My Diverse Pinterest Boards (Brief Nantucket Detour)

Family just left this morning after a very fun visit, and I am leaving for another family visit Friday, so am rushing this post a bit.  Instead of continuing my love affair with Nantucket, today I'm revisiting my Pinterest boards - thought it might be quicker and easier in my short span of time.  While deciding which pins to use, I rediscovered how very different they are, but still how much I very much like each one of them.  How can such diverse taste exist in one person?  Let's look at a small sampling.

This kitchen for example - so many things are just "not me" here.  First of all, it doesn't really look like anyone cooks in it.  Secondly, I really do not like any "messages" on walls.  Why do people feel that their philosophical or witty sayings look good on a wall?  And can't they remember them without displaying them?  Just my opinion, of course.  But with that said, why then do I like this kitchen because it does have a sign?  Let me count the ways: the brick walls, the clean lines of the island and table.  I think I like the pendants over the island - they are growing on me, and I love the black accents.

Again the room below is so not me.  Too white, too spare.  But something speaks to me here - maybe its serenity, or the envy-factor that I could never keep a room quite this perfect.

More of the room from above.  Really like the black accents here, and would love the window with white shutters.  Very Jacobsen, but it's not his design.  Do you like it?  Could you live with this room?

There's things I really love about the next room - the colors, those bowls, the wall treatment, and the reclaimed wood floors.  But could I live in it?  Not sure.  Still, I pinned it.

The dining space below is a Vervoordt design and I love it, but, of course, my dining room and breakfast room look nothing like this.  Could they ever?  Maybe.  Did I pin it?  Of course, it's beautiful.

Then there's the New-England-American-antique look I love as seen in my next group of pins.  How very different from the earlier images, right?  I know, I know.  Therein lies my problem.

Below we do not see spare, not all white, not serene, but we do see welcoming.

Love the molding, the paneled shutters, and the paned window here.  So different from first images, but so lovely.

Can you imagine this great corner cupboard in any of the first pins from above?  Of course not, but I love it and pinned it anyway.

A built-in corner cupboard this time.  So different from Vervoordt's design, but so period, so American antique.

A white room as in first group of pins, but filled this time with only antiques

More paneling, more antiques, less white.

Now not American antiques, but English ones.  So not-spare, so not-serene, but so comfortable.

Now, not even all antiques, but beauty and coziness.

More white than above, and antiques are at home here.

Now, I'm showing you my funky and industrial pins.  A far cry from the New England style or the spare style above, but I really like it - industrial shelving, exposed brick, lots of plain white china.  So cool!

Everything is to like in kitchen below - white china, black boards with recipes (not philosophies I hope), wood floors surrounded by white walls and ceilings.  And someone surely cooks in this kitchen.

So then, why did I pin the next image?  Looks pretty sterile, but the concrete island is great, and I love the hanging lights above it.  How could two so diverse kitchens be pinned by the same person?

Getting more industrial and spare.

I absolutely love the antique chair below paired with the table of reclaimed wood and metal - a great look.

Herein, with the images below, I thought may lie my compromise.  Darryl Carter beautifully blends antiques with white walls and no clutter at all.

Can't wait for his new book in October.

But then, here is Walda Pairon and her beautiful Belgian style and a bit more clutter and I love, love, love it too.

More billowy fabric on a table than I ever thought I would like, but look how elegant and beautiful it is.

No shutters on her windows, but again the room below is so beautiful.  I could live in this one.

You see, my pins are all over the place.  Are yours?  Any suggestions?  I so envy the people out there who stick to one design aesthetic.  I just like too many and too varied.  If it's done well, I pin it.  What to do?  What to do?

I'm taking a break while on vacation - no computer.  I will take my ipad, but reception could be terrible.
I'll just let the dust settle and see you next time, dear reader and friends, back in Nantucket.
b

Three Heirlooms

It's hot here (is it where you are?), which is why it's fortunate I'm still in Nantucket talking about island breezes and island houses.  Today's two Nantucket homes are very early American, very heirloom.  You know that this early American antique design is just one of the designs that I love.  Today, I will wallow in this heirloom-ness and not be conflicted about any other loved design aesthetics.  Come wallow with me.

Heirloom house #1 appeared in the New York Times Magazine in 2011.  As a child of ten, Sherry Lefevre once spent a summer in a rental house on Nantucket and vowed she would once own a home there someday.  When she came into an inheritance, she held true to her vow, bought the following house there...

and filled it with antiques.

Today, as an assistant  professor of writing at the University of Art in Philadelphia, she's immersed herself in the writings of Bronte, Hawthorne and Emerson, and somehow this literature is reflected in her home.  It has the feel of a seafarer's home filled with treasures from afar.

Still, it has all the comforts of today.

It's a matter of taste, I know, but the draperies seem too warm.  I so prefer Jacobsen's use of inside shutters, especially when it's as hot as today.

Draperies or shutters, it's a charmer.

The guest room.

Whereas Ms Lefevre bought an heirloom house, an earlier article from Colonial Homes featured the following new home but a new home filled with antiques.  Nantucketers love their antiques, and that can't be a bad thing.

The new house outside of town.

Great collection of antique lightship baskets and walking sticks in the foyer.

Newly designed table and chairs and antique china in the dining room.

Had to show the other part of dining room table for all the topiary lovers out there (like Loi and Phyllis).  Love the fireplace here.

Kitchen half of great room.

Other half.

Is it the interior shutters in the library that make me love this room so much, or is it just the comfortable furnishings and books on the shelves??  Whatever - it's a great room.

Airy bedroom with door leading to second floor balcony.

Nautical antique collection,

Hope you enjoyed these two homes.  I always have.  Now onto something very different thatI have always enjoyed and hope you might also - a short story by Dixie Lee Clifford, entitled Summertime on Laurel Lake which appeared in the July, 1984 Gourmet - the story is today's third heirloom. The setting is not Nantucket but New Hampshire, and it describes the summer vacation we all had once upon a time or should have had.  (I'm even including some of Gourmet's recipes at the end.)

My daughter and I read this story every summer, and as I was putting away my July Gourmets, thought you might like it as much as we do. (You are going to have to enlarge it, I think.)

I heartily recommend the blueberry cake and popovers, but, more importantly, did you like the short story itself?  The imagery is sooo lovely.  I was trying to just link it for you, but could not find the story on the internet.  So if you didn't like it or it was too long, I apologize.  You can take the English teacher out of the classroom, or the foodie out of the kitchen, but before long she pops up anyway.

Next time friends and dear readers (you are only "dear" if you actually read the story), I'll still be in Nantucket and soon Martha's Vineyard and then the Hamptons.
All in good time.
b