Lewiston Tour of Kitchens, 2014

I hope you're liking Color Outside the Line's "new do" so far. More changes and improvements are in the works! Today, I wanted to share with all of you some of the photos from the 2014 Lewiston Tour of Kitchens. I had the great pleasure of working with a wonderful home owner this year, my last with the tours, to make an already beautiful home really shine for the more than 1400 patrons. If you're not familiar, the tour showcases 6-7 homes each year in the Village and Town of Lewiston, New York. It's an upscale little place just north of Niagara Falls, where I live.

Each house is paired up with a designer (or two) and a local Lewiston restaurant. Tickets are $27 and you get to browse through private homes and enjoy samples of the food d'jour.

The home I was luckily assigned was (and is) beautiful. Built in 2013, the house has very little mileage on it, and therefore just about everything was as shiny and pristine as it was when first installed. The cabinets are all custom, finished in two tones - a satin finish ivory with a burnt sienna glaze, and a gorgeous walnut.





As you can see, there wasn't much for me to do in the kitchen. My design skills were really left to the other areas of the house. But I did supply Linda O'Connor with Summertime Blooms with the basket to create this amazing, completely edible center piece for the island. Packed with herbs, spices, and vegetables, this tabletop garden was the hit of the show. Linda does amazing work, and did all of the flowers throughout the home and on all of the tables. If you're local, and would like to have her do custom work for you, you can call her at Summertime Blooms: 716-791-3369.

Linda has over 2-acres of beautiful flowers that she grows each year, so you're not only buying from a brilliant artist when it comes to floral arrangements, but a local farmer. So, again, if you're local - get in touch with Linda. From one arrangement to fill your home with beauty, to a full-scale wedding, Linda's your gal!

Most of the time, when you work on a home that is occupied, you're having work around furniture that exists. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's not so good. Lucky for me (and Linda) our homeowner had great taste, and beautiful furniture that was perfect. All it needed was a few finishing touches. The birdcage (isn't that fantastic) was a piece that I bought for the show. We needed that "wow" factor upon entering the house and this did it. It perched perfectly upon the existing console table of the homeowner, and the stools below were a purchase she made at my suggestion.

The homeowner and I had worked together on curtains for the dining room, and continued that pattern into the living room with pillows made from the same fabric for the sofa. Again, here I just brought in accessories for the shelves, tables, and made slight styling improvements.

The house sits on a large lot, and was built with light in mind. The light these rooms get is enviable for anyone! Once they were styled and ready for the tour - I didn't want to leave. 



Even the puppy was impressed with the new comfort all the accessories had added to this room.





The dining room is not a formal space. It's adjacent to the kitchen, and provides wonderful family style seating for impromptu meals.



More gorgeous flowers by Linda at Summertime Blooms. Here, napkins from the same fabric banded in a bright turquoise pull sit atop blue and white plates. Cloches, covering salt wells filled with turquoise chocolate mints make for a beautiful presentation. The flatware is bronze and teak from Thailand.

And here, the new curtains warm up the space along with the seagrass rug that we added under the table. The outside spaces at this house are really amazing, and is where the family spends most of their time during the summer ... one look at their outdoor living room and there's no need to wonder why.

A large salt water pool beyond and a beautiful outdoor kitchen are also outdoor amenities that I unfortunately couldn't photograph prior to the tour ... I know, what was I thinking? You ever wish you could trade houses, but have the current owner keep the payment? Yeah ... me, too!