Designing in Curacao!

I recently returned from the most amaaaaaaaaaazing trip to Curacao.  A small island in the Caribbean sea, off the coat of Venezuela.  Curacao is part of the A, B, C islands... Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao.  It is a constituent country of the Dutch Netherlands.

The official spoken languages are Dutch and Papimetentu (a Creole language) spoken by most of the inhabitants of the island, in all levels of society.  English and Spanish are largely spoken as well.  Curacao is a beautiful island, with temperatures in the high 70's (Fahrenheit) year round.  If you are looking for someplace new to discover, I recommend Curacao!

I was part of the African American Top 20 Interior Designers, invited to participate in designing a vignette for Building Depot which is the islands largest home furnishing/tool/garden store on the island.  The task was creating a room environment using product ONLY available at Building Depot.  We were given a blank floor, a back wall and that's it!  Here are a few images from my dining space...

The results were great spaces, where customers were enormously surprised were designed from the stores wares.  Notes chefs from Gordon Ramsey's Hells Kitchen, Chopped and Top Chef were on hand providing sinful meals for a week.  Oh, that's why my clothes don't fit! It was soooooo much fun it was ridiculous!  Great new friends were made and it was an absolute blast!  Big shout out to Nadin Benito of Interior Visions for her coordinating and 'vision' in making this all happen.

Blog Pinkeggshell recently did an amazing post of the trip.  So instead of recreating it all, please let me introduce you to Kimberly Ward of Pinkeggshell as our Guest Blogger!

So, if you have a moment please check out Kimberly Wards Pinkeggshell's coverage here!