Now that Spring has sprung, it’s a good time to plan your vacation or, in these hard times, your staycation. A day in Bayonne, NJ may not seem like Spring time in Paris, but if you start out with a mission- - like exploring “Color in the City”, you might have as much fun as I did exploring the Hudson River waterfront.

It all began when my true love transformed his 70s-something traditional kitchen into a sleek, modern one via the magic of new maple cabinets, zippy stainless steel appliances and Benjamin Moore’s ‘Silver Spring’ color paint. The next thing we knew, warm breezes and a Bayonne warehouse sale lured us out to search for new kitchen chairs . . . and for adventure.

‘Struck out on the chairs but followed our noses through decrepit warehouses, huge cranes and multi-colored containers to the water’s edge. “IT’S ALL ABOUT THE VIEW,” boasts Bayonne Harbor in its plan to transform this run down Peninsula into a lofts/shops/harbor paradise. From here, the NYC skyline DID look amazing and so close that I reached out and offered Lady Liberty a chair. (She looked a little green.)

Feeling spurned by her silence, I turned, looked up and saw a Scottish castle? A lighthouse? Perched 100 feet above the harbor was the Bayonne Golf Club tucked into rolling green hills and long, golden grasses. Here a N.J. native inspired by Irish/Scottish links, played “like a kid in a sandbox” with 7 million cubic yards of Hudson River sludge, to create this dreamy Ballybunion on the Hudson. ($4.00 car toll but no plane ticket needed for me to get there.)

Next Stop: Guttenberg, N.J. to see my ancestral Home-on-the-Hudson. Winding our way through bustling avenues of Cuban and Chinese eateries I spotted the bright red sign, ‘Israel Paint’. Here was the paint store and apartment above owned by my grandfather and father. I felt that I had returned to Some Place Like Home.

In Spring, in our places and in our lives, it’s all about . . . transformation.

TIPS:

•'Foreign’ places exist on your doorstep. Be adventurous and explore places that others are re-imagining.

• Think about what your best future life would look like. Re-imagine your home using paint colors and other design elements to express that best life.

• Check out Janovic’s Colorfest Contest to catch a ‘webisode’ of how I use Design Psychology to create transformational, winning space.

To learn more about Toby Israel, the visionary founder of the new field of Design Psychology, click here.

Copyright Toby Israel, 2009.