It's here! Our favorite time of year when we can look back on a year's worth of stunning kitchen and bath designs featuring recycled glass surfaces. From the beach to the city, talented designers are using crushed glass counters and mosaic tiles to create interiors with historic charm, coastal vibes and modern moods. (An amazing amount of style variety in this year's designs.)
What do you give a homeowner who loves bold primary colors? A clean white canvas and ALL the cobalt blue.
Located in beachfront Tequesta, Fl, Patty Anderson of Waterview Kitchens is used to designing bright coastal kitchens with a sea glass look and feel. But this Jupiter, Fl luxury beach condo packed the most color punch of them all. The ocean loving homeowner Gayle Fravel already had a bold palette of yellow, blue and red against crisp white. So when it came time to do a kitchen update her daughter Lindsey Diebler who is an interior designer said, “Mom, you have got to check out Vetrazzo.”
No one can dispute the effect a seaside escape has on the soul. Blue water and white sand are a salve for just about all that ails us. But why stop at a two week beachside escape?
Shouldn't our interiors reflect that same calm, cooling, and even energizing vibe of the sand and sea? (I mean wouldn't you love a coastal escape every time you stepped into the kitchen?)
There’s a beach getaway with a design that’s stunning both for what it incorporates and what it omits. When designer Stephanie Rothbauer envisioned the total home renovation, which started off as just a bathroom (don’t they all), she turned to her surroundings for inspiration.
Like a blue water beach vacation, the appeal of the coastal kitchen endures through seasons and trends. But we all know a few beachy kitchens that we’d like to forget (hello shellacked seashells and driftwood art) that were more tourist t-shirt shop than tranquil retreat.
You want your beach inspired kitchen to be everything that is day at the beach - light, warmth, fresh air and a cool splash of color. More homage to the sea than a picture of it. Let's take a look at three classic coastal designs that bring a breeze of summer without the fisherman’s net and starfish appliques.
We may still be in the throws of winter, but spring is right around the corner and with all that arctic chill your mind might start to think about next summer, and maybe even a secondary home investment. If so, you’re not alone. There's been a recent boom in vacation property sales among affluent investors and the baby boomer generation as they begin to reach retirement years. Vacation home sales across the country are soaring, rising by 57% to 1.3 million properties in 2014 compared to 2013 reaching a record high, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR). In fact, vacation home sales accounted for 21% of all real estate transactions last year. This increase is great for the economy but there are many factors to consider before investing in a secondary home. Here are two key recommendations to keep in mind before taking the plunge.
Although neutrals and greys may have been receiving a lot of attention in color trends lately, images of gleaming all-white kitchens and interiors continue to pervade the pages of design publications and more products are offering their own 50 shades of white. The thought of having one of these pristine, picture-perfect kitchens is enough to make most homeowners glaze over with envy, or for others it may make their skin crawl with all that nerve-wracking perfection just waiting for the kids to come home from school and break out their latest snack concoction. But what about those of us who harbor our own guilty pleasure of incorporating pops of color into our lives while embracing some of that bright aesthetic, are we doomed to suffer at the hands of these white-washers and fade into starkness, how do we add some life to a sterile palette?
