Did you ever wonder what really makes up the coastal color palette and why? 

I was born and raised on Long Island, NY so Coastal colors will always be near and dear to my heart. The water, beaches, sunsets, sunrises, harbors and all the colors associated with that are forever embedded in my mind. It was an amazing place to grow up and the images of those coastal hues will be a part of me forever.

Having said that, I’d like to talk a little about how coastal colors have changed over the years and it of course it’s all about color.

You’re probably wondering how can coastal colors possibly change.  A sunset is a sunset, water will always be a blue hue and the colors that we associate with the beach are pretty much the same. Well it’s changed just a bit and I’m going to tell you how.

Growing up on an Island had so many benefits and one of them was beach combing. Everyone did it as soon as their toes hit the sand. You looked down as you walked in hopes of finding that perfect white rock, a pretty shell that was left behind by some mollusk or even a feather that was dropped by a shore bird. Very cool finds indeed. However, there was one element that was a huge part of the coastal color palette back then that in now considered extinct. What is it? It’s beach glass, especially the green beach glass which was always my favorite find.

Beach glass used to be in such abundance back in the day. It would be very typical to find brown glass with the surface etched from the sand, clear glass that was tumbled to resemble a frosty New England morning, green glass for the now antique Coke bottles that were just a memory of yesterday and the very, very hard to find, the cobalt blue glass from medicines bottles. When you think about it, does anyone see beach glass anymore? Have we recycled it all away? Is it possible that it was all picked up already?

We may never know why beach glass has become extinct but there lies one of the very important links to the coastal color palette and that’s green.

I’ve written many blogs posts about coastal colors and the main hue is always blue. Well let’s change that – not eliminate it but just change it up a bit.

Here we have a beautiful design board from Crate and Barrel with green as the main color. It still has that coastal flair but there’s no blue in the picture at all. You don’t need it.

You can have a nice blue-green color but keep it more on the green side like I have shown here for one of the wall colors. Keep you trim a soft gray for a change (or white if you want to say classic) and bring in the beach glass green throughout the house.

Now, isn’t this pretty? If you like this look for your home, I also design these mood boards via my shopping service. It’s part of my virtual design service. It’s an easy way to color your home.