Coastal Interior Design

Maybe you’ve spent a weekend in a beachside retreat and thought, “I wish I could live like this all year long.” But what is it about that coastal cottage life that most appeals to you? The great views, the sounds of the sea, the quality of the light? Perhaps you love the relaxed colors, weathered textures, and laidback feel of a seaside spot. It could be a longing for the luxury beach houses in your favorite TV shows or movies. Films like Something’s Gotta Give and TV shows like Grace and Frankie are famous for inspiring the “coastal grandmother” lifestyle and design trends. They celebrate a luxe-casual vibe—elegant and sophisticated fabrics, colors, and materials create a spacious, inviting atmosphere. But you needn’t live on Martha’s Vineyard to create a coastal interior design oasis in your home.

Traditional vs. Modern Coastal Style

Modern coastal interior design is a fresh, contemporary take on seaside home style. Traditionally, seaside interiors relied on recognizable elements that instantly evoked the idea of a holiday beach cottage. These included nautical and maritime symbolism, such as lighthouses and anchors; images of sea creatures and seashells; rustic beach shacks, tiki huts, or palapas; or tropical elements like potted palms, large rattan chairs, and bamboo shades.

These subjects can be beautiful, even elegant. However, people often believe that they must stick to an ocean-related theme in every element of their homes, from walls and furniture to every piece of decor. Modern coastal style certainly incorporates some traditional elements expected in a seaside home, but gives interiors a more pared-back, lighter, modern twist.

If you want lots of traditional seaside decor in every room, use it in abundance and enjoy! You’re in great company. If instead you’re going for a contemporary, sophisticated, relaxed but luxe look, consider using such decor more sparingly. Use softer colors, be liberal with open spaces, avoid clutter, and choose a few focal pieces that feel special and personal to you.

Traditional coastal interior design elements

Here are a few elements that appear frequently in seaside homes:

• Pale to medium-toned wood floors covered in sisal, seagrass, or braided rugs (though in the Hamptons, dark wood floors often provide a rich contrast to white furnishings)
• Bamboo chairs
• Blue and white color schemes
• Driftwood
• Glass-ball fishing floats in knotted rope
• Model ships
• Shell collections
• Bowls of sea glass
• Wooden fish or seabirds on stands
• Framed engravings of seashells
• Historical engravings of ships
• Oars and paddles hung on walls
• Nautical charts
• Painted wooden buoys
• Palm trees
• Peacock wicker chairs

These classic choices feel at home in a contemporary or traditional coastal home. Although they impart a maritime feeling, they’re neutral enough to blend with other elements subtly and tastefully.

The coastal grandmother lifestyle

Shortly after influencer Lex Nicoleta coined the term “coastal grandmother,” it went viral. People of all ages loved the lifestyle fantasy she inspired—the kind of relaxed, casual yet elegant life lived by the heroines of movies by director Nancy Meyers. Coastal grandmothers may often be retired, but they’re fit, chic and active. They seek out the highest quality in everything they see, do, taste, or wear. Imagine Jane Fonda in Grace & Frankie—never a hair out of place, a cashmere throw ever at the ready. Coastal grandmas relax with a good book in the reading nook, on a window seat, sprawled on an classic cream-colored sofa, or on a teak chaise longue facing the sea.

Coastal grandmothers cut fresh flowers from their perfect gardens. They take beach walks in perfectly pressed linen dresses, then cook bouillabaisse for 20 of their closest friends to enjoy at perfect dinners on the patio overlooking the sea, a la Martha Stewart or Ina Garten. The whole aspirational fantasy involving dreamy $20 million beach homes isn’t accessible to many. But beautiful modern coastal style is—albeit on a more modest scale.

Sophisticated? Free-spirited? It’s up to you

Do you gravitate toward the relaxed elegance of coastal interior design? Would you prefer a more rustic home? Or are you a maximalist who likes a bold seaside home with plentiful, vibrant decor? No particular style is “correct”—the right style is the one that makes you happiest.

When I was a kid, it was common to see coastal homes decorated with fishing-oriented decor:

• Brass wall sculptures of fish
• Plaster fish
• Vibrant tiles with sea creature motifs
• Fishing rods and nets used as decor
• Sport fish mounted on walls

Other beach homes went displayed a nautical theme and celebrated maritime life:

• Paintings of boats and lighthouses
• Wooden or metal boats
• Sailors’ knots mounted on boards
• Glass floats tied in string or twine
• Painted wooden buoys

Some of these decor elements appear in elegant coastal homes like the stylish coastal beach house in the TV show Grace & Frankie. However, that home’s architecture, quality materials, setting, and furniture are the real design stars. The set decoration includes a reasonable amount of sea-specific decor, but it never overshadows the home or the fine furniture.

The Downside of Themed Decor

It’s fun to dot a coastal home with seaside-themed furnishings. These add local color and atmosphere. But if every element in your home follows a theme, your place can look like it’s dressed for a costume party.

If you’re going for a modern coastal interior, you’ll want a serene, elegant environment. The ample use of knick-knacks that gives kitschy beach houses their charm works against the calmer, less cluttered modern coastal aesthetic.

Decorators recommend limiting themed elements to no more than 10% of your home’s decor. That means the other 90% can be elements that support the theme, but aren’t specific to it. These might include blue walls, jute rugs, raw linen, whitewashed wood, rattan lamps, and butcher block counters.

Which Modern Coastal Style Is Your Favorite?

Modern coastal interior design can combine elements of minimalist, midcentury modern, shabby chic, English cottage, and Scandinavian design styles. There are as many variations in coastal home style as there are coastal regions. Which coast do you have in mind? The south fork of Long Island? Australia’s Bondi Beach? The French Riviera? One popular modern coastal setting is a cottage on Cape Cod—think sea-glass-inspired wall colors and paintings of clipper ships. Maybe you’d prefer an Art Deco apartment in Miami—perhaps one with a bamboo sofa or chair?

Consider what seaside settings feel most beautiful and comfortable for you. You might create a relaxed and elegant modern Polynesian, Caribbean, or Hamptons seaside environment in a modern coastal style. However, mixing decor from all three in one home could feel a bit confused. A home that focuses on one seaside regional style feels most cohesive.

To learn more about how to create coastal style rooms you’ll love, read my article The Best Coastal Style for Your Home.

What’s essential to you?

What must you absolutely have in your seaside home? A teak daybed with creamy linens? A denim-blue sectional? Lush houseplants in textured white pots of all shapes and sizes? Picture windows hung with white sheers, or beige grommet-topped linen curtains? Wedgwood blue walls, white wainscoting or beadboard, and Roman shades with ticking stripes? Note which colors, shapes, decor elements, spaces, and fabrics pop up in your beachside fantasies. They’ll lead you toward the style that feels best to you.

Let’s focus on the main elements that give a home that airy, relaxed coastal vibe: color, texture, shape, lighting, and materials.

How to Avoid Clutter & Kitsch

Visually crowded rooms look busy. They even make some people feel anxious. Filling homes with large amounts of decoration, especially when it all follows a theme, can lead to a kitschy quality. Modern coastal style avoids using a lot of bright and busy decor. Here are a couple of ways to give your rooms that modern coastal feel.

Create focal points in each room

If a room feels disjointed or busy, highlight just two or three elements. Look around and see what grabs your eye. Remove distractions. Leave open surfaces on tables, floors, and countertops. Now focus on a couple of starring players. Maybe you have a model ship for your mantel, or you use a rustic footlocker from your dad’s days in the Navy as your coffee table. These make terrific centerpieces with personal meaning. Modern coastal interior design takes a light hand with themed items. This keeps furnishings from competing with one another for attention.

You can add more decor pieces in addition to your focal elements—place glass lanterns filled with candles on top of the trunk, for example. Or fit a few large shells—a conch, a triton, maybe a large clam—among the books in your bookcases. Avoid displaying many tiny things at once; focus on a few medium or large pieces to avoid clutter (or gather all small things together to display in one place). Mix a patterned chair or two with neutral solid sofas to add interest.

Asymmetry adds interest

To keep from feeling too formal, avoid overdoing symmetry. Instead of putting a tall vase or model ship in the center of your mantel, for example, place it off to one side. Add a cluster of candlesticks of different sizes on the other side. Move the bowl, tray, or pile of books away from the center of the coffee table; leave one side of the table open. Placing things a bit off center, or balancing a cluster against a larger single item, will create a more dynamic arrangement. This keeps your room from feeling static.

Cluster similar elements

To display numerous related things in one place, consider a feature wall. You might display them in a large bookcase—alternate special items or small framed images with clusters of books. Or hang an assortment of artworks (paintings, drawings, framed fabrics, baskets, plates, etc.) together on one wall, gallery-style. This makes a collection read as one large item. This way, a single bookcase or gallery wall becomes the room’s major focal point. To balance out the business, decorate other walls in the room more sparsely. You might place a large macrame and driftwood hanging on one wall. Then add a pair of 19^th century Japanese prints with sea views to another wall. These add personality without fighting for attention. Leave plenty of space around the pieces on these simpler walls to make each item easier to appreciate.

Coastal decor needn’t be too literal

You needn’t hang nautical or fishing decor on every wall to make your home’s theme clear. Just use furnishings that complement your favored themed decor.

Complementary elements include ocean or other pale natural paint colors, seagrass carpets, or abstract paintings in watery blue-greens. A tray holding antique blue and lavender glass bottles, each with a single flower or branch, is stunning. Such a centerpiece made of natural elements complements a coastal home beautifully.

Rely on Relaxed Natural Colors

Consider your palette. What colors do you want to feature on walls and major furnishings? Coastal interior design tends to use plenty of white, cream, and sandy tones to evoke the quality of light near the sea, creamy seafoam, lazy clouds, and sun-bleached driftwood.

Soft blue tones are natural partners to creamy white and sandy beige. Modern coastal spaces tend to use lots these colors in decor and furnishings. You can also use only warm tones in a coastal home, if you like. A few contrasts—warm highlights in a mostly cool palette, or vice versa—help bring life to a room. If you take a light touch, you’ve many choices.

Greenery adds color & texture

Modern coastal homes tend to be largely neutral. Adding plants and fresh flowers adds welcome pops of color that don’t overtake a room. I like using lots of monochromatic, textural planters to add visual interest without grabbing too much attention. White planters with textured surfaces bring a sculptural quality, but don’t fight with the shapes, colors, or sizes of larger furnishings. HomeGoods and TJ Maxx stores carry a wide selection of well-priced, textural white planters each summer.

If your coastal home will stand empty for more than a few days at a time, and you don’t want to decorate using fake plants, decorate with sprigs of greenery. Cut a few long (18” – 24”) leafy branches from shrubs or trees in your garden and place them in a tall vase or pot. Don’t be afraid to let a few branches arch languidly over the table or counter. You needn’t bunch them up together; let them spread out like a houseplant would. These will add liveliness and friendly curves, bringing the outdoors inside, and won’t cost a thing.

Coastal Art

Images of seascapes, ships, fishing boats, sea birds, seaside streets and houses, bathers on the beach, and lighthouses are popular subjects for coastal art. Of course, you’re free to display whatever subjects and styles you choose in your home. You needn’t choose a traditional motif. Whether you choose art featuring a classic seaside subject or something entirely different, consider displaying original art instead of reproductions. Unique original pieces add liveliness and personality. They can turn an otherwise neutral room into a magical space.

If gallery art is out of your price range, check out local arts fairs where you can buy art directly from artists. If you can’t afford their prices either, consider museum exhibition posters featuring water-related or coastal imagery. They’re large, affordable, and attractive, and they don’t need to be matted. Add poster frames from Michael’s or Blick and they’re ready to hang.

Engravings, linocuts, or woodcuts—both contemporary and vintage—are often affordable. I quite like 18^th and 19^th century Japanese prints of boats, water scenes, or seaside villages. These provide great style, and are timelessly elegant without being stuffy. Vintage or antique engravings of ships, beaches, or shells are other classic options. Because they’re such popular subjects, engraved art featuring these motifs is readily available at many price points.

Other modern coastal decor

Macrame wall hangings made with cotton or natural twine work wonderfully in a coastal home. Their intricate knotwork echoes the knots made by sailors. Coastal interior design often incorporates this kind of handicraft and texture in a room. If hung on a stick of driftwood, the piece incorporates elements of the beach itself.

Decorating with shells is a natural. Consider large shells like conchs, whelks, tritons, helmets, or nautilus shells—they’re highly sculptural and pack a punch. Cluster smaller shells for greater impact. Place three or more medium-sized shells in a bowl, on a tray, or on a shelf or table.

Glass art evokes the sparkle of water, and looks beautiful on a tabletop, on a windowsill, or hanging directly in a window. It needn’t depict a typical beach scene to fit into a seaside aesthetic.

Texture Adds Coziness

In any room, but especially one with lots of neutrals and white, textures add interest. They catch light, make shadows, and simulate movement. Sure, you’ll want some smooth and glossy surfaces to reflect light and bring sparkle. But if all your surfaces are smooth, a room can feel colder and less welcoming, even if it’s colorful and bright. Layer contrasting rough and smooth elements to create a space that feels cozy, welcoming, and built naturally over time.

Here are ways to add texture and sparkle to your coastal home:

• Hand-woven cotton or linen table runners and throws
• Carved wooden sculptures, bowls, or boxes with strong woodgrains
• Chunky knitted throws or pillows
• Handmade ceramic bowls and platters
• Hand-carved wooden animals
• Carved wood-handled tools or antique kitchen implements
• Black-framed metal lanterns
• Rounded glass shapes, e.g., glass bowls full of glass fishing float balls
• Mirrored trays
• Mercury glass vases
• Add potted plants and vases full of greenery
• Needlepoint or embroidered pillows
• Braided rugs

Woven elements

Basketry and woven wicker furnishings come in many natural materials, including rattan, reed, willow, and bamboo. I’d save synthetic wickers for outdoor use—they’re practical, but lack natural color and patina. Natural materials add depth and character.

Woven furnishings go well beyond just seating or baskets. Wicker headboards, trays, and pendant lamps can also add warm natural colors and texture to your home.

Woven bamboo look great made into a large mat on a tile floor. It also makes chic placemats.

Floor coverings

Beachside wall-to-wall carpeting captures sand, which wears rug fibers down quickly. It can also look oddly formal in a seaside environment. Instead, try pale wood, terracotta tile, or sealed cork floors. Shake rugs out regularly to extend their life.

You can top wood or tile floors with low-pile area rugs. Natural fibers like seagrass or sisal echo the seaside grasses outside. (Note that they do discolor with heavy repeated wear, like any carpet, but can’t be steam cleaned. They need regular upkeep to stay looking good.) If you’re looking for a seaside feel for a year-round home, but aren’t near sand and water, a Berber wool carpet gives a softer but still low-pile texture under your feet. It wouldn’t hold up as well to actual beach conditions, however.

If you like tile but terracotta’s not your thing, consider textured wood-look ceramic tiles. They won’t splinter, curl, or show water damage like wood does. Sand and water won’t wreck them. If you use stone or ceramic tiles, choose matte, textured options. Glossy tiles are slippery when wet.  

Porcelain, stoneware, & other ceramics

Ceramic pieces, whether heavily textured and highly finished, are great additions. Highly textured Danish modern ceramics feel at home in a coastal setting. Or choose more minimalist ceramics for a chic modern touch. I’m a fan of Jonathan Adler’s sculpted white bisque animal sculptures, lamps, and vases. They’re contemporary, but inspired by midcentury modern shapes. Adler’s pieces bring both whimsy and sophistication to a home. Just be moderate in how many you display at once to avoid clutter.

Like houseplants? Neutral, textured white planters look great in coastal spaces. I go for white or cream-colored matte-finish glazed planters. I like them with embossed shapes and textures. Mixing white planters with textured dots, stripes, triangles, and other shapes adds subtle texture that doesn’t tire the eye. I rarely buy more than two of a kind, choosing instead to mix shapes, sizes, and textures for a casual, collected-over-time look. Because they’re all matte with a similar neutral creamy color, they mix well. I cluster them by type and size for variety.

Porcelain pieces tend to be more formal. However, using a variety of blue and white porcelain, ceramic, or jasperware plates, bowls, vases, ginger jars, and lamps can feel simultaneously traditional and fresh.

I love the look of mismatched blue and white patterns, shapes, and sizes clustered together on a feature wall. They’re timeless and charming.

What About Shapes?

Modern coastal homes are often minimalist and boxy. Nature, however, tends to be curvy and irregular. To keep your home feeling organic and natural, incorporate curves in your furnishings and decor elements. Mixing soft and hard surfaces also makes a room more comfortable. A room full of hard walls, floors, counters, and case goods wants some squishy surfaces to sink into. It benefits from having soft textiles hanging from curtain rods, draped over seating, or made into pillows or floor cushions. Rooms full of straight lines tend to look cold and feel uncomfortable without some contrasting curves.

Curves soften a space

Even when the materials they’re made from are hard or stiff, curved furnishings make a boxy space feel more welcoming:

• Plants in round planters
• Pendant lamps with round globes or curved shades
• Arc floor lamps
• Mirrors with round or oval frames
• Trays and platters in oval or circular shapes
• Round bowls, candleholders, or vases
• Cylindrical vases filled with curving branches
• Round area rugs
• Rectangular area rugs with large curving or rounded motifs
• Camel-backed dining chairs and sofas
• Upholstered club chairs with curved backs

Furniture shapes & patterned upholstery

Have a traditional piece of furniture that you’d like to incorporate into a modern coastal home? Upholster it in an unexpected patterned fabric to make it feel new. For example, despite its traditional shape, your grandmother’s wing chair would look fresh and modern recovered in a subtle but casual fabric like a raw linen, creamy canvas, denim, or ticking. The combination of a more formal shape with an informal fabric reads as interesting and a little cheeky, but not loud.

Shape can take the form of patterns on textiles, too. You might choose a simple, boxy chair or sofa, but upholster it in a fabric patterned with bold shapes. I love a soft blue and white ikat fabric, or a navy and white Japanese shibori print—the patterns are bold, but the colors are classic. The TV show Grace & Frankie features an upscale coastal beach house with bold medallion-patterned chairs, but the pattern is in a subtle terracotta brown. Using a traditional bold pattern on contemporary furniture with a simple silhouette is unexpected and stylish. It brings character to a room. Just keep the colors subtle.

The Magic of Coastal Lighting

One big draw of a traditional coastal home is the view. If you face water, your interiors should make the most of that. Orient them toward outdoor views and light. Not actually on the water? Create a coastal feeling with ample warm interior light. Place reflective elements like wall mirrors and mirrored trays, metallic objects, and decorative glass pieces around your home to bring sparkle indoors. This mimicks the reflection of sunlight on the ocean.

Mirrors add light to dark corners, make spaces look bigger, and add interest without looking too fussy. Old mirrors with worn or cloudy areas show history and personality. Put these damaged mirrors in hallways or other areas where they’ll reflect light but won’t be used regularly. Save the good quality, undamaged mirrors for places like bathrooms and bedrooms.

Themed mirrors that have cutouts of shells or lighthouses glued on may feel a bit obvious for a modern coastal home. For a subtler look, use simpler frames. Frames that feature natural beachy materials, such as frames covered in shells or small bits of driftwood, can go whimsical or elegant. It all depends on their execution.

Materials

Coastal interior design often mixes materials with beautiful inherent characteristics. These include elements from nature, such as wood and shells, as well as human-made items things like glass, ceramics, and textiles. Here are some traditional architectural elements that add instant charm and elegance to a seaside home:

• A large white (or pale wood) mantelpiece above a fireplace
• Built-in glass-front cabinets
• Cornice and crown moldings
• Wainscoting or beadboard on walls
• Butcher block kitchen counters
• Honed (not glossy) white marble counters
• White quartz countertops
• Wide wood floor planks in pale to medium colors
• Glossy pale blue or dark blue kitchen cabinets (often mixed with white cabinets)
• A white apron or farmhouse kitchen sink
• Window seats with upholstered cushions

Once the house itself feels like a coastal retreat, you can layer in furniture and other decor items. Here are decor materials that feel particularly comfortable in a coastal home:

• Patchwork and quilted fabrics
• Braided rugs
• Drinkware and dishes made of textural Finnish glass
• Polished brass
• Bulky knitted throws and pillows
• Textured rugs made of natural fibers like jute or seagrass
• Handwoven fabric
• Linen
• Shells, including abalone (mother of pearl)
• Basketry—woven wicker or grasses

Space

Another important element of relaxed coastal interior design is the home’s layout and use of space. Here are a few elements to consider:

Floorplan

• Does the home have good flow, with wide enough doorways and hallways and enough space around counters or islands for people to move comfortably and efficiently?
• How accessible is your home? Can people in wheelchairs or with walkers, crutches, or other assistive devices easily access everything they need to?

Furniture placement

• Is the furniture placement practical for daily living?
• Do unnecessary furnishings or decorations limit movement around a room?
• Is there enough space left around each piece of furniture to allow for easy access?
• Are all doors and hallways unimpeded?

Clutter

• Do decorative items or random piles of things clutter up countertops? There should be space in a room for you to put things down on an open surface at any moment.  
• Having sufficient unfilled space creates a feeling of luxury, openness, and calm. That airiness is a key to the serenity of modern coastal interior design.
• Do all toys, games, decorative elements need to be out at once? Store some away and rotate them as necessary to declutter, and to make stored items feel fresh when they come out again.

Coastal style is serene, refined, and welcoming. It’s a beautiful, timeless choice for a primary or a vacation home, and one that mixes well with other styles, too.

At top:

Modern coastal interior reaches beyond coastal homes. Beach colors, natural materials and textures, open space, and natural light convey relaxed serenity. This elevated version of a coastal room goes light on themed coastal decor elements. It still gets the coastal feeling across by incorporating natural coastal colors and materials, and balancing light colors with a bit of dark wood | Bruce Clark for Pexels