This article was originally published on July 31, 2023; it was updated on August 7, 2023 and August 22, 2023.
Although the clients may have found the real estate listing for the home on Instagram, the condition of the building was definitely not up to the standards of the digital age. The original portion of the Long Island farmhouse was built in 1910, and the most recent addition was made in 1940 – with upgrades long overdue, the house was a complete fixer-upper. The wife had a very clear vision of how she wanted the home to look. She wanted to incorporate her love of color into the design, and inspired by the blue hues of the backyard swimming pool, turned to Christine Conte, NKBA of Huntington, N.Y.-based Christine Conte Interiors to make her dream a reality.
The project got off to a bumpy start that no one could have predicted. Just after the interior of the house was demoed, supply chains were halted, owing to the pandemic shutdown. The clients – along with their two labradors – were forced to live in a trailer in their driveway for nine months.
Blue Beyond the Kitchen
Conte explained that the primary driving force of this project was the client’s desire to use color throughout her home, not just in the kitchen. The kitchen’s spectrum of blues was inspired by the tile coping found in the swimming pool in the yard. The kitchen cabinets are turquoise, and the backsplash is a combination of four different blue and green tiles combined. The primary bath has a feature wall covered in blue ombre mosaics. The boy’s bathroom is clad in teal blue tile. And the fireplace tile is an iridescent navy-blue tile.
Regarding the design process of the kitchen walls, Conte said, “We laid out the tiles several ways and ultimately decided to place the two most saturated colors next to each other flanked by the two lightest colors. This created more of an obvious pattern that the client liked as opposed to a more random pattern.”
To further forefront the backsplash, the designer opted for a recessed, ceiling-mounted vent for the range.
A ‘Grammable Design
With its now-contemporary design and professional-level functionality, the house is once again a presence on social media. In addition to being the locus for family meals, the blue kitchen is the setting for promotional videos and photos for the homeowners’ butcher shop business.
The wife has an Instagram account for the shop on which she frequently posts videos from her personal kitchen on how to create and prepare purchases from the shop. “So this kitchen design not only needed to be functional and personalized, but it also had to keep the shop’s brand image in mind,” said Conte.
—By Leslie Clagett, KBB managing editor
