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"  Barbara King: It looks like there&amp;#039;s a link between your color scheme and the landscape outside the windows. Lee Ann Thornton: You&amp;#039;re right. I do it all the time; I can&amp;#039;t help it. I&amp;#039;m influenced by the colors of the exterior, from the clouds in the sky to the brown of tree bark. It&amp;#039;s so simple a recipe, but I like to do it in a nuanced way, nothing jarringly obvious or obtrusive. I think it&amp;#039;s because I grew up in Los Angeles, where there&amp;#039;s such a strong connection between the indoors and the outdoors \u2014 I always fuse a relaxed California approach with elegant New England tradition. What influenced you most here? This house is on the Long Island Sound in Greenwich, Connecticut; the architect, Douglas VanderHorn, designed it so that there are views of the water from almost every room. It just felt right to use blue throughout for a coastal look, although not a nautical one \u2014 no marine or navy blue. Plus, it&amp;#039;s my clients&amp;#039; favorite color, and it was already prominently featured in their artwork. But it was a happy coincidence, because blue and white are my signature colors \u2014 my obsession, really. Why are they so compelling to you? They&amp;#039;re clean, classic, incredibly inviting, and I&amp;#039;ll take them any way I can get them \u2014 in fabrics, pottery, dinnerware, flowers, you name it. You&amp;#039;ve covered your bases here, alright. And isn&amp;#039;t it wonderful? Just look at the different moods that are evoked by using different shades of blue. That misty blue on the Gracie wall paper in the dining room is so romantic. Because it&amp;#039;s muted, it tones down the formality of the room. It also set off all the little sparkles that I wanted to happen, that I feel a dining room deserves, like the polished silver chandelier and the antique mirrored panels surrounding the fireplace. The deep lacquered blue in the butler&amp;#039;s pantry is sharp and dramatic \u2014 it makes the eye dance. The indigos in the library feel serious and masculine. The soft aquas in the master bedroom are utterly calming, and the manner in which the light hits the Venetian plaster \u2014 darker, lighter, darker, lighter \u2014 gives the walls so much movement, like water. That room really feels like the outside. The silver threads in the blue-green wallcovering in the teenage daughter&amp;#039;s room have feminine glamour. So each room, as you can see, has its own personality. What&amp;#039;s the personality of the living room? Cheery, joyful. You just can&amp;#039;t walk in without thinking, This feels good. I brought in pops of yellow that are like little bursts of sunshine and perfect punches of happiness. We fell in love with that Robert Kime suzani print the minute we saw it. The yellow Fortuny pillows on the living room sofa are the perfect accompaniment to the suzani. Fortuny colors \u2014 and patterns \u2014 are so ravishing. You could have them all over your house and never tire of them. And let&amp;#039;s not overlook the family room. What word would you use to describe it?  Oh, it&amp;#039;s all about fun! I pushed the envelope by covering the walls and banquette in the same fabric, with its touches of denim blue. I went for a hipper vibe in that room because there are four children in the family, and I wanted it to appeal to them, to be a place where they would hang with their friends. And the pops of red give it even more pizzazz. I&amp;#039;ll often throw in red for a touch of Americana. Blue, white, and red \u2014 it&amp;#039;s a timeless combination. That color on the kitchen island has a mysterious aspect to it. It&amp;#039;s hard to pin down. Yes, it&amp;#039;s very elusive. It&amp;#039;s Farrow &amp;amp;amp; Ball&amp;#039;s Down Pipe, a color I adore and use all the time. It seems to shift tones depending on the light, from bluish gray to greenish gray to charcoal to metallic. It just says so much. And it&amp;#039;s a lovely counterpoint to all the white. You used the same white paint, Benjamin Moore&amp;#039;s White Dove, throughout the house. Why that one in particular? It&amp;#039;s my go-to white, a tried-and-true, foolproof shade that never disappoints. It&amp;#039;s one of the gentle whites, soft and warm with no undertones \u2014 it doesn&amp;#039;t go yellow, it doesn&amp;#039;t go blue, it doesn&amp;#039;t go gray, it just goes white. When you&amp;#039;ve got so many things going on the way I seem to when I decorate, you don&amp;#039;t have time to worry if there&amp;#039;s going to be a hue coming through that you don&amp;#039;t want. It&amp;#039;s a nice, clean backdrop for art. There are a lot of deep, strong browns in the house, too. Rich browns ground all the other colors. Brown is a great connector, and it looks good with blue, with white, with green, with pink \u2014 you can&amp;#039;t go wrong. Is there a color you wouldn&amp;#039;t go near? Tan. It would never complement my interiors, never. I couldn&amp;#039;t even contemplate bringing it into my blue-and-white world, where I am so totally happy. Are you happy with this house? It&amp;#039;s pure romance. While it&amp;#039;s newly built, the design is based on early-20th-century East Coast styles and looks as if it&amp;#039;s been here all along. The interior is luxurious and chic, but at the same time comfortable, warm, and charming. The rooms say, &amp;#039;Please come in, enjoy.&amp;#039; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.housebeautiful.com/design-inspiration/home-makeovers/advice/a2882/lee-ann-thornton-interview/>