The Blue Warehouse Kitchen of a Dallas Landscape Designer

Landscape designer Robert Bellamy built his Dallas home from the ground up around a set of salvaged warehouse windows, and the kitchen sits open to the whole loft-like space, five minutes from downtown. Robert has lived on this property for nearly 40 years.

Trained in fine art before falling for architecture and plant material, he runs a residential landscape design practice and loves building things — which is exactly how this kitchen came together. The counters are set high because he's tall and does the cooking himself. Rather than built-in work surfaces, he uses maneuverable chopping blocks he can pull around for cheese and wine, or scrape off straight into the sink.

The blue happened by accumulation. He'd been traveling through London and France and started with a blue backsplash and stainless steel. Then he painted the door blue. Months later, wandering the yard, he decided to carry the blue onto an exterior wall, and it kept morphing all the way under the steps — an architectural decision that took about four months of looking.

The art is half the room. A pots-and-pans still life found at an antique store for $150, which he calls the kitchen he'd have if he lived in Paris. A composite-concrete milk carton sculpture from Chicago that every guest picks up and questions. A wooden figure and a small alligator he restyles constantly among the fruit and vases. Beyond the kitchen, a dining room anchors the center of the house.

A heavy glass-and-metal door there, made for another building, brings texture and weight rather than a view, while a landscape painting on the far wall does the work of a window.