Update your space for spring. The sale is on at Style Carrot partner Serena & Lily!
Known for their easy, breezy take on casual and comfortable furniture, dreamy bedding, distinctive lighting, and well-made accessories, Serena & Lily offers pretty much everything you need for a fresh, California-meets-New England coastal modern home.
Get 20% off just about everything at Serena & Lily – furniture, accessories, bedding, lighting, etc. (but NOT art, gift certificates, or that bike) through March 16, 2020. Use code FRESHMIX to save.
Here’s a selection of dining chairs, stools, and counter stools. Swap out your old ones or just add one or two new. There are crisp whites, nautical blues, and textural natural fiber choices.
During the Serena & Lily Thank You Event, almost everything is 25% off! This is the brand’s biggest and best sale of the year. Just use code THANKFUL.
Style Carrot’s partner in design Serena & Lilyis serving up its Thank You Event. Right. This. Minute. During the Serena & Lily Thank You Event, almost everything is 25% off! This is the brand’s biggest and best sale of the year. (Note: sale items, gift certificates artwork, and bikes are excluded.) Just use code THANKFUL.
Since I don’t host the holidays, I don’t need many serving pieces beyond what I already have. (I entertained ideas of quiet, chilly Thanksgivings on Cape Cod, but I think we’ve only done that once, with little fanfare.) Each year we head to Fairfield County, Connecticut to celebrate with my husband’s family.
This year we brought the kitty and let him have free rein of the house since the cat-in-residence is no longer. It’s a pre-Civil War farmhouse, so there are lots of nooks and crannies for him to explore. This morning while I staged photos of Serena & Lily swag for you, he jumped right into the action.
I have a lot of coffee table books. I really love this one—Travel Homeby Caitlin Flemming and Julie Goebel, with gorgeous photographs by Peggy Wong. (The cobalt blue glass is my mother-in-law’s collection.) The book features 20 homes with that incorporate international flavor from far-off cities including Marrakesh, Paris, and Tokyo. Travel Home is currently $30 at Serena & Lily with code THANKFUL.
I rested my morning tea (Earl Gray, black) on my Serena & Lily Granada tray. (The silver is family heirloom. I like the pink runner; I’ll have to ask where it’s from.) The tray is a new offering of Serena & Lily’s own design made from laminated birch. It’s available in small, medium, and large rectangles as well as large and small round ones. This is the small tray on sale at Serena & Lily for $43.50 with code THANKFUL.
It looks pretty here, but I’ll bring the tray home with me to put ton the shelf next to my desk, where my tea will live in the morning. A few weeks ago I dumped half a mug of Earl Gray on my laptop. I’m now, needless to say, working on a brand new computer. That was totally not in the budget.
I also just ordered this Turkish cotton hand towel with hand-knotted tassel fringe from the Serena & Lily Healdsburg bath collection for our powder room. I think the Pink Sand color will work nicely with the neutral sand-toned wallpaper. And be much more fun to dry my hands with than a traditional towel. The Healdsburg bath collection now starts at $12 at Serena & Lily. Use code THANKFUL at checkout.
I wrote about this airy Kennebunkport summer home on Goose Rocks Beach for the Boston Globe Magazine‘s Summer Living issue, published Sunday, June 18, 2017. Rob Whitten of Portland, Maine-based Whitten Architects designed the house and Nicki Bongiorno of Spaces Kennebunkport did the interiors. Photos by Trent Bell. (Some affiliate links included to help you source pieces you might love.)
The interior is beachy and fresh with clean lines, done in a palette of sand, sea foam, and blues. The pearlized glass backsplash adds a touch of color, without stealing the spotlight from the view. “We tried to keep things blended, so nothing would stand out,” Bongiorno says.
The starting point was to maximize views of the Atlantic Ocean. The hand block printed throw pillow covers are Kyoto by Serena & Lily.
Textured tiles by Walter Zanger runs from the front entry back to the mudroom, in an effort to keep water and sand from straying onto the wood floors in the main living spaces. Shiplap painted in Benjamin Moore White Dove runs throughout.
Low-slung RH Modern sectionals are upholstered in Perennials indoor/outdoor fabrics, as are the cushions on the built-in benches. The fireplace surround is bluestone.
The oak dining table is RH Modern and the chairs are Janus et Cie indoor/outdoor, a perfect blend of modern lines, family friendly function, and comfort. The pair of Mini Diva glass disc pendants by Regina Andrews are the wife’s favorite part of the decor.
A nautical-style bedroom has two sets of built-in bunk beds trimmed with edge-grain fir with a clear finish.
Under the eaves of the table tennis cum, Whitten added built-in trundle beds. Those drawers aren’t for socks, they hold mattresses! The glossy white West Elm console tables with blue acrylic adjustable swivel stools are great for arts & crafts projects on rainy days.
The master bedroom is an oasis that’s all about the ocean. I love the Seema Krish “Mahalaxmi” pillows, block-printed and embroidered by hand in India. (You can read about my visit to Krish’s former Boston studio here.) The soft blue Pine Cone Hill chambray duvet is cozy and doesn’t distract from the view. The raffia dresser is by Serena & Lily.
The neutral master bath echoes look of the sandy beach. The custom floating oak vanity is topped with an Athens silver cream marble slab. The polished stainless steel Dorenbracht faucets have simple curves, as do the RH polished chrome sconces. The taupey wall tile is also marble.
The couple’s seven-year-old daughter wanted a bedroom inspired by seaglass. The turquoise bed and turquoise-fronted nightstand are from Room & Board. It’s a queen size, with a twin-size trundle underneath so adult guests can sleep there. Yes, that’s the Melati hanging chair from Anthropologie, which happens to be on sale right now.
The nine-year-old boy’s requested a lobsters and buoys inspired bedroom. Those are real buoys hung above the bed.
The round tiles in the guest bath shower—Glazzio Tile Moonstone Mosaic—were the first thing the homeowners decided on for the house. ir first decision were those round tiles. Seaglass knobs add a beachy touch to the vanity.
Whitten insisted on an expansive porch, which he considers the essence of coastal living. The exterior blends classic New England materials (cedar shingles) with contemporary ones (standing-seam metal roof). The homeowners love a contemporary aesthetic, but didn’t want to the house to stand out.
Landscape architect Emma Kelly collaborated with Whitten, adding ample storage under the porch. Lush plantings and a fire pit finish the property perfectly.
I’ve never been to a true masquerade ball. The closest I came is a school fundraising auction I chaired with a Carnivale theme. I have a cute photo of myself and my friend/co-chair, artist Lee Essex Doyle (you can see her Venetian interiors here), but I can’t find it right now. She invited me to a Save Venice masquerade ball, but we skipped it. Oh well, there went my chance.
I started noticing a lot of photography featuring people with elaborate rubber animal masks, which I’ve been putting aside for a later post. Enjoy these masquerade themed artworks; perhaps you’ll find inspiration for your own year-end celebration.
It’s a long weekend at our house with everybody off for Columbus Day. Not that it’s identified as such, with Columbus now recognized as the savage man he was. Rather, our schools tend to label this national holiday as “fall break.” Works for me. History and politics aside, it’s nevertheless appropriate to look at some scenes of our country, views of America. Here are some American landscapes.
Untitled (Balloons) • Ruben Natal-San Miguel • 20×200
