In today's fast-paced, technology-driven world, our connection to nature often takes a back seat in our daily lives. We spend the majority of our time indoors, whether it's in our homes or offices. This disconnect from the natural world can have a significant impact on our mental health and overall well-being.

Nestled along Florida's picturesque southeastern coast, Highland Beach is a dream destination for those seeking the tranquil beauty of coastal living.

When it comes to interior wall colors, white has long been considered the safe choice. After the gray trend has phased out, earthy tones such as taupe made their appearance back on the scene, but I still have many clients that just want “white”. One has to be careful by just painting "it all white" though. While it's true that white walls can create a clean and minimalist look, and make spaces feel larger and airier, they may not be the best option for everyone or every space.

Let’s explore seven compelling reasons why you should think twice before painting your interior walls...

Every time I mention the acronym, VOC to a client, I am surprised by how many are not familiar with the acronym of VOC. Especially because the focus on our health has become so important and we are inundated with info bombarding us from all directions regarding toxic elements that invade our lives!

Kitchen cabinet styles can significantly influence the overall aesthetic of your kitchen renovation. Here are 7 popular cabinet styles, each with its unique characteristics:

Selecting the right countertop for your kitchen can be a thrilling yet daunting task. With a plethora of options available today, it's essential to make an informed decision that aligns with your kitchen's aesthetic, functionality, and overall style. The following basic guidelines will walk you through the step-by-step process of choosing a new countertop, considering new hardware, paint colors, edge finishes, and the pros and cons of two popular materials that are currently trending: Quartz and Quartzite.

When planning a kitchen update, choosing the right style is a crucial decision that sets the tone for the entire space. Here are some key considerations to keep in mind when deciding on the style of your kitchen:

Years ago, 2010 to be exact, when I was still fairly new in the field of Home Staging and Redesign, Darlene asked me to help her with updating her kitchen. At that point, all I had done, were a few minor redesign projects in her house.

Mixing metal finishes in an interior design project can create a visually appealing and dynamic look. However, it's important to follow some best practices to achieve a harmonious and intentional design.

The farmhouse trend has undoubtedly been a dominant force in interior design for several years, filling homes with rustic charm and quaint aesthetics. However, as time goes on, it's becoming increasingly clear that this trend has reached a point of saturation. There were no more challenges, no more surprises each time I entered a home and I had to specify the same colors and see the same elements and decor over and over again.

Here are the 6 reasons why the farmhouse trend is overused.

Enhancing the curb appeal of your home shouldn’t only be considered when you want to sell your house. For most of us, a house is our most expensive commodity. Why not take care of it and enjoy it, while you live in it!

I have been working in hundreds of homes over the last decade and one thing that always surprised me is how people would neglect the front door and the front entrance of the house!

My year started off with an exciting but exhausting 2 days in Dallas when I attended the Trade Show for Interior Designers. I haven’t been to the Market since pre-Covid for obvious reasons and when you see the size of this place, you will understand why no sane person would’ve been able to go into each and every shop.

It is enormous! Soooo many people! So many things to see. So many products! It is totally overwhelming, but fun! This image only shows a sliver of what it looks like inside!

COLOR IS PERCEIVED IN CONTEXT. NOT IN ISOLATION

This is one of the first lessons I was taught when I started my color career and also one of the basic principles I teach my clients when I do a Color Consultation. Color is affected by what other colors it is surrounded with.

For those of you who have had a Professional Color Consultation with me before, you know that I always show you the suggested paint color by isolating it, using a large white poster board if you don’t have a white wall that I can use during the demonstration

One of the biggest mistakes...

Disclaimer:

The color suggestions are made as accurate as possible, although not a 100% match, due to each company's unique and proprietary formulas.

This is meant to guide you if you are interested in recreating any of the described color palettes

Keep in mind that Color Trend Forecasts are always done 2 years ahead of time. The 4 color palettes below are as described by...

2022! The color choices that dictates hope and renewal. Optimism, Positive energy. Happiness! Yellow has no fear!

Two regions chose yellow as their Key color! First time ever that this happened, which says a lot about the mindset all over the world post-pandemic. Although different in chroma, they are both red-influenced and share the same level of brightness. Warmer colors, more saturated colors, are definitely more trending after the uncertainty of the pandemic!

Sparse without being stark. Tranquil but not bland and boring. Functional and comfortable.

At first thought, when you think of Japan and Scandinavia, you wouldn't think that they have anything in common. These two countries are literally worlds apart from each other, with totally different cultures, languages, diets, religions, etc. However, what they both have in common, is an aesthetic that focuses on simplicity, sustainability, natural elements, and comfort.

By now, you are all probably familiar with Marie Kondo's decluttering advice and have heard of the documentary...

If you haven’t noticed it yet, wallpaper has proven one of the most coveted trends over the past few years. And no, we are not referring to your grandmother’s wallpaper from the 70’s!

Funny that everyone has the same reaction when I refer to wallpaper. Always a warm, fuzzy story about “the good ole days” in grandma's welcoming aromatic kitchen, but with a little apprehension.

Wallpaper has a way of pulling the room together, easily making it the focal point of the room. Whether you want to add wallpaper to your room to make a statement or to add texture to your space, it’ll...

Let’s start with the no-brainer. A well-trained certified Color Consultant will save you Time, Frustration and Money. I am totally fascinated every time I walk into a big box store or a paint shop such as Benjamin Moore or Sherwin Williams and I see people staring at all the thousands of color chips with a blank look and a frown between their eyebrows. They know they want a gray, a blue or green but we all know that there are 50 shades of any hue out there!

Globally considered the key color that represents new beginnings, purity, health, and freshness, energy, money and rebirth, green has been traditionally associated with brands that encourage growth, vitality, and productivity

Green takes on many personalities in nature. From soothing, calm, fresh to vivid, dark, intense, mossy, mystical.

In bigger cities, the green urban movement has been given the attention it deserves by creating more rooftop gardens, bike lanes, and hiking trails in order to create peaceful and tranquil spots of nature so people can evade the concrete...

Updating your home's exterior with a fresh coat of paint is a task many homeowners will undertake with spring approaching and is undoubtedly one of the most important factors to consider when it comes to enhancing your home's curb appeal. And there's no wonder why exterior paint colors are important - they can make or break a potential homebuyer's perception of your home.

With so many paint colors, finishes, and factors to consider when undertaking an exterior paint update, choosing a paint color can seem like an intimidating decision to make. To help ease the stress that comes with...

Torri and Rob are very near and dear to me and I felt so privileged to have met them! They were excited and enthusiastic about the changes and the everything I suggested, which of course, made me love the project and the challenges and I was almost sad once it was done.

But they moved not long after we were done and I got to repurpose almost everything they had again, giving it a totally new look and feel, by changing the accent color percentages!

Since I am not a turn-key designer, I always try and work with what is already in the house and then just add to it as the budget...

How color can influence your moods

When Darlene approached me regarding making some changes to her house, I knew this might be a tough one to sell! She and John have lived there for many years and they were used to looking at dark walls and dark furniture. And guess what… their major complaint was that the house felt dark and dated.

What is a sheen finish?

In paint technology, it describes the level of the glossiness/shininess of a paint product. Paint is chemistry in a can and the quality is reflected in the price. Resin is added to the paint to give it sheen and strength. Keep in mind, you get what you pay for, so don’t settle for cheap.

When doing a paint color consultation, a Professional Color Consultant will know which sheen to specify for a certain area, so it is good to be informed and query something if you notice a discrepancy.

Trends have changed over the years and I found...

As an Interior Decorator and Architectural Color Consultant, I am often involved in helping my clients choose fixed elements such as tiles, flooring, brick, stone, new light fixtures etc. I do not sub-contract, but I do collaborate with the Contractor regarding the project.

Having someone invade your private space can be tolerable when you know or expect the outcome to be good. Which, as we all know, is not always the case.

The purpose of this post is to educate and protect YOU, the consumer!...

Ashley Stucki has been named one of Austin’s top Realtors for 5 years in a row! Besides being beautiful, she is super focused on detail. Her market expertise, fresh ideas, and tireless work ethic have made Ashley a trusted resource to buyers and sellers seeking an agent who prioritizes their needs at every step of the way.

So when Ashley contacted me again for a Color Consultation on one of her million-dollar-plus properties, I was nervously excited. This time it was for an Exterior on a $1.9 million property.

Look, if there is one thing that keeps me humble, it is COLOR!...

Not everybody can SEE Color. Most of us are familiar with the term of being "Color Blind". But did you know that some people can HEAR or TASTE Color?

Synesthesia is a neurological condition in which two or more senses are attached. People with synesthesia have a relationship between their senses. The excitement of one sense stimulates the experiencing of another. It is estimated that 4% of the population has synesthesia!

During my research on the topic of Synesthesia, I was amazed to see how many famous people admitted to having this harmless condition. Pharrel Williams, Lady...

Many people lose their ability to clearly distinguish certain colors as they age, with losses typically starting around age 70 and getting worse over time. The loss of visual acuity as you age is experienced as an actual physical impairment and should be treated accordingly.

The reason why the vision of color is affected is not 100% clear. The photoreceptor cells in the Retina, called Rods and Cones, which are responsible for normal color vision, the decline in sensitivity as we age, causing colors to become less bright and the contrast between different colors to be less...

For those of you that have followed my Color info posts before, thank you for coming back. I decided to redo the blog for several reasons, which I won’t bore you with right now. I will be reposting some of the info that I have shared with you before, but it might be under a new headline.

While the blog was "Under Reconstruction", I furthered my education in Color in different areas. There is so much to learn about this fascinating topic and I can tell you right now, that I will share more than just Architectural Color articles with you. If you have a passion for Color like I do, you...

This is the question I received a while ago from a friend of mine.

Ombre simply means having colors or tones that shade into each other from dark to light. I bet you are familiar with the "Ombre look" without even realizing it!

Think about a beautiful sunset you’ve witnessed at your favorite vacation spot! See! Ombre!

Catching " The big one!" against an Ombre sky

For some reason, I thought that everyone in the world of Decorating and Design, knew what “Full Spectrum Colors” were. But I learned real quick that it was not true.

And I also thought that everyone that works in a paint store knew exactly what that was. To my surprise, I got the weirdest answer today when I went into a store and just asked if they have any Full Spectrum Colors, although I was fully aware of the fact that this specific store does not sell Full Spectrum Colors. Sometimes you just have to have some fun, right!

...

The hardest part of decorating for me is when a client asks me to find them Art! To me Art is a very personal choice and I struggle to use something that might be found in a Staged house or that can be bought at our local decor retail shops. Not that I think there is anything wrong with any of that. There are some great prints out there! I myself even have a few with a story behind it of course! It’s just a personal thing!

I recently redecorated my guest bedroom. I had to be careful not to make the room look too feminine or too serene, since most of...

LED lights have been the buzzword for quite a while now, so you might as well get used to them. Unless you have stocked up on traditional incandescent light bulbs and have stacks of them piled up in your garage, you will have to eventually give in and switch over to LED bulbs!

What does LED stand for?" Light Emitting Diode

But don’t worry about that. Everybody just calls it LED! When choosing a light bulb, there are a few things you should consider before you purchase them. I am not going...

If I mention words such as "Happy, Energetic, Optimistic, Sunshine, Creativity, be Alert, Sponge Bob, Smiley Face, what Color comes to mind first? Yellow of course! No doubt about it! So would yellow really make your baby cry??

Yellow is often considered a happy, vibrant color. And for the most part, it is! But there’s a very fine line between a good yellow and a bad yellow. There is a dark side to yellow that we need to be aware of. According to a study, suicidal patients used more yellow in their paintings, as did Van Gogh. It was said that...

If you are familiar with Houzz.com, you know it can be inspirational, overwhelming and addicting! It actually grew into one of those beasts, because once you start going through some pictures, next thing you know, you are bombarded with arrows pointing you to specific items to purchase and before you know it, you are going down another rabbit hole we have to face in the mighty tech world where everyone wants your money!

However, I happened to stumble upon a post one designer wrote and my advice to you, you really...

Not too long ago I read a blogpost of one of my fellow Color Enthusiasts and amazing Interior Designer, Eugi Triandos and I was intrigued by the term Wabi Sabi. For some reason I haven’t heard of this before! I immediately recognized it for what it was and I knew that I have always loved imperfect objects and got many Color and Décor Inspirations from it, without giving it a name. I always take pictures of rust or peeling paint or tree bark, ruins etc. For example, the picture below was taken in...