Maine State of Mind

We are now officially converted Maine-iacs. The tranquility of the woods and lakes is intoxicating. We had an amazing trip a few weeks ago, traveling the slow route along US Route1along the coast looking at colleges for our daughter. The schools we saw and the quality of student artwork was beyond inspiring and makes me want to go back to school. Couple that with all the artisansal work we found, I now have a serious hankering for a humble little lake house up north, or more appropriately, down east. Here are a few bits of design inspiration from my fantasy lake house mood board, as well as some links to our favorite spots. 

Swan Island blankets

Faribault Blankets made in USA since 1865

Kinfolk Magazine

just a few favorites:

hotels

Grey Havens Inn: charming classic shingled inn, built in 1904. On the shores of the north Atlantic, in Georgetown, ME. 30 minutes to Brunswick 

Brunswick Inn: voted best college town inn and we couldn't agree more! Located in town, blocks from Bowdoin, short drive to Bates and Colby. Charming, comfortable and delicious breakfast by the fire. 

Marston House: stunning inn and shop owned by husband-wife design team in Wiscasset, featured in Martha Stewart Living

Blackpoint Inn: historic and luxurious inn on Prouts Neck, minutes from Portland in Scarborough. 

restaurants

Blue: located at Grey Havens Inn in Georgetown. Quintessential Maine water-view restaurant. May - October

Enoteca Athena: delicious greek / italian with lovely wine list. enjoy the tapas; right on Maine St in Brunswick

Marchè: where else can one get wickedly delicious crepes, salads and watch Julia Child's old show on TV? Lewiston                          

Forage Market: locavore and seasonal organic lunch spot. Bates College student hangout in Lewiston

shops / artisans

Portland Trading Co.: well-curated, modern, general store with hand made goodies from New England Artisans.

Swan Island Blankets: beautiful hand weavers located in Northport. Inspiring hand-dyed colors and story

Marston House: sophisticated mix of antiques, textiles and handcrafts. Don't miss it in Wiscasset.

Snug Harbor Farm: open year-round in Kennebunk. Great shop & nursery

Georgetown Pottery: working studio and showroom, handcrafting pottery since 1972.

Maine State Prison Showroom: A surprisingly good outpost in Thomaston of hand-crafted wood products. 

All proceeds from the woodworking program enable participating prisoners to pay victim restitution and child support. Check out the cheese boards.

check out

Farnsworth Art Museum: premier collection of American art with the celebrated Wyeth Center. Rockland.

Olson House: The beautifully preserved Olson Farm depicted in Andrew Wyeth's Christina's World in Thomaston.

Reid State Park: down the road from Grey Havens in Georgetown. Breathtaking walks and beaches.

As I write this my husband and daughter head back north for another Maine college interview and I am on the road for work traveling in Hong Kong and India, a world away but with my heart up in those beautiful woods. 

All images credited where known, others clipped from Pinterest and tumblr. Happy to credit where known.

Glass Cabinet Inspiration

We are finishing up a couple of projects on our Fire Island construction before taking off on our trip, finally installing our kitchen counters and painting and unpacking our kitchen cabinets.

Large glass cabinets can be a daunting task so I needed a little inspiration this weekend. After spending way too much time going back through my favorite clippings, I remembered the obvious source; Martha and her team of amazing editors and their always so inspiring real-life homes.

Here are a few of my favorites from my files.

Martha's Bedford Kitchen

Martha's Bedford Kitchen

Eric Pike's china cabinet

Kevin Sharkey's Kitchen 

Gentl & Hyers

House Beautiful Sept 08

Southern Living

Ilse Crawford 

All images, unless otherwise noted, are from 

Martha's website.  You can find a lot more kitchen inspiration there.

More kitchen images @flintandkent pinterest as well.

Capri Blues

Getting in the mood for Amalfi and beyond...

via flickr heather~

Joan Mitchell

Handmade Home Mark and Sally Bailey

Pandora de Balthazar @One King's Lane ('til Sunday)

Mechant Design

Gentl and Hyers Photography

David Stark by Gentl and Hyers

via alextenbroeck@pinterest

Vintage porche 356c 1964

John Marin

Jackie & Lee shopping Capri 1970

acne studios

Gentl and Hyers

Love my sweet little house by the sea but A + I need a little R+R far from the sights of any hammers or paintbrushes. Next stop la dolce vita...

Fire Island Notebook: At the Water's Edge

Published just in time for the summer holidays, At the Water's Edge is the name of the new book written/styled by Sally Hayden, photographed by Earl Carter, & published by Ryland Peters & Small.

Saltaire Harbour @ The Great South Bay

The book is both inspirational and informative. The first section focuses on all the design elements that go into creating an easy and relaxed seaside home from design considerations, materials, color palettes, to displaying collections. The second section features 12 real-life homes from the coasts of New England and Long Island to the shores of England, France and Scandinavia. We were flattered to have our tiny little Fire Island house included in such inspiring company. Here are a few out-takes of our pre-Sandy home from the book. Stay tuned for shots on the progress of our re-construction progress.

no cars or roads. houses are up on posts and all travel on wooden walks. 

afternoon light streams through our front door

vintage tortoise shells from Harbour Island

no A/C here! best mosquito deterrent too

vintage oyster plates - a lovely gift from my mother-in law

always ready for cocktail hour

We had such a great time getting to know Sally and Earl. It's always a bit funny to open your house to strangers and say "have your way with it," but we trusted them completely. They had a jam-packed itinerary of Shelter Island, Quogue, Montauk and Nantucket with only two days to travel, set up and shoot our house and the Saltaire area. To make things as easy as possible (and calm my nerves) I enlisted the aid of a good friend and uber-talented stylist in advance, Barclay Resler. Barclay has a magical touch (and wicked sense of humor) that can quickly make the simplest setting look chic. Sally is an interiors and food stylist with an interior design background. A former lifestyle director at Eve, she has also worked on many illustrious titles including

Vogue Living /Australia and Vogue Entertaining and co-authored the best selling Coastal Living. She just recently moved from London to Australia. 

Earl is based in Australia and travels the world photographing people, architecture, hotels and interiors for many impressive clients, too many to list. I encourage you to visit his beautiful website here. They are both super nice and great company, I'm just sorry they live so far away.

If you happen to be in Saltaire this weekend, the ever so talented stylist, Mary-Ellen Weinrib is hosting a tag sale full of her beautiful vintage props, plates and textiles. The book will be for sale there with a portion of the proceeds going to Save the Great South Bay and I'll also be selling a few vintage goodies and treasures from my recent trip to India. 

Have a happy 4th!  Hope to see you at the sale + the beach!  

Saltaire beach

Sandy Tag Sale: Saturday, July 6th 11:00 - 2:00 pm, 109 Pacific Walk, Saltaire, cash + carry

All images are photographed by Earl Carter.  © Ryland Peters & Small /  Earl Carter.

Special thanks to the helpful crew at RPS: Jess, Wendy & Melty! 

Stripes Make Everything Better.

My head is totally into stripes! (sorry)

It's the height of summer, the 4th of July and Bastille day are just around the corner...quelle surprise, I love stripes. Or maybe I'm just just suffering from a bad case of snow blindness from so many hours of painting white rooms over and over but I am absolutely craving simple stripes.

Chance,  headquarters for all things chic + striped

Caitlin McGauley

CaitlinMcGauley Love the happy whimsy of talented and super-nice Caitlin McGauley's illustrations. Fabulous images for sale here.

vintage St. James

Stripe Shirt Portraits by Mary Matson

Brilliant stripe shirt portraits of different creative women including, Maira Kalman, Zoe Cassavetes, Julie Gilhart and more. Click here to see the full series.

St. James Breton stripes

Picasso, the Grand Poobah of stripes

Jenna Lyons in Lonny's #2 Issu

Stephanie Hoppen, Blue and White Living

Even though Blue and White Living was published over 15 years ago, Stephanie's eye never waivers and it is still inspiring today, proving the classic longevity of blue and white ( and stripes) as well as Stephanie's decorating advice.  It's well worth tracking down a copy of this book. 

GRETEL HOME

St. James espadrilles via Bureau of Trade

Ann Mashburn

candy stripe @ mary+matt

Making it New, The Art & Style of Gerald and Sara Murphy A favorite book with incredible stories of those times: Everybody Was So Young: Gerald and Sara Murphy, by Amanda Vaill. 

Hotel Tresanton St. Mawes, Cornwall most favorite hotel. Ever. I know it's a continuously shifting list but the Tresanton definitely holds onto a top spot in my favorite five. Spent a week there this time last year. I've got to dig out those photos, it was magical.

solo.vintage. tumblr enjoy!

Fire Island Notebook: white + marble + salvaged wood

This is the mix for the kitchen and bath that we're renovating on Fire Island. The island was hit hard by Hurricane Sandy and all are now knee-deep in rebuilding. I thought I would use this blog to share our progress and get a little input from you.  Here are a few of my favorite inspirational kitchen swipes.

Love art in the kitchen. We are purposefully limiting the use of wall cabinets to keep the kitchen open and save a little wall space for artwork. Tricky decision when you have to squeeze every possible inch for storage. One has to design as if living on a little boat. Think: efficient and multi-purposeful.

18th c. Cornish cottage via My Scandinavian Home

It's a very cozy, tiny, little house and we like it that way. We live very simply out there. It was built in 1912, shingled cottage style, and we have always tried to preserve the feeling of the original house. 

We spent a week in St. Mawes, Cornwall last summer and fell in love with the those charming Cornish cottages. I expect to mine that inspiration as we fine-tune our decisions.

Loi Thai's kitchen via Topiary Plants

Counter + cabinet inspiration: farm sink. shaker style inset cabinets. factory lights. marble counter. all good.

Love the idea of mixing in some random tongue-in-groove doors on the broom closet wall instead of having it all too perfect and matchy-match. It should feel as if it was an original part of the house. Is it NOT authentic if one is trying to make it feel authentic and old, but it's really new? Hmm....thoughts?

simple pot rack via sometimes i drift

perfect island from March, SF

really useful plate rack via Tricia Foley God is in the details!  Check out Tricia Foley's beautiful website. I expect to visit her New General Store

when I start to re-stock the kitchen. Tabula rasa, small silver-lining.

Our goal is to rebuild as sensitively as possible, being as green as we can be, re-purposing materials when possible, and staying within the original spirit of the house (as well as the budget).

salvaged floors via anca gray

Sandy devastated many communities and it will be a long re-build for many months and probably years to come. Not everyone had insurance and the where-with-all to rebuild. And this was not our primary residence, as it was for most, so however long this takes us, no complaints. Before + post-hurricane pictures to follow in my next post. If you'd like to help that re-building in the Far Rockaways, check out Lava Girl Surf, who is coordinating Sandy relief efforts out of the Rockaway Beach Surf Club. They are an impressive crew and really making a difference in their community.

Photos credited where possible. Some images are missing sources as they've been in my design files for a while. Happy to credit if you recognize them.