screen doors
Photo Credit: Courtesy Wooden Screen Door Company
Wooden Screen Door Company
Nothing says summer like the gunshot slap of a tight-springed screen door on a hot afternoon, and we often wonder whatever happened to that distinctive sound. John Otterbein has been doing his best to restore the screen door to its former glory since 1994 from his small shop and showroom on Route 1 in Waldoboro, where he and three employees turn out some seven hundred stock and custom-made doors every year. That’s slammin’. 3542 U.S. Rte. 1, Waldoboro, 207-832-0519, www.woodenscreendoor.com

patio furniture
Weatherend Estate Furniture
We don’t know about you, but we’re tired of disposable patio furniture that barely makes it through a Maine summer before looking too beat up to save. Back in the early 1900s a Norwegian-born landscape architect named Hans Heistad had the same problem while designing outdoor furniture for the Weatherend summer estate in Rockport. Heistad combined simple yet elegant designs with Maine boatbuilding techniques to turn out classic outdoor furniture that is still around a century later and has provided the inspiration for Weatherend Estate Furniture. Constructed of mahogany and teak using traditional mortise-and-tenon joinery at the company’s headquarters in Rockland, the furniture can be found on decks and shoreside lawns all over the world, as well as in corporate offices and Disney World. There’s no on-site showroom, but visit Weatherend’s Web site for a list of outlets. 6 Gordon Drive, Rockland, 800-456-6483, www.weatherend.com

hooked rugs
Searsport Rug Hooking
Claiming to be “Maine’s largest rug hooking and design studio” doesn’t sound like much until you discover that Julie Mattison and her mother, Christine Sherman, have eleven rooms at their shop on Main Street in Searsport, attract some five hundred students to their classes each year, and serve customers from all over the world through a thriving Web site. For rug hooking? “It surprised us, too,” Mattison admits. “We never dreamed we would need employees. Now we work seven days a week, and we’ve expanded the building twice since 2004.” Mattison says they’ve been told they may have the biggest rug-hooking business in the world. The physical shop is closed from December 21 to May 1 this year because of heating costs, but Julie and Christine say they do 90 percent of their business through the Web anyway, and that’s the best way to reach them. “I’m always online,” Mattison sighs. 396 East Main St., Searsport, 207-548-6100, www.searsportrughooking.com

Photo Credit: Jennifer Baum
Seed Swap and Scion Exchange
Sure, you can buy your usual packet of Straight Eight cucumber seeds at the hardware store again this spring (boooooring), or you can spice up your garden with some Boothby’s Blondes or Hmong Reds from the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners annual gathering of seedies. It’s like a flea market for fruit and vegetable nuts, where more than two hundred folks freely share seeds and scions from their gardens and orchards. Maine’s own Johnny Appleseed, John Bunker, usually shows up with hundreds of apple scions — grafting wood for fruit trees — salvaged from long-forgotten varieties, such as Black Oxford, famous for its keeping qualities, and Chestnut, an incredibly sweet early crab apple. You don’t even have to bring your own seeds. There’ll be workshops to teach you how to save your own for next year. March 28 at MOFGA headquarters in Unity. 294 Crosby Brook Rd., Unity, 207-568-4142, www.mofga.org

palette
Maine Cottage Furniture
Try to find some superlative that hasn’t been used to describe Maine Cottage Furniture’s distinctively hued and colorfully decorated chairs, beds, sofas, and more over the past twenty years. Can’t be done. In a state where stained wood is the sine qua non of fine furniture, this outfit offers a palette of forty eye-shattering colors to choose from for its desks, beds, and other case pieces. And somehow all those tones evoke some essential quality of Maine. While the market may originally have been the summer places filled with the straight-lined, plain-built country furniture that inspired its designs and colors, these days Maine Cottage is as likely to be found in a Greenwich sitting room as on a North Haven porch. Besides, any company that offers loveseats in a color called “Ale” gets our vote. Lower Falls Landing, 106 Lafayette St., Yarmouth, 207-846-3699, www.mainecottage.com

kitchen bargains

Photo Credit: Courtesy Le Creuset
Le Creuset Outlet
Maine has some great kitchen stores, and we shop in them regularly. But when we’re in the market for the best of the best at a bargain price, we follow the masses to the outlet malls in Kittery and the Le Creuset factory store. With a lifetime guarantee on its famous enamel cast iron and stainless steel pots and pans, the store carries everything from four different sizes of frying pans to a five-quart braiser. Le Creuset’s cast-iron pieces, produced in its own factory in Fresnoy Le Grand in northern France, are legendary and well worth the attention of the state that made bean-hole beans baked in a Dutch oven into a culinary staple. Tangier Factory Outlet, 283 U.S. Rte. 1, Suite #4, Kittery, 207-439-4811, www.lecreuset.com