What color makes you smile? Please share your favorite and why you love it in the comments section at the end of the post! For me, the color that makes me smile is Aegean Blue. More specifically Aegean Blue 1885. A Ralph Lauren paint that I fell deeply in love with about 12 years ago. Why? Because it’s the color I painted the wall of my 200 square foot apartment in Gramercy Park in New York City.
That little treehouse of an apartment was where I lived for three years. Tiny in scale yet epic in happiness. While living in that apartment I found myself as a woman and later found the love of my life, Paolo. I absolutely, positively loved that apartment. So why am I sharing this now as part of my Italian Home Renovation blog series? A piece of that apartment came with me to Italy.
Through my nomadic years I have donated, sold, or trashed nearly every material item I’ve ever owned. Yet I kept a paint chip?! Somewhere in the back of my head I must have thought “I’ll need this one day.” That day has come.
Italian Home Renovation | Kitchen Color

Knowing how happy my Gramercy Park apartment made me, Paolo has agreed to let me throw a major splash of color right in the middle of our first home together. You guessed it, Aegean Blue!
Aegean Blue is a bold color. It’s vivacious and happy color. It’s the ocean, the sky, the color of vacation. Painting our lower kitchen cabinets Aegean Blue is a brave choice. Yet I know this color will bring an instant smile to my face in our first home together in Italy. Just like it did every morning I opened my eyes in my Gramercy Park apartment in New York City.
While I am a nomadic minimalist at heart, bringing this small piece of my New Yorker life along with me to Italy is comforting. There are no words to express how grateful I am to have a husband who understand what this means to me. Then again, this is the very same man who created I Want to Lose Myself in You.

I Want to Lose Myself in You is my favorite pieces from Paolo’s Seascapes series in his fine art collection “Colors” by Paolo Ferraris. There is a day in the not so distant future when happy memories of my past life as a single woman living in a 200 square foot Gramercy Park will find a home right next to my current life here in Italy. It’s the day Paolo’s art hangs next to an Aegean Blue kitchen.
Curious what that Aegean Blue wall looked like in a 200 square foot apartment in the heart of Manhattan? Here’s a few old pictures I’ve also kept all these years. Digitally at least!
Sage House in Gramercy Park Apartment Empire & Chrysler Building Views Gramercy Park View Paolo’s Photo from my Gramercy Park Window!
Curious what the kitchen is going to look like with cabinets this color? Me too! Tune in next week and I’ll share our first renderings of Aegean Blue kitchen cabinets.
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One colour you’ll never find in my home, indeed in any of my homes, is blue. I like bold colours on accessories but not on major pieces of furniture or walls. That said I do like Paolo’s work of art.
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It’s a bold choice I know! Paolo’s art however is a soothing lull of happy colors. We have this print in a very large size and I simply cannot wait to get it home!
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That I can understand
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I love the Aegean Blue! 😍
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You do? Me too! What’s you’re happiest color?
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Mine is more a Robin’s Egg Blue or Indigo, but blue just the same!
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Great blues! I also love sapphire blues too. Robin’s egg is one of my favorite for ceramics. So soft!
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Oh yeah! Sapphire blue is cool too! I actually love all shades of blue, except the ones that look muddy
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