A late summer coastal tablescape in neutral colors

Good morning!

I hope everyone is surviving the summer.  It has been an unusually hot one here in Calgary – we set a record for the most days with a temperature above 30 degrees – about 10 times more than normal.  Between that, and the drought, and the fires and smoke in B.C., its been quite the summer.  It was +32 degrees – for the nth day in a row – when I first started this post a couple of weeks ago. Thank goodness for air conditioning!!!

Its now moving on to the mid to latter part of August, and I debated about whether to set a summer tablescape or a fall transitional tablescape.  The hot temperatures won out – a summer tablescape it was.  We really aren’t accustomed to temperatures this hot, at least not for weeks and weeks on end (these temps started in June) so I was aiming for something soothing and cool.  A summer tablescape in neutral tones, hopefully reminiscent of the colors of the sand and beach.  Waves crashing on the shore, a lovely breeze, some driftwood, and lots of seashells…  Mmmmm.  Cue waves please.

The place settings started with some shell plates from Pottery Barn that I’ve had for several years.  We have used them every summer since I bought them and because they are white they go with everything – very versatile.  There are embossed seashells around the dinner plate.

And there is a clam shell for the salad plate.  PB carried the dinner plates for several years and I seem to remember them adding a fish salad plate to the set at some point.

Grounding the plates is a shell charger – I found them on eBay.  They are from Pier 1 originally, although I’m quite certain I’ve never seen these pretties before here in Canada…  I have some other DIY shell charger plates in the making like Susan’s from BNOTP, and although I love the few that I’ve done so far, they are a project better suited to when I retire and have more time (ha!).  So I was happy to find these shell chargers to use in the meantime.  I thought they would be very fragile, but they are actually quite sturdy.

Here is the whole place setting.  The starfish napkin rings and the Wheaton striped napkins were also from Pottery Barn.  They are very neutral too, and the napkin ring, in particular, will go (and has gone) with many summer tablescapes.  I’m of the belief that these stores invest a lot of time and money into designing appealing and coordinating table items so I am always happy to borrow what they have put together.  Saves me time for sure.  If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, is my mantra.  I borrowed their napkin fold as well, and if anyone wants to know how I did it, I’ll share in an upcoming post.

For the center of the table, I started with a woven table runner.  To this I added some wooden candleholders – they have a lovely grain to them and are also neutral enough to use with other tablescapes.  I found them in Winners (HomeSense) earlier this spring.

Next came the jumbo shells from a store called Bowring several/?many years ago that has, sadly, since closed.

The medium size shells came from Pier 1, as did the seashell sphere, probably the summer before they closed.  The small shells came from the dollar store.  Here is the full table.  I used my gold rimmed flatware and my amber wine glasses.

On the two end places of the table, I used some DIY shell wine glasses.  I had seen something similar on Pinterest, but they were an experiment for me so I only made two of them.  I do like them and I’ll likely make another four, but I think six would have been too much of a shell thing at this table.  What do you think?  I’ll share how I made them in an upcoming post too.

I chased the lighting on this table a lot – mostly because of all the smoke in the air.  Some days the glow from the orange sun looked like something from the twilight zone…

A final overhead shot.

I’m happy to report we had some rain recently, the temps have cooled off, and the smoke is nearly gone.  Yay!  I hope everyone enjoys the last little bit of summer!  Thanks for visiting!

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