Most vacation rental kitchens look exactly the same. White cabinets, stainless steel appliances, a generic backsplash tile that nobody chose with any real intention. They're functional in the way airport restaurants are functional: nothing wrong, nothing memorable.
We didn't want that. The dining room at Terra Luz needed to tell the same story as the rest of the house, which means Old Havana warmth, grounded materials, and design choices specific enough that you could only be in one place.
The dining table looking toward the pool. Glass doors open completely, and the patio sofa sits just past the threshold.
The terracotta wall and what it anchors
The dining room's east wall is terracotta, a deep burnt orange that pulls from the same warm palette as the living room's TV niche. It's textured plaster, not flat paint, so the surface catches light differently through the day. In the morning it glows. By late afternoon it deepens.
That wall exists for one reason: to give the teal credenza and floating shelves something to push against. On a white wall, that color combination would be cute. Against terracotta, it becomes a whole specific mood. Dawn Asher designed the room so that everything layered onto that wall has a reason to be there, and nothing competes with anything else.
The credenza and shelf vignette
The teal sideboard under the shelves is a painted, upcycled piece, not something that came off a warehouse floor. The color sits in that particular sweet spot between sage and seafoam, warm enough to read as vintage and cool enough to hold its own next to the terracotta wall behind it. On top: a retro Bluetooth radio, a stack of books including a Cuba travel guide and a World Whiskey volume, and a leather-bound Terra Luz guestbook resting on a woven rattan placemat.
The full credenza and shelf vignette. The floating shelves hold a Havana street print, a Cafe Bustelo illustration, and black and white photography from a Cuban street.
The two floating shelves above it hold framed prints: a Havana street scene in full color, a graphic cactus print in sage, a Cafe Bustelo illustration, and a pair of black and white photos that look like they came from a magazine shoot in 1960s Old Havana. There are trailing plants tucked between the frames, which keeps it from reading as staged. A globe floor lamp stands to the right with a warm white globe shade, and it lights the whole wall with soft glow in the evenings.
The goal was to make this corner feel like it belongs to someone. Not a hotel styling exercise but an actual place where someone with a specific taste lives.
The table that seats eight
The dining table is a solid wood slab, natural grain, seating eight around rattan bistro chairs with cane backs. Eight seats at a vacation rental in Indio isn't an accident: the house is designed for groups of six to eight, and everyone should be able to eat together without anyone ending up at a card table.
The table centerset: a turned wood fruit bowl piled with oranges, Talavera tile coasters, a teal beaded table runner with geometric pattern. The fiddle leaf fig is in the corner by the window.
The table styling is very deliberate. A turned wood bowl sits in the center piled with navel oranges, which is the simplest version of the Cuban domestic aesthetic: real fruit, real wood, nothing artificial. A teal and cream beaded table runner runs the length of the table with a bold geometric pattern. Talavera-style ceramic coasters sit stacked beside the bowl, red flower on white clay, and they're the kind of coaster that guests actually pick up and look at rather than just using.
The chairs are rattan bistro style, the material language that Dawn specified as non-negotiable for this house. No plastic wicker, no painted chairs, no chrome. Natural material, warm tone, something that feels like it belongs in a courtyard.
The kitchen itself
The kitchen is fully equipped and not precious about it. Gas range with a white enamel range hood, granite countertops, open wood shelving with a bold graphic tile backsplash in black and white. The tile pattern is geometric and sharp, which gives the kitchen a different energy than the warm terracotta of the dining room. They're in direct sight of each other, and the contrast works: the kitchen says function and the dining room says atmosphere.
The gas range, open shelving, and graphic tile. The spice rack on the fridge panel is stocked. Coffee station sits to the left of the range.
On the open shelves: amber glass tumblers, green glass tumblers, hand-thrown ceramic mugs in brown and blue with patterned glaze, and a driftwood piece on the top shelf that you'd only understand as decorative. There's a chess set tucked on the counter near the microwave because we had space and it felt right. The knives are serious knives in a wood block. It's a kitchen someone actually thought about.
For coffee there's a Nespresso machine and a French press, with Cafe Bustelo in the cabinet. If you're the kind of person who noticed the Cafe Bustelo illustration on the shelf vignette, you'll appreciate finding the actual can in the kitchen. The coffee setup on the counter has a blue ceramic pour-over dripper and a Craft Coffee book propped against the tile, which is a little much but it scans correctly in the photos.
Kitchen and dining in the same sightline. The open plan keeps whoever is cooking part of the conversation.
The indoor-outdoor connection
The dining room's best feature is the glass sliding doors that open completely to the patio. When they're open, the dining table and the outdoor sofa are essentially the same room, divided by nothing but a threshold. You can bring food from the kitchen, eat at the table, and slide sideways into the patio without ever fully committing to indoors or outdoors.
That flow is something we thought about from the beginning of the Terra Luz renovation. The pool, the outdoor kitchen, the covered seating area: they're all designed to pull people outside, but the indoors needed to be connected rather than competing. The glass doors are the mechanism for that. On a warm Coachella Valley evening, leaving them open feels less like a choice and more like the obvious thing to do.
We're also planning a pass-through window from the kitchen to the patio in 2027. The kitchen and patio share a wall, and a properly configured pass-through would make it possible to hand food and drinks directly from the stove to whoever is sitting outside without walking around. It's a small thing and a real one: the kind of detail that makes a vacation rental feel like a house that was designed for how people actually use a house.
For now, the flow works as is. The glass doors stay open all weekend. Cafe Bustelo brews in the morning and the oranges stay in the bowl until someone eats them.
If you want to see how the outdoor side of this connection was designed, read the outdoor living post. For the full story of what the Terra Luz renovation was and what it became, read what I built.
The house is available to book now. Rates start around $350/night depending on the season. You can check availability at indigopalm.co/terra-luz.
What appliances and coffee setup does the Terra Luz kitchen include?
The kitchen has a gas range with a white enamel range hood, granite countertops, and open wood shelving. For coffee, there's a Nespresso machine, a French press, and Cafe Bustelo stocked in the cabinet. The open shelves hold amber and green glass tumblers, hand-thrown ceramic mugs, and a proper knife set in a wood block.
How many people does the Terra Luz dining table seat?
The dining table is a solid wood slab that seats eight, sized to match the house's capacity for groups of six to eight. Chairs are natural rattan bistro style with cane backs. The table sits directly in front of glass sliding doors that open to the pool patio, so indoor dining and outdoor evening can overlap without anyone having to commit fully to one or the other.
Does the kitchen connect to the outdoor area at Terra Luz?
Yes, glass sliding doors off the dining room open completely to the covered patio and pool area, making the indoor and outdoor spaces essentially one room on warm evenings. A pass-through window from the kitchen to the patio is planned for 2027, which will allow food and drinks to go directly from the stove to guests sitting outside. You can see how the outdoor side was designed at the outdoor living post, and book the house at indigopalm.co/terra-luz.
What is the design aesthetic in the Terra Luz kitchen and dining room?
The dining room has a terracotta textured plaster wall that anchors a teal upcycled credenza and floating shelves holding framed Havana street prints, a Cafe Bustelo illustration, and trailing plants. The kitchen runs a contrasting graphic black and white geometric tile backsplash, which creates distinct energy between the two spaces while they stay visually connected in the open-plan layout.