Whales of Sag Harbor #3

There's a little curio shoppe on Main Street that sells knickknacks and such, a little country-kitschy. This is a bench that sits in front of the picture window.

A Boat 'n Tote note

Seriously, one of the things I absolutely cannot do without when I make the trek to the house is my worn-in L.L.Bean canvas Boat 'n Tote bag. Actually, I have several of them in different sizes. My everyday go-to is the medium sized one. I favor the dark blue long handles so that I can throw it over my shoulder. I also order it with the zipper top so that if it's full or raining, nothing will fall out or get wet. I use it constantly, not just on weekends. You can see the handles are very worn. After a few years I just wear them out and have to get a new one, but because they're not that expensive it's okay.
I don't have a car right now (long story) so I also use it to walk into town to schlep my groceries. My grocery store did away with plastic bags reverting back to brown paper bags. That's great but you can't carry them six blocks back to your house! So my canvas bag to the rescue. It's easy to carry AND green at the same time.

A few years back I was lucky enough to have a shoot in Maine where the L.L.Bean headquarters is located. It's a HUGE store, several stories. If you ever have the opportunity to go don't pass up the chance. Not only did I get a classic pair of Bean duck boots but I found this too-cute-for-words keychain...a mini Boat 'n tote. It fits right in the side pocket of the big one. Now I never lose my keys, I know just where they are.

To the letter

When I was a kid watching "The Mary Tyler Moore" show every Saturday night, what I loved best was Mary's apartment. Even though on some level I knew it was just a set, I still adored the architectural details...the 'sunken' living room, the floor-to-ceiling Palladian window, the built-in bookshelves under the stepdown, the tiny kitchen with the pull-down Tiffany window. It was all so compact yet chic. And I wanted to live in someplace like that when I grew up. But the thing that caught my eye and that I loved the most? Mary's graphic "M" plaque on her wainscoted gallery wall.
There was something about that M that said this place was hers, it was a interior design statement that spoke to me even as a child.

Mary Richards and her "M" plaque

So it's no wonder that a million years later I'd recreate the same idea in my house. I've got my initials in two places, a "C" in the dining room, and an "RC" in the master bedroom. They are authentic old signage letters from who-knows-where, but they are vintage. I know that using letters like this has become very popular nowadays, some would even say passé, but I did it first so long ago and they harken back to such fond MTM memories that I'll never part with them.

The "C" in my dining room

My initials in the bedroom