Be Colorful Coastal

Colorful Table Top Concepts

Colorful Tabletop Options For Our Florida Home

 

Last week I hosted a book group here at the house and realized that my linen choices were ready for a refresh. I love a banana leaf print, but I'm getting a little tired of this one. I want another option.

 

 

 

This is our dining room. As you can see, I am not afraid of color or mixing patterns.

 

 

This dining room set was left by the previous homeowner. It was well made but was too dark and traditional for my Florida vision.  I decided to have the table and chair frames painted and then reupholstered the chairs in two vibrant fabrics.

 

 

I love the unexpectedness that this set creates but it does require a bit more thought when pulling together table linens.

That said, every colorful design also needs a place for the eyes to rest. For me, it is white dishes. My mom told me that food always looks good on white and I listened to her. 

 

 

This home was purchased as our second residence so that required buying everything new. It was overwhelming. I only wanted to purchase one set of dishes so I needed something that could check a casual and slightly more formal box. 

The gray dining table, like the dishes, has the same calming effect and I typically go with a table runner instead of a full tablecloth. It lets the table shine through and makes the setting feel a bit more casual.

 

 

I bought these Jaye Studio chargers last year and I still haven't used them because my dishes are also white. To have a contrast between the dinner plate and the charger I need to either paint the centers of these or find another smaller charger or round placemat that will fit inside the gold bamboo-style rim. In my head, it looks amazing.

 

 

find them here

 

Now that I've started looking at new linens, I know I want to make a statement. 

Bring on the corals and bold floral prints.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Maybe a stripe combined with a modern twist on a damask...

 

 

 

 

I also love this classic trellis and pair it with a coastal shell pattern.

 

 

But why limit my choices to the only corals?

 

 

I love the contrast with the green.

 

 

 

Bringing in blue is another thought...

 

 

 

 

 

 But it isn't just about the color. I also like to consider different design vibes like this colorful casual look

 

 

or this eclectic combo that I like to call the Matisse Collection.

 

It is so hard to decide!

Do you have a favorite look?

 

The solid napkins can be found on Amazon- here and here.

The green and white bamboo print placemat and napkins are available on Etsy from 33YellowClouds

The jade-green solid runner is from House of Burlap and can be purchased here.

All other napkins and table runners can be purchased on Etsy from Spoonflower Home

Happy shopping!

As for me, I have some decisions to make before participating in a progressive dinner next month. 

 

 

The Subtle Approach to Fall Decor

There is something magical when fall leaves turn such vibrant shades of reds, oranges, and golds. I love fall in the Midwest, but I haven't embraced bringing those colors inside our home. Instead, I like to approach fall decor with a more subtle, softer nod.

I was up north this past week and enjoyed changing out our more vivid summer accents for some fresh and understated fall design elements.

 

 

 

 

 

Meanwhile, pale green grasses and ivory candles say fall in the living room,

 

 

 

and cotton bolls in a twine-wrapped bottle make an easy nod to cooler days in any casual

corner of the house.

I put ours in the laundry room.

 

 

Textures and heavier fabrics are another quiet but effective way of embracing 

a fall feeling in your home.

I layer the chairs and sofas with blankets and

for the past two years, I have looked forward to pulling out these wonderfully cozy

brown nubby pillows.

It wasn't really intentional, but I like how they repeat the brown of the ottoman.

 

 

 

I have always thought it is fun to change up our Iowa home with small seasonal accents and I knew I could do more than garlands of fall leaves. Autumn's colors are much more varied than that. Think of softer shades of golds, greens, and reds. Don't want color? Bring on the neutrals and enjoy your personal style salute to fall. 

 

Be Colorful Coastal Color Of The Week: Classic Blue

source

 

Has blue been overdone? It is the number one design color of all time. So you may think it has been overdone but these images will make you want to reconsider this classic shade for your own home.

 

 

 

 

source

 

 

source

 

source

 

source

 

source

 

 

 

 

source

 

 

source

 

 

source

 

 

source

 

 

source

 

source

 

source

 

source

 

source

 

source

 

source

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An Oasis Room In Blue and Coral

AKA I Have A New Rug

 

 

 

You can read about my rug selection process here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am sharing my retreat room today with The Dedicated House. I hope you will visit Kathryn's blog too and see and read some of her amazing posts, photos and inspiring ideas.

Terri Causey artwork

Lucy Designs turtle artwork

white accent chest

wall color Benjamin Moore Opal Essence

rug Wayfair

white round end table 
 

Be Colorful Coastal Color Of The Week: Ebony Black

source

 

source

source

source

source

source

 

source

source

source

 

Be Colorful Coastal Color of The Week: Greige Goes Coastal

 

Source

Source

Source

Source

 

Source

Sharing the Be Colorful Coastal Color of the Week with these inspiring blogs. Please give them a visit.

A Stroll Thru Life

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Downsizing, Listing the House

 

To see the inspiring video our agent put together for this property

click on the video link at the end of this post. 

 

 

     

More About the Family Room

 

       The Breezeway 

 

          The Library

 

 

       Media Room

 

     The Dining Room

   

         

  More About the Kitchen 

 

    

         The Master Bedroom

      Master Bath Details

    The Home Office

Click here to see the short video.

video

All photos and video are property of REMAX Realty

 

 

 

 

Color of the Week- Sherwin Williams Waterfall

 DecorPad

elleapparel.blogspot

HouseBeautiful

Apartment Therapy

Aqua door and steps via Pinterest

 

Mabley Handler Interior Design

Better Homes and Gardens

via Pinterest

A Well -Traveled Coastal End Table

 

This little coral table has some miles on it. It has also morphed from a dignified black to a flamboyant coral.

We bought this table almost nine years ago from a furniture store that was going out of business. The store delivered it to our second home, in Galena, Illinois which was about ninety miles away.

 The house in Galena was a rustic rural getaway and the decor featured a lot of  blacks and camels, with splashes of  red and bright green thrown in.  The table, back then, was black.

 

 

It worked well within  the space even if that black finish always, always, ALWAYS, needed to be dusted.

 

Our Galena home had been a great second home when our kids were growing up. It was only about an hour and a half away from our primary home. Because it was close we felt free to go up just for the day, an overnight, or a long weekend or holiday. As the kids got older, though, our trips to Galena became less frequent and we began rethinking our investment.

In 2014 we put the Galena home on the market and made the decision to purchase a home in Florida. Because Galena was a second home, and because a lot of the furniture wasn't what we wanted in a coastal designed home, we sold it completely furnished. Right before we listed it, though, we took out some of the artwork, a few of my favorite accessories, and a couple smaller pieces of furniture that I thought I might be able to recycle to work in Florida. This table was one of those pieces.

 

We brought it back to Iowa where I repainted it with Behr's Youthful Coral.

 

 

I used the paint with the built in primer since I was covering black. I also used a sponge roller to get an extra smooth furniture grade finish. Even with the better paint, it still took three coats to completely cover. 

The home we purchased in Florida has a bonus room. It could be used as a den or extra bedroom. This is how the room looked when the previous owners had the house.

 

I had never been a blue person but I somehow was drawn to this  pretty space. I liked the idea of a blue room with a contrast of corals and navy.  We did freshen up the room with a coat of Benjamin Moore Opal Essence. This blue has just a hint of green in it that feels more current.

We were starting from scratch and trying to furnish an entire house which was daunting and expensive. I did find a Lexington sofa on clearance that seemed to be made for this room but other than that, the room was looking pretty sparse.

 

 

I had the perfect end table for this room but it was seven states aways.  I had been spoiled by the Galena house. Before, because of the close proximity of our two homes, we could drive things back and forth between the houses fairly easily. Now, because we would typically fly instead of drive to Florida, we weren't able to bring much with us.

In the beginning, we had shipped some things like bedding and kitchen items from up north and we had filled in with an absurd number of purchases from Amazon Prime. They had to lose money on us that year with all of that free shipping. But we still had some bulkier items that weren't cost effective to ship.

Eventually, though, we brought an SUV down to Florida and we filled it with heavier items like books and tools and a couple smaller pieces of furniture, including the now coral table.

 

Finally, it was in our coastal inspired blue room.

 

 

With the back and forth to Illinois and finally Florida, I figured this table has traveled a total of 1644 miles to get here,

:D

 

 

 

 

 

 

The room is evolving and still feels rather naked, but at least when I find another lamp for this room, I will have a table to set it on.

 

 

I guess it was worth it.

xoxo,

p 

 

Sharing my colorful coastal piece here:

 

 

Inspire Me Monday

Embracing Change

Celebrate and Decorate

The Scoop @Confessions of A Plate Addict

Dwellings

Spaces to Inspire: A Coral Crush

This little lovely, in Naples, Florida, showed up in my feed today. I am crushing on the coral ceiling. As I look ahead to our kitchen remodel, I am soaking up inspiration from everywhere so you can bet that I pinned that ceiling to my Ceilings Pinterest Board.

 

 

Hope you are having a great Labor Day weekend.

xoxo,

p

 

You can find the full listing on this condo here.

Emerald Green With Envy

 

 

I am a fickle pickle.

It hasn't even been two years since we bought our coastal home where I was able to start off with a clean slate.  I opted to go with a blue and white color scheme infused with coral and seafoam, but now I'm seeing green.

Emerald green!

LOVE. IT.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paired with black and white? I die.

 

 

 

 

 

The thing is, I really like our blue and white look we have now and the beauty of blue and white is that it leaves me a lot of options. It is one of the reasons I chose that palette. For now, I have been accenting with a pale seafoam and doses of coral throughout the house. But, why not substitute some of the seafoam for a bolder green?

 

A statement piece of furniture in green could be spectacular.

 

 

 

It would be easy to repeat the color with plants and small accents.

 

 

 

Our family room is all white slip-covered furniture with a navy and white stripe rug. I could definitely see bringing in some green there.

 

If there is just enough then maybe, when we redo the master bedroom, I could totally embrace my black, white, and green dream.

 

Does green speak to you or am I alone in my green envy world?

 

xoxo,

p

 

Sharing my envy here:

The Creative Circle

Decor to Adore

 Coastal Charm

 

Photo credits as they appear

1.Samantha Pine

2.PopSugar

3.HGTV Green in contemporary bedroom

4.Livinator.com

5. Muffy Takes Manhattan

6.Lamps Plus blog

7. Melanie Turner Interiors via Decorpad

8. Jardin faux bamboo side chair in green

9. Shanahan Wildermuth Interiors

10. Decorpad

 

 

 

 

Coastal Homes In Coral

 

Five years ago I never thought we would be residents of Florida or that we would own a pink house. Well, maybe it isn't pink. I guess most people would call it coral. 

Coral this isn't a color that you see much on the houses in the Midwest, the place we had called home for our entire lives.

 

 

 

But in this South East corner of the world, the color is not so unusual.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As I searched the web for landscaping and trim colors for coral homes I see that it is a color that is embraced up and down the East and Gulf Coasts.

 

 

 

This shade was outside of the box for us but I have always loved bold colors.

So when we first saw this house, it was love at first sight.

We loved this happy hue

and it was

 this house

that spoke to us, 

  

 

and now we are so proud to call it home.

xoxo,

p 

 

 

 

 

How A Rug Pulls A Room Together

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It has been a year since we bought our home. We bought this  as a second home that is becoming our primary residence. It has been a shopper's dream to start from ground zero but it is also, at times, overwhelming. Over the past year, we have added the large furniture elements and now I am beginning to bring in the accent layers that are giving this space  personality. 

These are the touches that have made this room feel more like home but I still needed something to pull it all together.

I needed a rug and this was a bit of a challenge. Blues are a new to my wheelhouse and as I am learning, they pose a challenge. There are so many variations of blue and although a lot of them will blend together easily, some can look like a total miss. Because I already had blue patterned chairs, I knew I wanted the rug to be a simpler, cleaner look.  I also remember last year when we were looking for a house and studying Zillow images like it was our job, that a lot of the pictures had rooms with busy, almost distracting rugs. It was a disconcerting look. I didn't want the rug here to be the focal point. Instead, I wanted it to make the space more cohesive. I was looking for something to ground the room. 

 

 

I ended up going with a custom rug so I knew that the blues would play nice and I wasn't disappointed.

 

 

xoxo,

p

 

Rug resource Masland custom rug via Hadinger Flooring and Rugs

 

I am sharing this post here:

 

The Dedicated House

 

 

 

Adding the Color To A Coastal Living Room

 

 

Welcome to our coastal living room which is still a work in progress. We bought our home right before Christmas and it is a second home that will perhaps someday become our primary residence. In the meantime we are not bringing things from our Midwest home. We still need those items there and  we want a different, more coastal, feel for this house.  As a result we are literally starting over and to do this without taking on debt means going slowly.

We decided that before we added any furniture we would have the walls and ceilings repainted. By March we had added some artwork, a sofa and a cocktail table but it was still your basic white box.

 

 

I was drawing my inspiration from the artwork we had purchased.

 

 

We added a black sofa table to balance out the black fireplace on the opposing wall and that gave me some surface area to bring in a few bursts of color with accessories like this red and orange glass bowl I found at Wilford and Lee.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have never ever been a blue person. Perhaps it is the coastal air but lately I am drawn to this segment of the color wheel. I think my big guy was as surprised as I was when I  selected a blue trellis pattern for a pair of swivel chairs.

 

 

 

 

 

I usually don't like things too matchy match but I knew I needed to bring this blue into the other side of the room but I didn't want to spend the money for custom pillows. I eventually found some pillows at Home Goods.

 

 

 

The color was right but the pattern looked like I was trying to match and missed. I ended up finding pillow covers on Etsy that were the same pattern as the chairs. Score!

 

I will keep looking for a couple more pillows in coral or chartreuse to layer in more color and interest but at least I have a start. 

 

A Global Views tangerine bowl and some inexpensive mermaids flanking the fireplace mirror also helped to infuse the space with life.

 

 

 

 

It is a fluid project. I am still moving things around trying to fill a home with too few pieces of furniture but I think we are actually progressing ahead of schedule.

 

 

 

Our next purchase will be a rug but really, I'm proud of what we have accomplished so far. A lot of the major purchases have been made, a more concrete design plan is evolving and now the interesting layering can begin.

 

 

Thanks for stopping by and your input is always appreciated.

xoxo,

p

Modern Meets Traditional Dining Room

 AKA Bye Bye Purple

 

 

When we first started at looking at homes in this area I had hoped to buy one already furnished. We don't have any plans of selling our home up north so this meant we wouldn't be bringing much with us to this house. We would literally be starting over with almost nothing. It is like being twenty something again but with a fifty something body and budget. :D

 

 

 

The design side of me was excited by this opportunity but I also knew that it would be an expensive undertaking. My husband kept reminding me as we were looking at houses that the whole furnishing process would be " A marathon, not a sprint".  Patience has never been a virtue for me so this would be a challenge.

This is a photo, via Zillow, of how the dining room looked the first time we toured the house.

 

 

We didn't get very much in the way of furniture with our home purchase but this dining room set and the rug did stay. The buffet is a built in so I could at least consider this space basically furnished...for now.

 

It seemed like an eternity between having our offer accepted and the actual closing. In the meantime I was  house obsessed and one night while I was on the internet I found this older image of our dining room.

Holy Purple!

 I would guess that in the interest of making the home more appealing to a greater audience the seller's realtor suggested a more neutral color.

 

The seller might have agreed to paint the walls but held out on the ceilings.

 

What you couldn't see from the first images  is that the ceilings were also a lighter shade of purple. So although the walls were toned down to a neutral flax seed color, they left the ceilings painted a two tone orchid and eggplant.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It wasn't so horrible but it didn't fit my vision for the home so one of the first items on our to-do list was to hire a painter and begin repainting the main living areas.

 

 

It was difficult to know what color to paint the walls when we had only been in the house for a couple of days. I knew I wanted to stay neutral and have the artwork take center stage but what about those tray ceilings? Should I accent them, and if so, with what colors?

I had to move quickly. The painter had some time right before Christmas and it would be so much easier to paint these rooms before there was any more furniture. Most of the new construction we toured was finished in neutral shades of gray but our house has a taupe/cream tile in the main living areas so I needed a neutral  color that leaned a bit warmer. These images seem to appear more green but in reality they suggest a hint of brown.

My choices:

 

 

I love bold color so something so tame is unusual for me but I think these will be great colors to create my canvas. I want a colorful coastal meets a refined island look. The Balboa Mist is the wall color and the Cumulus Cloud is on the horizontal part of the tray ceiling and the Dash of Pepper is the accent color.

 

When we looked at new construction I fell in love with the modern industrial vibe lighting but the house we bought is fourteen years old with more traditional fixtures.

 

 

 

 

I needed something to sit on more than I needed a new chandelier, so I opted to keep them, at least for now, and contrast them with more modern touches like the black and white abstract paintings we purchased at a local gallery. 

 

 

 

 

 

This artist incorporates sand into each of her pieces. The perfect touch for a coastal home.

 

 

Eventually I hope to bring in some color on the dining chairs and maybe some fabric panels on either side of the arched window, but for now I added this oversized bowl in cobalt blue.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The basics are covered in this space. Now to bring in some pizazz. Marathon be damned.

:D

xoxo,

p

Showcasing the Artwork

In an earlier post I announced that I was going to begin my decorating adventure of this new- to- us  coastal home with the artwork. I wanted to make a statement with the art and have It become my inspiration for the color scheme. I have always said I am a color evangelist and would have a difficult time narrowing down my favorite color. I guess the fact that my jumping off piece does not commit me to one or two colors bodes well for me since I have a hard time being faithful to just a couple of hues.

:D

 

The result of my design plan was the purchasing of two oil pieces right after we closed on the house.

The first one has that dash of black and white that is a signature element for me along with a rainbow of bright clear colors.

 

 

This piece of art, an oil by Sharon Erbe, is visible from the front door and in a room that will have what I hope will flaunt a tropical Palm Beach meets Regency feel.

So when the framer, Aldecor Custom Framing, suggested a glossy black frame to glam it up a bit I was obsessed.

 

This home has exceedingly high ceilings and we needed to make the 30 x 40 piece appear a bit larger so we also added a linen mat.

 

 

I loved how it turned out and I loved it even more when we paired it with this mock croc Hollywood Regency foyer table from Irwin. This one is shown in brown but we went with black. We bought ours from Alison Craig ( love that place) but the table is also available here.

 

 

Adding the perfect orange and red bowl that I discovered at Wilford and Lee just seemed to make it all come together with some color pizazz.

 

 

 

I will need some accessories on that bottom shelf to conceal those outlets and eventually some lamp cords when I find just the right very tall and very skinny buffet lamps. 

 

The other piece of art we chose to hang in a niche in the back hallway which is a much more casual part of the house. This is another Sharon Erbe piece. I am in love with her vibrant energetic and color infused style.

To keep the look simple we went with an unobtrusive floater frame, also a suggestion of an experienced and style intuitive framer.

 

 

 

The piece, a bit out of focus, (sorry) is titled "Ships Be Comin' "

I hope that is true. I could stand to have some ships coming in. This furnishing from scratch is a heftier feat that I had estimated. So we are going slowly.

That said, we did make some significant progress with larger furniture pieces that we found on sale during this last trip. I'm afraid though that I was negligent in getting enough pictures so stay tuned as I return to our coastal retreat later this month and continue connect the dots to my crazy Coastal meets Hollywood Regency style with more pictures and accessories.

 

xoxo,

P

Vibrant Blue Living Room

It's been three months since we closed on our next chapter home and I am still struggling with color palettes and style. What can I say? I am a conflicted woman and I love it all. The trick is pulling what I love together.

I knew from the start that one of my colors would be coral. That perfect blend of pink and orange.

 

 

But what about accent colors? My first thought was pool blue.

 

 

And I've always thought that chartreuse is such a great neutral. I gives life to any color.

 

My design wheels are spinning.

I've never been a blue person. In fact, I've always run from blue. I think it is still a bit of a hangover from all of those country blues of the 80's and 90's. Somehow, though, here in a coastal state I find myself flirting with the cool blue side of the color wheel.

I have spent more hours than I would care to admit thinking and rethinking this whole color conundrum.  Primarily I am considering how the colors will flow throughout the house, but  I also  think about the view from the front door  towards the pool.

 My inspiration painting, that now hangs on the living room wall is also directing my color choices just like I had planned.

 

So, even though that pool blue was my first infatuation, my latest crush is maybe a bit more sophisticated shade of blue. Still vibrant, but a bit richer, I'm toying with cobalt blue.

 

 

This new color had me playing on Polyvore again and last night's creation looks like this.

 

 

 

 

Coastal Living Room in Bright Blue by pambecolorful featuring a tufted chair

Couture Lamps white light
insideavenue.com

Black and white table lamp
lampsplus.com

Outdoor patio furniture
shopwildthings.com

Blue bowl
artfulhome.com

Gold vase
$590 - luxdeco.com

Cyan Design home decor
purehome.com

Elisabeth Michael white throw pillow
purehome.com

Coral home decor
chairish.com

Ecoaccents coral throw pillow
purehome.com

Wood table
kathykuohome.com

Drawer furniture
kathykuohome.com

Tufted chair
onekingslane.com

Bashian Greenwich HG-283
rugs-direct.com

 

 

I think I'm getting closer.

:D

xoxo,

p

Starting With The Artwork

It is a daunting experience to try and decorate a home from seven states away but that is what I am attempting to do. I am, of course, reluctant to make any major decisions until I can actually walk through the space again but I have had fun pulling together some vision boards for the living room.

 

Sometimes inspiration can come from the craziest and most unexpected places. Recently I was shopping at Home Goods and I had a coral throw in my cart and stopped by gift wrap and added a gray and white stripe paper. When I put it next to that coral throw it looked amazing. Gray and coral, maybe that should be the color palette for Haydon?

 

The outside of the home, as you can see is coral. I never imagined having a coral house but it just adds to the tropical feel and I love it. So, it stays. Interestingly enough, the coral exterior is often visible from various spots inside the home so it needs to be considered when pulling together the interior palette. One of the color combinations I am drawn to is this color I call "pool". I really like it paired with coral. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For me, at least in this front room, it will all begin with the artwork.

This is what this room looked like the first time I saw it with our realtor.

 

 

 

My eye was immediately drawn to that colorful and uplifting painting. I became obsessed with the artist and have already located a gallery in the area that represents her work.

Since that first visit I have been squirreling away some mad money to make an art purchase the next time we are there. 

The artist is Sharon Erbe. All of her work is explosively colorful and energetic and it will be my inspiration for the design direction in this space.  I want the artwork to stand out so I will be going with a neutral paint color on the wall but I will achieve my color splashes with the paintings and accent pieces throughout the room.

 

 

 

The idea of a bold colorful rug is also appealing to me.

 

The addition of a bright pink also intrigues me.

 

I know navy is a trending choice right now and I think it could work as well but I'm not sure the hubs is on board with that. I might have to show him some inspiring images to get him used to that concept.

Oh decisions, decisions. I can't wait to walk through our Coral Casa again.

 

xoxo,

p