The Nantucket Charm Edit
Blue & White Tablescapes
Plates, pitchers, napkins, rings, placemats, tablecloths and candlesticks — the whole Nantucket table in one place.
A blue-and-white table is built in layers, not bought in sets.
Start with the plate, add the pitcher, then work outward: a cloth napkin in a shell ring, a woven placemat or a block-print cloth beneath it, low candles down the center and hydrangeas cut short in a ginger jar. Nothing here needs to match — keep the blues in one family and let the patterns, ages and makers differ. That is what separates a table that looks collected from one that looks ordered.
Start Here
Spode, Transferware & Plates
The layer that sets the whole table. One patterned salad plate over a plain white dinner plate is the entire trick — Spode Blue Italian, hydrangea dinnerware, or any blue transferware you love.
Kitchen
Spode Blue Italian Soup Tureen with Ladle — 4.5 Quart
A footed cobalt tureen with a ribbon-tied lid and matching ladle — chowder at Sunday supper in the winter, and the centerpiece the rest of the year filled with hydrangeas cut short.
Kitchen & Dining
Lenox Butterfly Meadow 18-Piece Dinnerware Set — Service for 6
The classic Butterfly Meadow collection — scalloped plates and mugs scattered with blue poppies, butterflies and dragonflies. The everyday set that turns a Tuesday breakfast into a garden table.
Dinnerware
Vintage 222 Fifth Coastal Breeze Coral 16-Pc Dinnerware Set — Service for 4
Discontinued 222 Fifth porcelain in coral and gold — crabs, seahorses and coral fans on scalloped square plates. A full service for four in pristine condition, which is the only way to get this pattern now. Coral reads warmer than blue on a summer table and looks wonderful with plain white linen.
Kitchen
MacKenzie-Childs Royal Check Two-Tier Cake Stand
Scones on top, blueberry muffins on the bottom — the centerpiece that turns Sunday breakfast into a proper occasion.
Kitchen & Table
Mikasa Seaside Coastal 12-Piece Dinnerware Set — Service for 4
Lightweight bone china with a soft seaside motif, chip resistant and made to be used daily — the pretty middle ground between plain white and a full transferware pattern.
Kitchen & Table
Spode Blue Room Georgian Collection Plates — Set of 6 Transferware Dinner Plates
Six different archival Spode patterns on one set of plates — the mismatched-on-purpose stack that makes a table look inherited. Earthenware and dishwasher safe, so they actually get used.
Kitchen & Table
Spode Blue Italian Brocato 12-Piece Dinnerware Set — Service for 4
Dinner plate, salad plate and mug for four, with the damask Brocato border layered under the classic Italian scene — the mixed-pattern stack that makes a new set look inherited.
Kitchen & Table
Spode Blue Room Georgian Dinner Plates, Set of 6 — Assorted Motifs
Six different Georgian transferware scenes in that unmistakable Spode cobalt — made in England, dishwasher safe, and the set I'd mix down a long table so no two places match, then hang on the dining room wall come winter.
Kitchen & Table
Spode Blue Italian 12-Piece Set — Service for 4
Four 10.5" dinner plates, four 8" salad plates and four 12 oz mugs — the original blue-and-white that has been made since 1816 and still looks right on a Nantucket table in any season.
Kitchen & Table
Coastal Lighthouse Pitcher & Serving Bowl Set — Hand Painted Navy Nautical Dinnerware
Inky brushed navy glaze with a hand-painted lighthouse and a rope swag running the rim — the pitcher holds lemonade or hydrangeas and the big bowl holds everything else.
Kitchen
MacKenzie-Childs Cherry Check Dinner Plates — Red & White (Set of 4)
Cherry-red-and-cream check stoneware with hand-painted banding — the set I'd lay for a lobster dinner on the porch with white linen napkins and a jug of blue hydrangeas.
Kitchen
MacKenzie-Childs Sterling Check Enamel Pedestal Cake Stand
A hand-painted blue-and-ivory Sterling Check pedestal with a warm copper trim — the piece I'd set a lemon pound cake or a stack of blueberry scones on for a Sunday brunch table, hydrangeas tucked all around the base.
Kitchen
Tradewinds Style Plates by Nantucket Distributing (Pair)
Blue-and-white clipper ships under full sail — a pair of Tradewinds plates that look like they sailed straight off a 'Sconset mantel. The kind of detail that makes a dining room feel like the island.
Kitchen & Dining
MacKenzie-Childs Rabbit Collection Ceramic Flower Dessert Plates (Set of 4)
Four ivory scalloped flower-shaped dessert plates centered with a gilded-and-Courtly-Check medallion — the Easter-Sunday brunch plate I'd serve carrot cake, hot cross buns, and lemon curd tartlets on beside a jug of white tulips.
Kitchen
Spode Blue Italian Teapot with Infuser — Countryside-Inspired Transferware
The 1816 Italian landscape wrapped around a low, generous pot with a loose-leaf infuser inside — the piece that makes a plain kitchen counter look like it has always been there.
Tabletop
Large Antique Silver Butler Tray — 23-Inch Ornate Silverplate
A generous 23-inch antique silverplate tray with a floral-scroll border and twin hand-pierced handles — the kind of butler's tray that anchors a bar, a coffee table or a guest-towel arrangement in the powder room.
Kitchen
Pfaltzgraff Nantucket Basketweave 16-Piece Dinnerware Set
Creamy off-white stoneware with a raised Nantucket-basket weave around every plate, bowl, and mug — the everyday set that dresses up for company with nothing more than a linen napkin and a hydrangea stem. Dishwasher-and-microwave safe, service for four.
Kitchen & Table
Vintage Blue & White Tall Pitcher — Heron & Water Lily Transferware
Two herons wading through water lilies on a tall antique ewer with a banded rim — the one piece I'd put in the middle of a sideboard and let carry the whole room.
Kitchen
White Ceramic Scalloped Lace Serving Platters with Gold Trim (Set of 3)
A trio of ivory ceramic oval platters embossed with a rose-and-lace border and hand-brushed in gold — the wedding-china platters I'd fan across a linen buffet for oysters on the half shell, sliced honeydew, and a big pavlova.
Kitchen
HOMBENE Celestial Blue Porcelain Dinnerware Set — 16 Piece, Service for 4
Soft chambray-blue porcelain with fluted rims and a beaded scalloped edge — the everyday set I'd stack in an open hutch and use for chowder in February and corn on the cob in August.
Kitchen & Table
Spode Blue Italian Pitcher — Classic Blue & White Transferware
The original 1816 Italian pattern in deep cobalt transferware on a cream ground — the pitcher I'd fill with hydrangeas on a Nantucket table or use for lemonade on the porch. It reads heirloom from across the room.
Kitchen
MacKenzie-Childs English Garden Toile Enamel Charger
A hand-painted pink-and-cream English garden toile enamel charger rimmed in gold — the layering plate I'd set beneath a white ironstone dinner plate for a strawberries-and-cream lunch on the porch.
Kitchen
Shabby Chic Hydrangeas 8-Piece Melamine Dinnerware Set (Blue Stripe)
Scalloped melamine with a periwinkle cabana-stripe rim and a watercolor hydrangea cluster in the well — the unbreakable summer set for porch lunches and clambake nights.
Tabletop
Vintage Viners of Sheffield Silver Tray — 1960s English Silverplate
English silverplate from Viners of Sheffield, made in the 1960s — the slender tray I'd use for a single decanter and glass beside a reading chair, or under a blue-and-white ginger jar on the console.
Pour It
Pitchers, Glassware & Goblets
A big blue-and-white pitcher earns its keep three ways: water at dinner, hydrangeas between meals, and something beautiful left out on the counter. Add embossed goblets or Italian highballs for the glassware.
Indoor Furniture
Leteuke Gold Rolling Bar Cart — White Marble Shelves with Wine Rack & Stemware Storage
Kitchen & Table
Hand Blown Bubble Glass Starfish Tumblers — Set of 4 Coastal Glassware (16 oz)
Glassware
Hydrangea Painted Stemless Wine Glasses — Blue Floral Hand-Painted Glassware
The Detail People Notice
Napkins & Napkin Rings
Shell, starfish and rattan rings on a cloth napkin — the cheapest upgrade on this page, and the one guests always mention.
Gifts & Hostess
"Let's Toast on the Coast" Embroidered Crab Tea Towel & Cocktail Napkin Set
Kitchen & Table
Gandeer Woven Placemat, Runner & Napkin Ring Set — Navy & Natural (6 Sets)
Table Linens
New England Summer Linen Cocktail Napkins — Lobster, Anchor, Sailboat & Lighthouse
Kitchen & Table
NatNarr Hydrangea & Gingham Scalloped Paper Plates and Napkins (50 Sets)
Kitchen & Table
Indian Floral Block Print Placemats with Napkins — Blue & White Cotton
The Foundation
Tablecloths, Runners & Placemats
Block print and stripe cloths for a long table, woven rattan and seagrass placemats for everyday. Both quiet a room down and make everything above them look considered.
Kitchen & Table
Light Blue & White Scalloped Stripe Tablecloth — Coastal Beach Wedding Table Linen
Kitchen & Table
Occasions Gold Leaf Pressed Vinyl Charger Placemats, 15" (120 Pack)
After Dark
Candlesticks, Hurricanes & Votives
Keep the flame either below the conversation or well above it. Low votives repeated down the table do more than one tall arrangement ever will.
Lighting
Dimmable Electric Fisherman Lantern Lamp — Bronze Hurricane with Edison Bulb
Home Decor
BANOMII Farmhouse Wooden Pillar Candle Holders, Set of 3 (12" / 9" / 6") — Dark Brown
The Centerpiece
Ginger Jars, Vases & Hydrangeas
Low and loose: mopheads cut short so the blooms rest on the lip of the jar. A pair of ginger jars flanking a low arrangement is the classic Nantucket center of the table.
Baskets & Storage
Oriental Furniture Red Lantern 31" Rush Grass Storage Chest
Before You Order
How to Set a Nantucket Table
- 1. Layer the plates. Plain white dinner plate, patterned salad plate on top, woven charger beneath.
- 2. One blue family. Cobalt with cobalt, delft with delft. Patterns can differ; the blues shouldn't.
- 3. Keep it low. Nothing above eye level. Hydrangeas cut short, votives instead of tall tapers.
- 4. Repeat one element. The same napkin ring, bud vase or votive down the length of the table.
- 5. Cloth, always. Eight cloth napkins costs less than a year of paper and changes how the table reads.
- 6. Buy the pitcher. It pours, it holds flowers, and it looks like something between meals.
Questions We Get
Tablescape Questions
- What do I buy first for a blue and white tablescape?
- Plates and a pitcher. Layer one patterned salad plate — Spode Blue Italian or any transferware — over the plain white dinner plates you already own, then add one large blue-and-white pitcher that doubles as the hydrangea vase. That is two purchases and the table already reads finished.
- Do the plates, linens and napkin rings have to match?
- No. Keep the blues in one family — cobalt with cobalt, softer delft with delft — and let the patterns, ages and makers differ. One repeated element down the table, usually the napkin ring or the votive, is what makes a mixed table look intentional.
- What height should candlesticks be on a dining table?
- Either well below eye level or well above it. Low votives and 4-inch holders keep conversation open; if you want tapers, go tall enough that the flame sits above the sightline — about 12 inches of candle above the table.
- Tablecloth or placemats?
- Tablecloth for a long table and for anything that counts — it softens the room and hides a scratched surface. Placemats for everyday and for a beautiful wood or painted table you want to see. Woven rattan or seagrass placemats are the coastal default.
- How do I make the centerpiece look effortless?
- Low and loose. Hydrangeas cut short so the blooms rest on the lip of the pitcher or ginger jar, nothing above eye level, and repeat one small element — bud vases, votives, shells — down the length of the table.
- How many napkins and napkin rings should I own?
- Eight cloth napkins and eight rings. Cloth costs less than a year of paper, and a shell, starfish or rattan ring is the cheapest way to make a weeknight table look like a dinner party.
The Coastal Cottage Styling Guide
A 12-page Nantucket-inspired playbook — hydrangea-blue rooms, weathered cedar curb appeal, and the pieces I'd buy again tomorrow. Plus the weekly Sunday finds. Free, no spam.
Prefer to preview first? See what's inside the guide →