The Harbor Stripe Chair Corner

Every good coastal room has one corner that does the most work with the fewest pieces, and this is ours. It starts with a blue-and-ivory ticking stripe armchair — rolled arms, brass nailheads, turned wood legs — pulled up to a window with the harbor in it. Beside it, a navy accent table with beadboard sides and two little white starfish pulls on the drawer, deep enough in color that the blue and white hydrangeas on top read like a painting. A woven seagrass pouf on pale pine legs sits where an ottoman would go, because a pouf can be a footrest at four o'clock and a second seat at six. Then the piece that makes the corner ours: the Harbor Stripe Boat Tote, propped in the chair with its navy-and-white bow still tied at the handle, lobster patch facing out. A tote leaned against a cushion is the most Nantucket styling trick there is — it says the room is used, that somebody just came back from the market and will be going out again shortly. A cream throw over one arm, a jute rug underfoot, a piece of white coral on the shelf below, and the corner is finished. Nothing here is precious. All of it is blue, white, and natural, and that is the whole formula.