Beach Houses

As promised, a thrown-together post on beach style, inspired by This Young House.

John and Sherry's moodboards often include elements that scream "BEACH!" at me--natural, textured neutrals, light and airy colors and fabrics, and touches of beachy blue.  Their latest Design Dilemma moodboard especially got me thinking: Shelly's Design Dilemma, based in part on Shelly's Floridian love of ocean colors.

So I threw together (really, in about five minutes) a little collection of beachy things on polyvore:

Beach by shadowofaseraph on Polyvore.com

The Ikea Ektorp couch has always reminded me of beach-type furniture: poofy, traditional, and utterly neutral (so that none of the possible renters of your beach house will be offended by your furniture).  Hang a beach-scape print over that poofy couch, add an ottoman with those seagrass baskets with seashells in them.  The side-tables don't match--ideally, they'd be castoffs from your actual house, and at least one of them should be wicker.  Ditto the lamps, but for a little extra flair you might add in a new one in a beachy blue, or a capiz chandelier.

I actually spent some time this spring in a particularly interesting beach house in South Carolina--it was over 100 years old and furnished mostly with things the owners had gotten rid of over the years--with the exception of big matching lamps on the nightstands, and matching white iron beds in the attic:

I loved the light in that space, and the great view of the ocean.  Note, again, the slightly tacky (and redundant--the beach was right outside the window) beach painting on the wall.  The porch was even better--huge, right on the beach, white with black shutters, lots of rocking chairs and daybeds and a hammock--but I'm keeping that one to myself.  It's too good to share right now.

Apartment Therapy had a post on beach house style about this time last year: Beach House Inspiration.  Their inspiration photos are more modern and less thrown-together than my idea of a beach house, but the focus on neutrals and sunlight keeps it beachy, with the occasional piece of driftwood thrown in for good measure.

I found a post from Desire to Inspire as well that features a decidedly beachy design: Jodi Macklin.  Most of the photos are from a Macklin-designed summer house with all sorts of coastal accents.  I especially love this shot:

The white floor!  The huge porch!  The poofy cushions!  The seagrass chair!  It's probably not hurricane-proof, but it's b-e-a-utiful.

And this one:

This would be the little girls' room in the beach house, decorated more extravagantly than the adult quarters.  Turquose and bright pink are so Florida.

I think that's all I've got today--I probably won't get to the beach this summer, so I've got to dream somehow.

Girly Room

Girly Room by shadowofaseraph on Polyvore.com

After making the manliest manly man room I could last time, I decided to go for "girl" here.  And oddly enough, Wulfy said he kind of liked it *facepalm* I think he's just not picky as long as he's not really involved in the process.  I also really liked this when I made it (that tufted gray chair is so cool) but now I think it's kind of lacking.  Maybe too semetrical?  Maybe the walls need more color?  I was trying to go for a "collected over time" look with the art, but maybe it didn't succeed or the scale is off or something.  It's hard to get things on scale, that's one advantage of the true mood-board as opposed to the mockup.

And I will probably be spending time in my apartment-to-be this weekend, so I may take "before" pictures to share.  If I'm not attacked by the many pointy Christmas ornaments in storage down there first.

Compromise, + ohmigod apartment

I figured out how to use polyvore.com for interior design purposes.  The results aren't quite as crisp as photoshop, but it took half the time:

Boyfriend Room - by shadowofaseraph on Polyvore.com

My boyfriend, Wulfy, is a manly manly man who vetoes a lot of my favorite things as "too girly" to live with.  This room he thinks is still girly, but livable.  I think if it got much more manly, it would be a cave furnished with antlers and animal pelts.

But at least we both like the couch, and especially the Andy Warhol print.  He likes the green chair, I have a thing for wicker.  I wanted a zebra stripe rug, he didn't.  I wanted a paper lantern, he picked the style.  I picked those tables without him though, because I love them oh so dearly.  That stripey wood is so pretty to me right now.

And in bigger, better news:  I may have found an apartment!  No more dorm for me!  I couldn't stay on campus next semester anyway, and I wanted to stay in town over summer because this place comes alive in warm weather, it's a great place.  So an older relative who lives in town offered to let me live in the apartment in her basement if I help fix it up.  My family are all packrats, so cleaning out her basement is no small task, but it will definitely be nice to have a place even marginally my own.  She might even fix up the bathroom down there, and will likely fix dinner for the two of us on a regular basis.  Oh joy oh joy!