. You can check out Christina's nursery below.

Interested in seeing how Matt and Stevie's nursery and kitchen came out? You can watch the entire episode here.

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