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This soothing seaside getaway looks to its surroundings for inspiration. By Donna Pizzi
aren Anderson is passionate about the ocean. So passionate, in fact, that during an impromptu trip to the quaint seaside town of Gearhart, Oregon, four years ago, she fell in love with a 1928 cottage and bought it on the spot. A former artist who specialized in contemporary quilts, Caren saw past the home’s primary colors, royal blue cupboards and forest green bath to the vision she had of a tranquil retreat bathed in blacks, creams and serene shades from the sea.
Caren describes the whole experience as nothing short of miraculous, with each step of the journey falling into place like the ebb and flow of the daily tide. Before Caren signed on the dotted line, however, she called her husband, Dave, at home on Bainbridge Island, Washington, and asked him to come see the house. Dave declined but gave her carte blanche to make the deal. Still, he was amazed when Caren returned home with the deed to the former 600-square-foot cottage (now a 1,350-square-foot, two-story beach house).
Dave may have been in shock, but Caren was in heaven. Not only did she now have a getaway cottage by the sea, but she also had an empty canvas awaiting her decorating talents.
“I didn’t want it to be your typical seaside place filled with sailing ships, buoys and floats,” she says. “I had a vision of a tranquil cottage, washed by colors from the sea and furnished with natural elements—wicker furniture, vintage baskets, bamboo and pine.”
It would have been easy to fill the cottage with leftovers from their Bainbridge Island home, but for Caren that would have been sacrilege. So, she spent months bargain hunting, rubbing elbows with local antiques dealers, stopping by her favorite Bainbridge Island haunts...and making the trek back and forth with her finds.
Color Choices
To create continuity in the great room, the artist first had to get rid of the primary colored “canvas.” She chose Grand Teton White paint by Benjamin Moore so that a sense of unity would flow from the living room to the dining area straight through to the galley kitchen. This also was a great way to make the whole room (a 20' x 30' area) appear more spacious. Caren then boxed in the existing hand-carved Mexican beams, each of which had been painted a different primary color, and painted them the same color in order to emphasize the great room’s height. To unify the addition—the library, staircase and upstairs loft—Caren created the perfect combination of colors by hand-mixing a series of paints, resulting in a creamy khaki color with subtle green highlights.
For a fresh start in the kitchen, Caren scrapped the royal blue cabinets, bought new appliances and replaced the dark trim around the windows and doors with Benjamin Moore’s Regent Green. An existing copper-topped island featuring inlaid marble inspired her seagreen-blue pottery collection, which features turquoise shades that remind Caren of the vertigris color found on tarnished copper.
The wall color in the master bedroom, created to blend the wall-to-wall carpet with the rest of the décor, looked gray in the can but became a cross between blue and green when applied to the wall. “I like in-between colors like blue and green, or beige, gold and green,” Caren explains, “colors that are difficult to pin down and [that] change depending upon the way the light hits them.”
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Picture Perfect. (top) Caren and Dave Anderson’s charming cottage in Gearhart, Oregon, looks like something straight out of a fairytale.
Looking Up. (above) A collection of 12 botanical leaves framed in black line the staircase leading to the guest bedroom. The dazzling display leads the eye upward and, according to feng shui, encourages the flow of positive energy.
Casual Living. (below) The open plan of the Andersons’ cottage allows guests to chat with the chef while he or she is preparing a meal. A khaki linen loveseat acts as a room divider, and a vintage picnic basket and leather box create an impromptu side table.
