Friday Favorites 8/17/2012

Karin Lidbeck Brent, Contributing Editor
Erica DeZitter and Sarah Rhinesmith are co-owners one of my top-ten favorite stores, Midsummer Nights in Chatham, Mass., where they successfully mix furnishings, fashion and fun home accents.

The store is gorgeously styled with tasteful furniture from top designers like Lee, Stanford and Noir, as well as luxurious linens from companies like Sferra and Mia and Finn and other high end accessories.

On top of all of this, what really attracts me to the shop is the very successful combination of designer pieces and those hand-selected, one-of-a-kind pieces you won’t find anywhere else.

Can’t you just see this fabulous Hedy Chandelier from Currey and Company making a statement in the entry of a coastal home?

Photos by Karin Lidbeck Brent

This impressive brass porthole mirror from Bobo Intriguing Objects…

…would be an eye stopper over this fabulous shell-laden chest of drawers, also from Currey and Company, in any space.

Did you notice this collage painting of flags in the mirror? If you want fun for your walls, look no further than this graphic proclamation of Americana.

Check out the store for yourself:
443 Main Street, Chatham, Mass. 02633
www.midsummernightchatham.com

Paula M. Bodah, Senior Editor
As the warm season winds down I’m thinking of ways to keep a summer vibe in my house. The products made by EcoSeaTile, a company in Mount Desert, Maine, are just the thing–coasters, wine stoppers and knobs for cabinets and drawers, all with an eco-friendly link to the ocean. They’re crafted from bits of shell recovered from seafood-processing plants and jewelry-making companies. The folks at EcoSeaTile clean the shells, which include bits from lobsters, mussels, oysters, scallops, clams, mother-of-pearl and abalone, then set them in epoxy resin. I love the iridescence and sense of depth that come from the combination of pretty shells and glossy resin.

The Atlantic coasters collection features mussel, oyster, lobster and scallop shells.

Photo courtesy of EcoSeaTile

The Pacific coasters are made of abalone, mother-of-pearl and mussel shells.

A couple of these pretty knobs would dress up my bathroom nicely.

I’m stocking up on wine stoppers–in lobster, mussel and lobster, abalone, mussel and abalone, mother-of-pearl and oyster–for holiday gift-giving.

Kyle Hoepner, Editor-in-Chief
Admiring Asher Dunn’s feel for the physical qualities of wood yesterday made me think of another company, physically a lot further away but aesthetically a close neighbor. The new kundera chair developed by GUD Conspiracy design studio for Wewood Portuguese Joinery (and named, I imagine, after the writer) has much in common with Studio Dunn’s Bristol console table, for example, yet feels subtly more foursquare.

kundera chair by GUD Conspiracy. Photo courtesy of Wewood Portuguese Joinery

Bristol console table by Studio Dunn. Photo courtesy of Studio Dunn

Some of Wewood’s other offerings, such as Gonçalo Campos‘s XI shelves, are more forthrightly constructivist yet equally elegant. As far as I can tell, Wewood products are not yet carried anywhere near New England–but really, how much more excuse do you need to plan a quick vacation in Porto?

XI shelves by Gonçalo Campos. Photo courtesy of Wewood Portuguese Joinery

Find additional favorites from our editors, below:

Marimekko and More

A Country Shop in an Urban Location

The Flor Store