Map Quest

I was thinking about art for the Bachelor Pad make over I'm currently working on and one thing that I suggested was a vintage nautical chart from Cape Cod that shows the town where his family has a summer home. I showed it to him and he actually liked it which is good since it's very reasonably priced on eBay and we don't have much money to go crazy.

Conveniently enough, I thought it would also make a good blog topic since a lot of other people also decorate using vintage and new maps in a myriad of creative ways. The vintage nautical chart of Long Island (above) hangs in the Sag Harbor home of Margot Brunelle Fooshee, who is head of marketing for the J. Crew clothing company, and her husband. The house which was published in House Beautiful last summer previously belonged to Steven Gambrel and Ruthie Sommers designed it for the couple. Can you imagine?! What a lucky little house!

T. Keller Donovan took the map idea one step further and displayed them en mass on the wall of his Miami home that was also published in House Beautiful. He actually found the 1943 Miami Beach plat maps at Paula Rubenstein in New York which is pretty funny.

Kerry Joyce wallpapered the bedroom wall in a maps to create a beautiful and serene backdrop. I love the colors of nautical charts since they are almost always made up of pale aqua and tan colors which are my favorites.

Just published in the June/July issue of Domino is the Nantucket cottage of photographer extraordinaire, Matt Albiani, who also wallpapered a bedroom in nautical charts that faded over the years. Matt is actually very close friends with a girl who used to be my roommate in Boston. It's a very small world. I've met him a few times and he is as nice as he is talented. You can also see his New York apartment in the issue and online in a video house tour.

This bedroom looks like it was papered using new maps including a few from Paris. Kate's Paperie in New York has maps printed on sheets of paper that would be perfect for this option.

Last but not least is the bathroom decoupaged in marine blueprints in the Maine house of Gwen McGaw that was designed by Windsor Smith and published in the premier issue of Vogue Living in 2006. Very creative and original!

The possibilities of decorating with maps seems endless and also a perfect DIY project for summer! I was also thinking that maybe we should all start buying up maps now before they vanish due to GPS and internet! Just don't bid on any of Cape Cod! The auction hasn't ended yet for the one I need!