That's when she and husband Ken Meyers escape to their Bay Head, New Jersey, beach house. With Barnegat Bay a block to the west and the Atlantic a block east, water colors meet in the middle, at the couple's 1910 two-story bungalow. Its every surface, from kitchen spatulas to sofa pillows to plastered walls, reflects nature's paint box.

"There are so many colors to choose from in this world," says Valerie, who's bored stiff by primary tones. "Don't take red when you can have cherry--or turquoise." In fact, turquoise started the whole beach house scheme.

	Color Cues
	Valerie Moran shows you how to find your personal palette.

When Ken and Valerie bought the property in 1996, "the interior was weighed down by somber colors and heavy period woodwork," Valerie says. In particular, gilded swirls of gold-over-brown paint made a curlicued, 19th-century, 9-foot-high mirror frame, anchored into the hallway, especially ominous. "I said I had to either rip it out or make it fun," she recalls.

Then she glimpsed a trio of turquoise, flea-market ceramic oil lamps on her mantel. "OK," she thought, "I'll paint the mirror that color and give it a Disneyesque quality." Not one to dawdle, she bought the paint and finished the primer and topcoat by the morning's wee hours. "I liked it so much, the next day I painted the rocking chair the same color. Turquoise pairs blue and green, so I was off and running with my theme."

Walking through the house, Valerie ticks off star hues: "My blues are turquoise, of course, aquamarine, teal, sea fog, and robin's egg. Since I'm more of a 'green person' than 'blue,' there are more of them--kiwi, chartreuse, celadon, jade, verdigris, moss, pistachio, sage." For contrast, bright white gleams from the woodwork and other accents.

Along with wall color, the green-blue population of rugs, upholstery, artwork, lamps, pillows, window-blind tape, pottery, dishes, glassware, and small kitchen appliances effects an overall peacefulness. "It's a totally different energy from our city home," Valerie says. "You walk into that apartment and the colors seize you. The feeling matches our lifestyle there--all go, go, go. Here in Bay Head, we lie around."

But this furniture company executive's definition of lying around differs from that of the average person. After all, transforming this 11-room interior from mousy to magical took buckets of sweat equity from both Valerie and Ken in a fairly short time.

Before the color infusion, a few structural needs cried out, starting when Ken fell through the kitchen floor. "A leak from an upstairs tub," Valerie explains.

An associate general counsel for an international corporation, Ken--like Valerie--feels at home in the world's most glamorous capitals. But he's no stranger to grunt work. With their contractors' help, the couple tackled new concrete footings and triple-layer girders and so forth, then moved on to the fun stuff.