Returning to the place that she called home, a sandbox of ashes came to mind.

It was just the evening before, while Mary Randolph Carter was watching “Gunsmoke” on TV with her family, that her father had yelled that there was a fire. The family fled their burning home on the Rappahannock River.

“We all got out, save for our St. Bernard dog who, I think, went back looking for my father,” says Carter, longtime creative director for Ralph Lauren. “We survived. We started over. We were nomads for about a year.”

It was the second time that fire had struck one of Carter’s childhood homes. Years earlier, another fire destroyed her home on Monument Avenue. Three family members died.

After the second fire, Carter’s family renovated a ruin in White Stone, Virginia, for their next home.

“Doing that restored us in a way,” says Carter of refurbishing a structure that dates back to 1680. “It was like Sleeping Beauty’s castle. It had been abandoned for decades and was covered with honeysuckle and vines.”

The importance of home has taken on special meaning for Carter, a New York-based author, photographer and collector who just published her tenth book on belongings and interior spaces. On April 4, Carter will hold a book signing at Carytown home goods store Creme de la Crème for “Live With the Things You Love … and You’ll Live Happily Ever After.”

The “doyenne of junk”

“Richmond is where it all began for me,” says Carter, whose younger son now lives on Monument Avenue. “Returning to Richmond, where most of my family is, is part of who I am.”

The self-proclaimed “doyenne of junk,” Carter is the anti-Marie Kondo, a lover of maximalist interiors that are filled with carefully curated clutter. In her new book she highlights unique interiors and muses on what prized possessions mean to us.

“It’s about sharing the way people live in a very personal way,” she says. “We’re all looking for special ways of living our lives and living it with comfort and authenticity with our family and friends. I think it starts in your home.”

Carter, who goes by her last name, received an early career boost while attending Marymount College in Tarrytown, New York. Every summer, 20 “guest editors” were chosen to work on the August college issue of women’s magazine Mademoiselle, and Carter was selected. She was eventually offered a full-time job and worked at the magazine for a decade.

After leaving Mademoiselle, Carter contributed to Vogue and New York Magazine, running a fashion column for the latter that focused on street photography a la Bill Cunningham. As Conde Nast began creating women’s health and beauty magazine Self, Carter was tapped to help shape its look, eventually becoming its creative director.

A decade into her work at Self, Carter was contacted by Ralph Lauren to work with the head of women’s design. She didn’t think it was for her.

“I loved fashion, but it didn’t feel that was the right fit,” she says.

Carter was asked if she would like to meet Lauren at the legendary New York City brownstone where he began his empire at 40 W. 55th St. Unbeknownst to her, the meeting was to be a one-on-one chat in his office.

“It was a pretty big, pivotal moment in life and career,” she says. “He was incredibly curious, as I was, and wanted to know a lot about me and my family and what I loved.”

Lauren’s office, Carter was pleased to see, was brimming with paintings, toys, drawings from his children and other items.

“It was just filled with clutter,” she says. “I felt totally at home.”

Lauren hired Carter, referring to her as “his country girl.”

“My style is more country, wearing vintage and boots. I’m not a high-heeled kind of girl,” Carter says. “When I started to work for him, he was opening his first country store in East Hampton, and I helped with that.”

The junk books

At the time that they met, Carter had already begun working on her first book, “American Family Style.” As her family’s home in White Stone had already been featured in other’s books and magazines—including a 20-page spread in House & Garden—Carter decided it was high time to tell her family’s story. Lauren was vehement that Carter finish the book; he even wrote the forward.

Carter’s love of “junk” began after she visited a rummage shop near the country home in Millerton, New York, that she shares with her husband. She exited the store with her arms full of abandoned goods, including an Infant Jesus of Prague figurine with a head that had been glued back on.

“I’d spent maybe $22.50 and I had a big smile on my face,” she says. “That was my conversion to junk, right then and there.”

She’s since published a series of “junk” books: “American Junk,” “Garden Junk,” “Kitchen Junk,” “Big City Junk,” and “The Joy of Junk.” The title of her latest book, “Fill Your Home With Things You Love,” encapsulates Carter’s mantra.

“That’s what this book is about: the joy of an object, no matter how humble, that recalls a trip, a friend, an experience,” says Carter, whose older son Carter Berg handled photography duties for the publication.

Carter acknowledges that her advice runs counter to Marie Kondo.

“I was going to try to have a duel with her,” she says, stating that there’s nothing wrong with owning many objects that “spark joy.”

She offers some advice for her fellow maximalists.

“You have to be considerate of people you live with,” Carter says. “Make sure they have a place to sit.”

The book signing for “Live With the Things You Love … and You’ll Live Happily Ever After” will take place Friday, April 4 from 3 to 8 p.m. at Crème de la Crème, 3156 W. Cary St.