When renovating a house, I always start with a neutral foundation, wood floors, travertine, concrete, and white ( every nuance of white) walls. Listen, I learned my lesson; I love color, and I painted every room differently when I bought my first house. But after a few years, I grew tired of most of those colors, and painting darker shades is a pain, so now I keep the backdrop easy and customizable. I love buying vintage furniture in interesting colors, and interchanging it, moving it around, or even upholstering it when the space feels tired. In the Pine Tree House, there will be a lot of blue and browns, but I have to say, saffron intrigues me. Blame these gorgeous houses. You have to check out these house tours; the new mansion by Natalie Massenet is eye-shattering, and the gorgeous Martha Vineyard house by Ariel Ashe is drop-dead gorgeous. The color queen Matilda Goad is also doing saffron in her new Anthropologie collection, and what about a kitchen island in a stunning color? Now that I think about it, the one wall I never painted over in my old house was the dark yellow one, not precisely saffron but in the ballpark, because it just made me so happy, in the dead of winter, with snow all around the breakfast room was always warm, sunny, and inviting.