Nantucket Interior Design | Dujardin Design

After a long, cool spring in the Northeast, the calendar–and the weather–have agreed that summer has finally arrived. Let’s throw open the windows and doors, and rethink the way we live at home. it’s easy to feel as F. Scott Fitzgerald did when he said, “I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.”

Start with spring cleaning: To fully embrace the beauty of balmy breezes and abundant sunshine, we need to remove winter’s dry stuffy air from the house, and scrub the hidden spaces where dust collects. We don’t need to bring toxic cleaning products into our homes. It’s better to clean with baking soda, lemon juice, and vinegar, or else choose environmentally friendly products, rather than dousing our living space with chemicals. I’ve written about how to Clean Green before: read more here.

Think about re-establishing order. Stacks of books and blankets left by the fireplace should be put back where they belong, and then you can recreate the room for a completely different experience. Once the room has become a blank slate again, bring out the things of summer! Bright colors and garden stools definitely belong inside.

Add beauty and fragrance with fresh flowers. If you’re lucky enough to have a garden, then you have a florist shop at your fingertips! Cut flowers early in the morning while the sun is still low in the sky and the dew has not yet dried. They’ll be fresher, and last longer. Immediately plunge the stems into a bucket of water, then put flowers or a flowering plant in every space you can, including the bathroom. Summer is a celebration of things that grow!

The days of blocking our windows with heavy draperies are behind us. Make sure your windows are sparkling clean, then let the natural light pour in with minimal window treatments, or if you need the privacy, wooden blinds are a good choice. Simplicity is beautiful.

Change your bedding from heavy down comforters and dark colors to light and white. Your spirits will be lifted each time you enter the room. Color affects our emotions in powerful ways.

I love this room in my Nantucket fisherman’s cottage, decorated with vintage sand pails. Go ahead and celebrate what you loved about summer from your childhood, when the hours between sunrise and starlight seemed to last forever.

Red, white, and blue always works in the summertime. From Memorial Day to Labor Day, let your patriotic flag fly.

Don’t be afraid to have a little fun.

Go nautical, and let your rooms remind you of beaches, boats, and ocean breezes.

The time it takes to change your home’s look to sunshine and summer shouldn’t be seen as work. Homes need to be loved, just as people do. By making your home a welcoming, bright and sunny space, you will effortlessly bring more laughter and joy into your life.

So go ahead: let the sun shine in!

A short walk down the cobblestone streets of “faraway island,” as the Native Americans called it, is an intimate boutique hotel called the Union Street Inn. Owned and operated by Ken and Deborah Withrow, experienced hoteliers who make the inn the luxurious and welcoming place that it is, this circa 1770’s hotel is a classic example of Nantucket architecture in the heart of the island village. I first designed the inn’s gracious circa 1700’s rooms thirteen years ago, and I have just had the pleasure of redesigning the inn from top to bottom for another generation of guests. (Go here to see photos of the inn as it looked before the redesign!)

Next month, I’ll share some wonderful photos of the new inn, but first, here’s a peek at what goes on behind the scenes at a design installation!

How many lamps does it take to fill an inn with light? Handmade by a potter in Vermont, these lamps are arrayed in careful order before placement in the rooms.

We found this wonderful antique milk glass doorknob with a Victorian backplate for the door.

We took fabric and backed it with paper to create the wallpaper shown by this staircase. It’s a contemporary adaptation of an 18th Century Chinoiserie pattern. (“Chinoiserie” is a french term, meaning ‘Chinese-esque.’) This is typical of a wallpaper that would have been brought back by a ship’s captain from his ocean travels.

This is original bullseye glass with the typical 18th Century pontil mark. To create it, the glass blower would gather about 30 pounds of molten glass at the end of his blow tube and blow the lump out to a small, hollow pear shape. This would then be transferred to a pontil (a solid rod), and flattened and spun until centrifugal forces flattened the glass out into a smooth disk. When cooled, the pontil would be broken off. The center piece, called a “bullseye,” would be cut out. It was considered waste, and was either recycled into the glass furnace, or became an inexpensive pane for windows such as these.

This kind of interior door was common in 18th Century Nantucket. The glass at the top was necessary in order to detect fires in the room without opening the door.

Here is Price Connors helping to unload a truck full of treasures for the inn!

Here I am, taking my turn with the unloading! Everyone pitched in.

Once the tables were safely inside, the real fun began. Where, oh where, do all these tables go?

I’ll show you just where everything ended up in my June Holistic House post. Ken and Deborah are so pleased with our design work, which makes us very happy! I think you’ll love it, too. You can book a visit to the Union Street Inn here.


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Let the Sun Shine In!

Behind the Scenes at the Union Street Inn