Before you even unpack your suitcase, sort through the stacks of accumulated mail or restock the refrigerator, it hits you. You wish you were still on vacation. "On vacation, your time is your own," JoAnn Scotton of Pelham said. "You control when you eat, when you sleep and when you get up. It's so relaxing. Then you get home and life starts again. You have to worry about things like what to make for dinner."

No wonder so many people end up with post-vacation blues — that short-term sadness that hits when a trip ends. As Scotton said, "You're a free spirit on vacation. Then, suddenly, your spirit is crushed."

But Rona Brand, owner of Color Consults, a Nyack-based interior decorating business, said there are ways to prevent post-trip malaise. "All you have to do is keep the vacation memories alive," she said. The easiest way to do that is to bring objects and images back from the trip and incorporate them into your home décor.

Brand suggests bypassing souvenir shops and other places that sell tourist oriented trinkets. Instead, she said, use vacation shopping sprees to indulge your passions. "The key is consistency," she said. If you buy a painting in Paris one year and a rug in Arizona the next year, "it won't pull together to evoke an emotional response.

"The objective is to develop a collection that inspires you," she continued. Multiple objects create more impact than individual objects scattered around the house, she said.

"The objects don't have to be expensive. They just have to be things that have meaning to you, so you will enjoy and use them, and feel a connection with your vacation when you do," she said.

For example

• If you love pottery, buy vases of similar size or color on every vacation. Group them on a shelf or tabletop.

• If you love cartography, buy an antique map in each location you visit. Place each one in similar simple frames and display them together on one wall.

• If you return to the same beach cottage year after year, photograph it each season from the same vantage point to show evolution over time. Then display a series of the images on canvas or in frames.

• If you fancy plates, collect 10-inch or 12-inch plates — or plates of varying sizes but similar colors. Display them in a china hutch and use them at dinner parties.

• If you're a seashells or beach glass collector, pick it up on beaches whenever you travel. Then display them in groupings of jars or bowls, or use them to hold flowers or candles when entertaining.

On her own vacations, Brand collects black-and-while pen-and-ink drawings, which she displays on a dining room wall. She says just looking at them refreshes her vacation memories.

Because she and her husband like to sail, she also photographs the offbeat and witty names that owners give their sailboats. She plans to mat and frame multiple images and display them, too.

"What's the difference between the feeling you get being at home and the feeling you get someplace on vacation? I'm not a psychologist, but I know that if I look at something that has meaning to me from a place I've visited or hold something in my hand from that place, then I feel reconnected," Brand said. "It takes me right back.

"I have a friend who collects beach glass. She puts it in a bird bath in her kitchen, where she can pick it up and run her hands over it whenever she pleases."

The sight, the touch and the colors of the vacation memories are significant, decorating experts stress. Brand said color is an especially powerful design tool. Studies show that the color of paint on a wall, for example, can have a dramatic effect on both body and mind and significantly affect a person's physiology and emotions.

According to experts at The Rohm and Haas Paint Quality Institute in Philadelphia

• Red increases blood pressure, heartbeat and energy in most people and instills feelings of intimacy and passion.

• Orange, like red, tends to warm a room, but in a more friendly and welcoming way.

• Yellow is also warm and welcoming, but has an inherent sunny feel.

Blue and green evoke feelings of calm and tranquility because they are reminiscent of the colors of the sea.

The Color Marketing Group, an international Denver-based not-for-profit association that forecasts color trends, said consumers are seeking emotional connections with color. The two most influential to emerge this year are aqueous, "a blue inspired by spa influences and ocean hues," and rubino, a raspberry red "heavily influenced by the upcoming 2008 Beijing Olympics as well as global influences from Central America and India."

Kathleen Nesi, an artist and owner of Kathy's Kreations Inc. in Pelham, said travel often inspires the color choices of her clients. Nesi does decorative painting and faux finishing. To recreate the mood or feeling of a vacation spot, her clients may ask her to tap into certain color palettes, she said.

If they have traveled to the Tuscany region in Italy, for instance, they may ask her to use red, gold and browns. If they have been to India, they may want purple, gold and red, along with intricate design elements. Greece inspires coastal colors of blue, green and white and French provincial influences include blue, yellow and cream.

"Texture and design play roles, too. If you're trying to evoke a country French or Tuscan feel, you could have textured walls, while an Indian or Italian mood could be recreated with ornate stenciling," she said.

"A person who has just visited the Sistine Chapel may feel inspired to paint the fifth wall — the ceiling — of his own home. It doesn't have to be as elaborate. It could just be simple stenciling in the corners of the room. But it could be just enough to bring back some sense of that wonder that he experienced abroad and keep the vacation memories alive," Nesi said.