Coastal Style in Oklahoma

You don’t need a water view to create the look and feel of seaside living.

- MERYL SCHOENBAUM

You may be surprised to learn that the coastal-style kitchen on these pages was not designed for a cottage by the sea but rather for one much further inland—in the middle of the Oklahoma plains. Homeowner Susan Balkenbush was starting a new chapter in her life as a single woman after more than three decades of marriage and hired a trusted designer she had worked with on a previous home remodel, Valerie Helgeson, to help her make her new house feel like a home.

Valerie is the owner, lead designer and general contractor at Design Directions, a full-service interior design and general contracting company in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. “My inspiration for the home was definitely a coastal cottage, even though we were in the middle of the country,” Valerie says. Susan’s favorite color, navy blue, would fit in perfectly with the coastal-cottage palette. “We used a navy, white and light-blue color palette throughout the kitchen, dining and living room,” Valerie says.