Northshore Home Magazine (Digital)

THERE IS NOTHING QUITE LIKE A NORTH SHORE summer. With our beautiful and vast coastline—its rocky shores and sandy beaches—lush gardens in bloom, and warm sunny days, we are blessed to live in this little slice of heaven in New England. I had the great privilege of attending a photo shoot for this issue and meeting the owners of a beautiful summer cottage on the mouth of the Ipswich River, with views overlooking the west end of the Crane Estate. The home, designed by OLSON LEWIS + Architects’ Art Dioli, is the quintessential summer house, with truly breathtaking views out to the water and the Trustees’ conservation land. I enjoyed speaking with the owners about the original property they purchased in 1999—an early 20th-century fishing shack with lots of quirks. They decided…

Marni Elyse Katz Marni Elyse Katz is a freelance design, fashion, and lifestyle journalist as well as the art curator/consultant and blogger behind StyleCarrot.com. She lives in Boston and Truro with her husband, two sons, and her cat. Follow her adventures on Instagram @StyleCarrot and @StyleCarrotCurates. Nat Rea Nat bought a camera when he was 13 and developed and printed his pictures in a makeshift darkroom under the stairs. He started taking photographs of buildings on family trips and has always been fascinated by architecture and design. Based in Rhode Island he works for some of the most innovative and successful design professionals in New England. Mary Grauerholz Mary Grauerholz is a freelance feature writer who focuses on architecture, style, sustainability, and health. In her previous career as a journalist, she won many awards for…

WHEN INTERIOR DESIGNER LYNN MAKIEJ FIRST SAW Kim Leone’s kitchen, it was overwhelmingly brown. “She had brown cabinets, floor, countertops, and table,” remembers Makiej. “She said, ‘I just want the brown gone. I want light, bright, happy.’” Kim and her husband, Stephen, didn’t know it yet, but they would soon be sharing their house on Summer Street in Andover with three kids stuck at home from college during the pandemic, so the timing couldn’t have been better for a kitchen overhaul. Makiej recognized the many great features of the brown room that could be transformed with relatively minor tweaks to create an all-new feel in the space. Changes to things like the color of the cabinetry, the wear on the floor, and the height of the island could be altered to bring…

MEREDITH BURNS HAD HER HEART SET ON creating an accent wall covered in turquoise fish scale tile in her soon-to-be remodeled bath. But not just any turquoise fish-scale tile. “She wanted the exact fish-scale tile from her inspiration photo,” Katie Boucher says. Boucher, a designer with Right Angle Kitchens and Design, searched high and low, only to discover the tile wasn’t available in the United States. In her pursuit, she turned up a similar handmade ceramic tile by Mercury Mosaics that both she and her client loved. “They used Mercury Mosaics tile for their kitchen backsplash, so it all came together,” the designer says. “We call it the mermaid bathroom.” Boucher collaborated closely with Meredith and her husband, Dave Burns, on the primary bath and walk-in closet of their North Reading…

DESPITE TWO WINDOWS THAT LOOK TO THE SEA, THIS primary bath felt dark, tight, and altogether dreary. “There was a lot of builder beige,” Carly Blackmore of Habitat Design says. “It was pleading for a gut renovation.” In addition to fulfilling the owners’ wish list, which included a soaking tub, double sinks, and a walk-in shower, Blackmore wanted the approximately 100-square-foot space to reflect their love of boating and being by the water. “The location is quintessential Marblehead with a dock at the end of the street,” she says. The first move was to deconstruct the box-like shower. Playing off the vaulted ceilings in the rest of the space, the team dismantled the shower’s half walls, removed the header, and opened the ceiling to follow the roofline. Blackmore covered the walls…