I know beach season is already half over, but I cannot resist this adorable, sunny little tote bag from Bayan Hippo. You cannot be in a bad mood if you've got that thing hanging on your shoulder. It's just not possible. (Available in blue, too)
In my mind, summer memories look just like these lovely faded, polaroid-style art prints from Jena Ardell -- filled with sun-bleached settings, happy people, and curated collections of seaside ephemera, you can practically smell the Hawaiian Tropic through your computer screen. Purchase here.
This Nantucket cottage decorated by Gary McBournie seems like the perfect place to spend a Fourth of July celebration. Steeped in history, with nautical touches throughout, an unfinished peaked ceiling, a cozy sleeping loft, and one incredible kitchen floor as blue and as full of depth as the ocean itself.
Loving flea market paintings against white beadboard, open windows, salty air...
I've actually never been a huge fan of Sea Bags, the iconic New England totes made from recycled sails. While I loved the concept, a lot of the ones I saw were too over the top. Nautical overkill, even for someone like me who loves everything nautical. I still think they work if you're the type of person who summers in Cape Cod, but I couldn't imagine toting it around the rooftop pools I spend my DC summers in.
Loving oversized maps right now...the older the better.
This summer, I'm looking for styles that remind me of a crisp and quiet New England summer: rocky shores, empty stretches of coast, oiled leather and sailor's knots. Some of my recent finds (and one item I'm still desperately on the hunt for) above.
At the very least, I encourage you to read the full NYT review (of an older book about the pair)-- it's fascinating and beautiful and heartbreaking all at once.One of the great love stories of the last century played itself out, alone, off the coast of Maine, unknown but to a handful of people who included the rich and powerful, like David and Margaret Rockefeller and C. Douglas Dillon, as well as the community of lobstermen and their families in the vicinity of Mount Desert Island.
Arthur and Nan Kellam, an aviation engineer and his wife, moved to Placentia Island from California in 1949 and lived there, without modern convenience of any kind, its only tenants, for 35 years.
The Kellams were 38 when they arrived. They built a house by hand in a clearing, with a porch and a swing, and a ''bandstand'' with a view of the sea, for picnics. They pressed their footprints into wet cement just inside their front door -- his left, her right. When they went separate ways for the day, they wrote each other notes -- one, signed ''B L Bear,'' thumbtacked to a wall. The ''L'' is encircled by a heart.
Finally, as I dug further and further into this post, I remembered a post I wrote last summer that featured "rugged nautical style" in interiors. Some highlights:
This week I'm thinking of stormy seas. There's nothing I love more than spending a long day at the beach and then packing up to watch a late afternoon storm roll with a comfy sweatshirt and a cup of tea.
Images sourced from Le Princesse Endormie (my favorite), We Heart It, Marine Hugonnier and Perpetually Human
I always try to avoid posting pics from recent magazine issues, but I don't think I'm going to be able to help myself this month. The most recent House Beautiful and Elle Decor were amazing. Case in point, this office in the beach house of Harriett Maxwell MacDonald and Andrew Corrie. Perfection.
