Curating a Heritage Home

Everyone who reads this blog, or has an interest in Martha Stewart, also has an interest in homekeeping. Do we not cherish our homes and apartments and want to fill them with beautiful, useful items that make our lives more pleasant and practical? A longtime Martha Moments reader - and a good friend of mine - has recently started a new online business that I'm so excited to share with you. David Pantoja, host of the Good Things By David blog, has called the venture Heritage Home and it is based on the principles of providing quality home goods designed and built by American craftsmen and artisans - handmade, beautifully finished and affordable.

 

I consider David to be my Martha by Mail expert and I always defer to his expertise when I have a question about a Martha by Mail product; he has a vast assortment of products from the Martha by Mail catalog and keeps them in excellent condition. One of his passions is cookie cutters, especially copper ones. As part of Heritage Home, David partnered with Michael Bonne to create his own unique copper cookie-cutter designs. This is very exciting because Michael Bonne was the craftsman behind the original Martha by Mail copper cookie cutters, which are now extremely collectible. You will not find these designs anywhere else and you will have the knowledge that they are handcrafted in the United States by an artisan who prides himself on quality and also has Martha Stewart's seal of approval! Shown below is the Heritage Bee and Hive Cookie Cutter Set, which also comes with a how-to decorating card, complete instructions and recipes.

Another one of David's partners is Michael Laico, who made these custom cutting boards for Heritage Home, shown below. A big fan of Michael's cutting boards is Ina Garten and I'm told she has his boards in her East Hampton kitchen. The boards are made of American maple and walnut. David loves their versatility:

 

"A good cutting board belongs in every kitchen. Hardwood is my favorite surface for prepping ingredients every single day, because it is gentle on my kitchen knives. It helps if one has at least two cutting boards in the kitchen. Use one for savory food preparation and one for baking & desserts. However, if you enjoy entertaining guests on a regular basis, you may want to have multiple boards for cheese tastings, hors d'oeuvres, wine tastings and dessert displays. Small boards can be used to serve a sliced bundt cake or loaf cake, but they can also be used to serve a variety of cheeses, nuts & honeys for a special dinner. Larger boards can hold sliced breads, baguettes and any number of hors d'oeuvres when entertaining crowds. If your kitchen countertops are made from a porous material such as marble, you will want to protect them from spills when pouring wine with a nice cutting board."

Many of us also remember the wonderful spice rack that was featured in Martha's Westport studio kitchen on her television show. It's step-tiered feature made it quite unique. Now, David is working with craftsman Nick Stein to sell a new version of this famous spice rack, made of maple and painted in exclusive colours. The rack comes with 30 Heritage Home labeled spice tins, ready to be filled with your own spices. Hang it from a wall in the kitchen or keep it on the counter next to your prep area. It fits under most standard cabinetry. The rack measures 26 x 3.5 x 16. The first photo, below, shows the spice rack in Parkany Stone Barn - a colour that David created based on the exact shade of the barn on his property in Pensylvania. The other colour is called Weathervane Verdigris, another exclusive colour that David designed. I love how these racks look!

The former Homekeeping editor of Martha Stewart Living magazine, Peter Mars, who now has a textile company called Arnge, also provided two of his pillow designs to Heritage Home, which you can see below. Each 17"x17" pillow is made one at a time by a skilled American craftsman using the finest 100% cotton poplin. The poly-fiber insert keeps the pillow lofty and the hand-stuffed edges maintain the pillow's shape. The patterns shown are Dragonfly and Golden Fossil.

One of David's favourite coffee vendors is Chestnut Hill Coffee Co., a Philadelphia-based roastery. It's the brand David brews every morning at home. David is pleased to be able to offer two of his favourite blends - House Blend and Espresso Blend - to his Heritage Home customers.

David is also a skilled collector and has a great eye for quality. Heritage Home will offer one-of-a-kind collectibles that David has sourced exclusively for Heritage Home, such as this set of four Martha by Mail Jadeite flower pots.Collaborating with David on the cookie-cutter sets is another Martha Moments reader, Janet Cooper-Bridge, who runs the blog Oui, Sugar. Janet only recently started selling some of her favourite finds, including copper cookie-cutter designs that were crafted by Michael Bonne, who made the Martha by Mail copper cookie-cutter sets. Janet's designs are extremely adorable. She also offers a cookie decorating kit as well as a Recipes & Cookie Decorating Guide that looks like lots of fun. Below is a shot of Janet's copper cookie cutters and the finished product, all wrapped and ready! Visit her shop to see more!It's my hope that these two friends will be successful since I know how hard David and Janet have worked on bringing some of their designs and favourite things to the marketplace. Please take some time to visit their stores: Heritage Home and Oui, Sugar!