DESIGN STORY: a blue mood
Exploring blue. Because it's the colour of my favourite smell - the ocean.
I’ve always gravitated towards blue. Blue jeans, a blue entryway, a cream baseball cap with delicate scripted words in blue.
But then there’s the ocean in its perfect vast blue, and its undeniable sway of my soul. Every July I cross into Bar Harbor, open up my car window and take a deep inhale pulling in all the good that can only come from the potent smell of salt air and fish.
It’s that blue that calls to me.
But when we’re not referring to the blue of nature, there is magic in small doses. A lesson I learned one summer when I made several mistakes - a big one included painting an entire room blue - a room in which I slept above a bar on a mattress on a floor next to a sink that wreaked of sulphur. That blue was wrong and slightly suffocating and I shall now stick with the washed denim variety or the small pop variety and we won’t speak of said other mistakes of that summer. But we will speak of blue.
01 | Hang blue in your home
We have two of Natalie’s pieces in our home. This one in our living room above our pink couch and this one in our bedroom about our vintage dresser. I love looking at them - adding some natural hits of blue with art.
02 | Wear blue
I own a lot of denim. It’s a staple in my work from home yet get fully dressed each day wardrobe. I love the details on this maxi skirt. I am also considering this runner up.
I own this tank in white and it’s several years old yet still looks brand new. This washed out blue is my ideal shade to wear a non denim blue.
03 | Live with blue
This entire house tour is worth your time but this hallway just seems a mood all of its own and to do that in a hallway - now that is good design.
The downstairs hallway presented a bit of a challenge for Sikes. “How do we make this really unique and special?” he remembers thinking. “This [was] the ugliest hallway known to mankind—[there was] nothing special about it,” adds McDermott of the original space. “And Mark said, ‘Oh, stop—we’re going to…make it the happiest hallway you’ve ever seen.’ And that’s the charm of him and the talent as well.” (An excerpt from Architectural Digest: Tour a French Normandy–Style Compound on the California Coast By David Foxley and Photography by Amy Neunsinger)
A magical soft blue railing.
While this image was untagged on Pinterest, the zellige blue tiled built in deserves a moment of appreciation. I imagine myself sipping wine and reading what those book titles say.
I am all for introducing a non neutral sofa into your living room and calling it a neutral. This is basically the jeans version of furniture and gosh isn’t it lovely.
Oh to have ceilings this tall! This blue was used so intentionally and it gives such a moment to these incredible windows and doors. (& I can’t help but note the plates on the wall as art - such a far cry from the plates I used to see on walls as a child)
04 | Design with blue
Alyssa Beltempo’s membership design and website was the perfect canvas for Ash Izsak Studio to infuse blue in small doses. Alyssa wanted a very minimal feel to her user experience - allowing her sustainable fashion content to be the main focus (her taste in fashion is impeccable).
Feeling the blue? I ordered this gel polish in washed denim for my next mani and wouldn’t these make working out prettier!
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Thank you for reading. I used to write a lot so this feels good. — Ashley.
I can almost smell the salt water as I read. YES! To denim-like sofas, plates on walls, babes swimming in Mexican waters, and dusky blue balusters. I will be waiting for the mirror video update, where you're wearing some fabulous denim maxi magic 🌊✨.
I can attest to all of the blue I've witnessed in your life! Also WOW, I want that zellige blue tiled shelf.