Living by the Lake

I was reading the La Dolce Vita Blog and I agree with Paloma Contreras that Laura Trevey's blog Bright, Bold and Beautiful has the ideal name and I too love many of the things that they both love- I love eating outside! I love all things nautical, and living by the water. We live in Houston TX but keep a 40" Hunter sailboat at Lakewood Yacht Club in Seabrook Texas and spend most weekends on it. Many of my clients and many of the homes that I have designed/remodeled have been in that area by the water and living by the water makes such a difference. Just looking out the window at the water is soothing & relaxing. And using blues, greens, grey-blues and colors that are reminiscent of the water help bring the outside in. Before I remodeled this Seabrook kitchen, it had a tiny window over the sink on the wall facing the water, and you couldn't even see outside. So we ripped out the existing cabinets, installed a huge picture window on that exterior wall and placed a table and chairs right in front of it to my clients can sit at the table and enjoy the view. We then reorganized the kitchen cabinet layout to have the cabinets on either side of the window - and not on the exterior window wall - which we reserved for viewing outside! What a difference that made!
The kitchen in the photo has soft colors, which my client liked. But I teach Interior Designers for Continuing Education nationally and I love to teach in Florida! I was just teaching in Estero, DCOTA and Boca Raton two weeks ago in mid July, and I love the colors shown in both the Miromar Design Center and DCOTA. They love bright colors in FLorida- bright turquoise, bright orange... and these colors seem to go with being near or on the water - they are happy colors and being on the water is happy! Don't you agree?