It takes a certain confidence—and plenty of panache—to pull off a red, white, and blue scheme. Luckily, designer Max Sinsteden, who recently used Schumacher’s new Stars and Stripes collection to transform his his cottage in Watch Hill, Rhode Island, has both in spades.
“As it turns out, my friend and client down the road recently asked me to do her whole house in red, white, and blue, so the timing was perfect,” says Sinsteden. So was the collection’s fresh, painterly take on an all-American aesthetic: Stars and Stripes—the first of three Schumacher launches debuting this summer in honor of our nation’s 250th anniversary—draws on everything from traditional quilts to Jasper Johns’s iconic flag paintings.
Sinsteden tented the V-groove walls in this guest room with Painterly Windowpane, using grommets and cabinet knobs to hang the fabric. His collection of blue-and-white quilts makes a crisp counterpoint, and he pulled in the red on the bedskirt using Parson’s Stripe Hand Print edged in the same fabric on the bias.
MAX KIM-BEE
In the bathroom, Independence Plaid covers a slipper chair with crisp, charming pleats (with stars perfectly centered!) on each side of the seat—typical of the decorator details Sinsteden brings to each project. The pattern echoes the basketweave mosaic tile floor. On the dainty café curtain, Hatchmark Hand Print linen in natural is outlined in a thin blue trim.
MAX KIM-BEEInspired by a (very stylish!) children’s book he reads to his son that depicts a fire engine “upholstered in red-and-white windowpane plaid with a red-and-white check on the seats,” Sinsteden set about decorating his guest room with walls draped, Napoleon-campaign style, in a wavy windowpane plaid.
Against that graphic backdrop, Sinsteden layered on classic blue-and-white quilts, starry D. Porthault linens, and a bedskirt in Schumacher’s Parson’s Stripe Hand Print on hemp canvas. “By staying in the same palette, all the patterns work well together,” he notes. An armchair in the corner is exuberantly upholstered in Square in a Square, with a red tape trim defining the skirt’s edge. Sinsteden and his expert upholsterer carefully lined up the pattern across each seam. That same delightful attention to detail can be seen in the chair’s Independence Plaid pillow, which he edged in Quilted Diamond Tape for extra oomph. “I wanted the room to feel very old-fashioned, like country houses in Sweden,” he says, “intentional and clean.”
Blue and white pattern play in a corner of the living room includes slipcovers in Painterly Windowpane by Miles Redd edged in blue tape trim on a pair of slipper chairs, Square in a Square on the bergère, and Parson’s Stripe Hand Print pillows on the sofa. Sinseden purchased the hand-colored lithograph from the Jayne Wrightsman estate sale.
MAX KIM-BEEA corner of his living room became a study in bold blue-and-white pattern, with slipper chairs covered in Painterly Windowpane, a French bergère crisped up in Square in a Square, and graphic, oversized sofa pillows in Parson’s Stripe Hand Print (this time in blue). The pillows are edged in a bias-striped cording and finished with nautical figure-eight knots in the corners, while the ticking-striped bolster has the extra flourish of ruffled rosettes at each end.
Speaking to the carefully considered level of detail he bestowed on each element, Sinsteden notes, “There is more labor involved, but only marginally more, to make beautiful and special choices. As you go through a home, when you see those extra details, it gives the clear sense that so much thought went into it.”
A traditional bergère is modernized in graphic, quilt-inspired Square in a Square cotton double cloth.
MAX KIM-BEE
In the kitchen, café curtains are made from Hatchmark Hand Print linen, inspired by Jasper Johns’s “Cicada” lithograph series.
MAX KIM-BEEShop Max’s Stars and Stripes Picks
Painterly Windowpane
Square in a Square
Independence Plaid
Parson’s Stripe Hand Print
QUILTED DIAMOND TAPE
