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! 

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.

Fire Island Notebook: Before + After Sandy

Here are some comparative shots, before and after the flood, just to give you a sense of the scale of our project.

photo by William Waldron, stylist Kim Ficaro

The after shots were taken about 6 weeks after Sandy hit. Access to the island was initially closed off while the Village crews, fire department, and teams of electricians went throughout the village, house to house, assessing damage and cleaning up any dangerous debris of downed power lines and floating propane tanks. 

We started cleaning the house ourselves, but given the scale and distance from home, we threw in the towel (literally) and hired a cleaning swat team to clear up mold and toxic residue from the flood. Tara's Personal Cleaning Service, a brilliant green company that only uses non-toxic, natural materials, did an incredibly thorough job. My extended family came out and helped us pack up the whole house, and I can't imagine how we would have been able to do it without their help. They were fantastic. We stored any salvageable furniture and personal belongings in a 20' shipping container that was shipped across the bay by our contractor and positioned down the block. Next came the demo crews to pull out any mold damaged walls which revealed that some walls had to be completely removed and reframed. Flood damage is a challenge enough in itself, think about the complications involved when it's on a small barrier island .

view from kitchen into living room

photo by William Waldron, stylist Kim Ficaro

kitchen and back door

photo by William Waldron, stylist Kim Ficaro

bathroom skeleton

The before pictures are from a photo shoot that Country Living did a couple years ago. How fortunate to work with their lovely crew and the amazing William Waldron + the ever-so talented Kim Ficaro styled all the shots. Check out their inspiring websites. 

photo by William Waldron, stylist Kim Ficaro.

I love this photo of our front porch. It reminds me of all the great times we've had in that house, birthday parties, dinners with neighbors, the lazy Sunday afternoons, and it keeps me looking forward to many more happy times.