Editor's Picks

Every issue we ask ourselves the same question: if a reader wrote in tomorrow and said, 'I have one afternoon and a modest budget and I want the room to feel like Nantucket by supper' — what would we send them? These are the answers. Not the trendiest pieces, not the most expensive, not the ones our affiliate partners want us to push. The ones we would put in our own houses first.

There is a blue-and-white ginger jar on the list because a ginger jar solves a mantel or a console or an empty corner in a single gesture. A bouquet of faux mophead stems because they carry the summer through the winter. A blue-stripe quilted throw because a slipcovered sofa without one looks unfinished. A pink beach cruiser with a wicker basket because — well, because a pink beach cruiser with a wicker basket, parked against a gray shingle wall, is a whole feeling.

Also on the list: a Nantucket lightship basket handbag that will outlive us both, a set of Royal Check canisters that make even a Monday kitchen look like it's expecting company, a rattan chandelier that turns any dining room into a summer supper, and a coastal-stripe cotton rug that pulls a whole room together for less than dinner for four in town. Start here, and let everything else follow.