Designing a Relaxing Atmosphere

You know that feeling when you’re on vacation, enjoying your days in a great hotel? Pampered by the luxurious comfort, delighted by all the extra conveniences, happy to feel unburdened by the care and maintenance of your everyday home? That’s exactly how a vacation house, recently featured in Cambria Style, should make you feel—and it’s what designer Emily Moss of Emily Moss Designs strives for when designing part-time residences for her clients on Florida’s Anna Maria Island.

But the owners of this particular home added a wrinkle to the design plan. When they weren’t using the home themselves, they planned to rent it out to other vacationers. That meant not only choosing materials that would create the coastal-modern style the owners preferred for themselves but also crafting spaces that would make the house irresistible to prospective vacation renters and stand up to more than normal use and abuse.

“Renters can be very tough on materials,” says Moss. “They’re coming in from the beach. They’re relaxing with food and drinks. And often, they’re hosting a lot of guests—and they just want to relax, not have to baby the upholstery or the countertops to avoid damage.” So, she worked to create living spaces with plenty of picture-perfect “wow” factors, using bold swaths of blue to create focal points throughout the home and chose materials that are tougher than they may appear.

From the moment you enter this open-plan house, your eye is drawn from one splash of color to the next. In the kitchen, a bold blue island stands out against the white surrounding cabinets. Cambria’s Portrush quartz design on the countertops ties in with the island base, continuing the accent color of its bold veining across the kitchen island, around the perimeter counters, and up the backsplashes providing the worry-free durability Moss and her clients required.

The dining area features more blue (and more Cambria) on the bar cabinets along with soft textures of grass cloth wallpaper and a large rug. Across the house, a cozy fireplace features a floor-to-ceiling run of deep blue tile; even the laundry room has a pale wash of blue on the cabinets, making even a practical space feel special and luxurious.

Blue also plays a starring role in each bedroom, joined by supporting hues and textures that create specific moods. In the primary bedroom, soft navy and sand tones set a quiet mood, but the luxe bath has bold blue-veined tile and a niche lined with the same blue tile from the living room fireplace. One guest room adds jaunty green to the blue theme—on the ceiling beams, in the wallpaper, and on an accent pillow—and the bunk room incorporates energetic bursts of red. “We wanted something really fun for there,” says Moss. “We had the beds custom built, so they would be really comfortable, too.”

Outside, a pool and spa features blue tiles, with lounge chairs with removable blue-and-white cushions. “Repeating a color creates a very cohesive look,” says Moss. “And in this case, it references the location of the house, just blocks away from the beach and the blue ocean.”

Balancing all that blue—inside and out—is bright white on the walls, cabinets, and many furnishings; natural wood on the floors and accent pieces; and stark black window frames and railings. The effect is clean, fresh, and modern: beachy and vacation-y with a sophisticated, never theme-y look.