everything i'd buy for a // shingled saltbox on the bay

I’m super excited to kick off a new series on FTDO, “Everything I’d Buy for A…” where I explore different themes of imaginary houses and what I’d kit them out with if I had the chance.

One of my favorite things about being an interior designer is the opportunity to synthesize the history, stories and personalities of our clients and create the backdrop for their memories. It feels like an incredibly profound and beautiful gift to be able to do this, particularly when I think about the children growing up in the homes we design. This “world building” is fueled by discovery: who are the clients, what are their needs for their space, both practical and aesthetically, and how do the two marry?

Similarly yet different, embarking on a room in a showhouse like Kips Bay is the purest expression of personal taste and imagination; if we had a blank canvas and no client, what would we do? Taking both of those ethos a step further (and minus the marketing budget thrown toward a showhouse!) I bring you the same idea, in digital format. It’s fun to imagine a whole world based around a fictional house: what music would be playing at a dinner party inside, what would the clothes in the closet look like, what would be kept in the pantry? I want to dive into the minutiae and be able to really feel what it would be like to live there. 

I started with my dream house: a shingled saltbox on the bay. She’s not big – she’s cozy. Maybe she’s in Watch Hill or Westerly, Sag Harbor or Bar Harbor. She’s got dinged up painted floors that creak, and her sounds are familiar and comforting, even in the middle of the night. There’s a dutch door at the front (deep green or pale blue) with a diminutive patinaed unlacquered brass knob that has aged over years of use, and a weathered wooden screen door that slams, gently, in the back – leading out to a mature backyard that overlooks the water and runs a little wild. There’s a vegetable garden (small, with a pretty greenhouse and chicken wire to keep the deer away), wildflowers that attract the butterflies, and pea gravel in the driveway. If we’re really dreaming, there’s a restored racing green defender whose keys sit haphazardly on the worn wooden console by the back entrance door.