A pale blue upholstered sofa with many smallish matching throw pillows. The walls are a darker shade of teal. A black metal round side table is in front. Behind are a minimalist dining table (wood on top on a black metal frame) and gold leather-upholstered dining armchairs. On the dining table is a large amber glass vase filled with long leafy branches. Over the table hangs a chandelier of golden cylinders hanging at varying heights.
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The Best Coastal Style for Your Home

by Laura Grey No Comments
A woman in white sits on pillows on a white round rug on a veranda. Next to her are a bamboo fence and over her is a lattice of bamboo poles from which hang loosely woven rattan lanterns.
Tropical? Cape Cod? Rustic? Rarified? What’s your favorite coastal style? | Rachel Claire for Pexels

When you think of coastal homes, what regions and home styles come to mind? There are as many types of coastal home style as there are coastal regions. Take time to consider what seaside settings feel most beautiful and comfortable for you. For example, you might create a relaxed and elegant modern Polynesian, Caribbean, or Hamptons-style seaside environment with modern coastal decor. It’s tempting to pick and choose elements from many different coastal locales, since they’re all so beautiful. However, mixing many regional styles throughout your home can make a home’s decor feel confused and inharmonious. A home that focuses on a particular seaside regional style will usually feel most cohesive. Let’s look at ways that you can choose the coastal style that works best for you.

For more coastal home design inspiration, check out my article Coastal Interior Design.

Coastal Style Is Often Hyperlocal

Coastal home-dwellers usually have sentimental attachments to their homes’ locations. A seaside home may have been in the family for generations. Its location probably feels very special to you.

However, going overboard with your own regional motifs can make a home feel cluttered. Large amounts of themed decor can lead a home’s interior design to trend toward kitsch. It’s natural to feel pride of place and want decor specific to local history or attractions. However, if you fill every nook and cranny with local fishing or maritime tchotchkes, nautical decor, or tropical motifs, your home may end up looking like a museum, a theme motel, even a souvenir shop. Maybe you like that! If so, jump right in. But if you’d like a more coordinated and relaxing environment, you might want to simplify your decor.

Bold palm-patterned wallpaper and a palm lampshade are the stars in this pale grey living roomo with grey marble brick walls and grey-stained wood floors, a grey linen sofa, grey-green leather chair with a tweedy throw, and matching low, glossy white coffee table and TV credenza. A pink flamingo is slightly visible peeking out from behind a monstera plant.
It would be hard to miss this room’s luxe tropical vibe | Designecologist for Pexels

Consider following the old decorator’s tip, and keep themed decorative decor to 10% or less of the total. Let an overall coastal feeling imparted by other furnishings do the heavy lifting. This creates a more relaxed, elevated, and streamlined setting. Don’t overcrowd floors or surfaces with too many elements. Leave enough open space to make navigating your home easy and keep your place feeling airy and soothing.

Is your favored coastal spot a vacation home? You’ll find more ways to keep it feeling relaxed but chic in my article Stylish and Serene Vacation Home Decor.

Focus on a Single Region

Particular regional decorating motifs, especially those related to local flora and fauna, have special meaning to locals. But mixing different coastal regions’ motifs in one home can look confused and mismatched. For example, the palm tree motifs that so elegantly decorate Hilton Head Island’s homes might feel out of place in a Kennebunkport cottage in northern New England. Mixing elements from Montauk, Maui, and Miami Beach could end up looking disjointed.  

A glossy white enameled credenza with Deco silver hardware stands in front of a wall covered in palm-patterned wallpaper in subtle shades of beige. A living potted palm stands to the right of the credenza.
Sometimes style mashups mix well—Caribbean lushness and sleek modernism work here. Colors are neutral, potted plants bring add color and life, the scale of the wallpaper and gloss of the credenza feel luxurious, and the seating looks posh but relaxed | Max Vakhtbovych for Pexels

Consider elements of your favorited location that impart a local flavor without being too direct about it:

  • Yearn for a Carribbean home? Lush tropical plants, cane-seated carved mahogany chairs, dark greens, and soft white sheers hanging from a four-poster bed look at home here
  • Love Nantucket? Consider white wooden mantel surrounded by built-in, glass-fronted book cases, white moldings and baseboards, and upholstered furniture covered in slipcovers of blue and white ticking fabric
  • Want a Malibu bungalow vibe? Try a midcentury modern teak-framed sofas and chairs with cream-colored bouclé cushions and cool terra cotta tile floors
  • Miss your honeymoon Balinese villa? Think about low wooden platform lounges with simple unbleached linen cushions, rattan circle chairs, large wicker-shade pendant lamps, and seagrass rugs
Two upholstered wood and metal MCM-style arm chairs flank a low round pale wood side table and a black-and-white patterned upholstered round footstool on wooden legs. Behind the chairs is a brick wall painted white with wood and brass book shelves built in. White disc sconces with round golden centers hang on the brick wall above the chairs. At left is a seagrass-covered large vase that holds long feathery sea grasses in front of a window. At far left is a vintage stereo component cabinet with a turntable and vinyl records.
Emre Can Acer for Pexels
Sonnie Hiles for Unsplash
Leah Kelley for Pexels
An airy open-plan home with tall ceilings, white walls, pale beige stone floors with seagrass carpets, bleached wood coffee table with pale blue pots and baskets on top, beige and white striped sofa, basketry on floor, taupe kitchen cabinetry, a beaded chandelier, and in the distance, an open grand piano.
Bruce Clark for Pexels
A close-up of a traditional wicker peacock chair and a tropical plant
Charlotte May for Pexels
a dark wood bookcase and two dark wood club chairs with cream cushions contrast with white walls and high ceilings. A taupe velvet sofa, pale parquet floors, an area rug with squares of various shades of aqua lies below a large glass coffee table with a gold frame. The gold is echoed in a large gold-framed mirror over the formal fireplace with a gold and white mantel. Photos of beach scenes surround the mantel. A flattened, circular and textural white cushion-shaped light fixture hangs over the central coffee table.
Vincent Rivaud for Pexels
Even in neutral colors with minimal themed beachy decor, seaside homes from casual to formal and minimalist to maximalist provide comfort, drama, style, and loads of personality

Set the Stage

Many coastal homes are vacation homes used for fairly short periods each year. Vacation home owners tend to avoid putting a lot of money into the larger, more expensive furnishings, and instead focus on decor. But adding more decor usually compounds the problem, making a home feel more cluttered. If you want a truly relaxing home, whether year-round or for holidays, focus first on the space itself, and then on larger furnishings. These should be clean, comfortable, and compatible with the coastal style you’ve chosen to feature. (Of course, you don’t need to emphasize relaxation if you don’t want to! If you’re looking for something eclectic, bold, and vibrant, who cares what I think? Do what you love.)

Start with the big elements (like paint, furniture, rugs, and lighting). Make sure they support your regional coastal style. By the time you layer in decor elements later, the room will feel much more complete and cohesive.

Does the Style Work with Your Architecture?

A long white-walled room with lots of tall windows. The high celings and the floor are covered with medium-toned wood blanks. A caramel leather sofa is at right below the windows. At left are a wooden table and dining chairs with black metal legs. The effect is minimalist but warm and textural.
Though this coastal cabin is long, thin, and boxy, the caramel leather sofa and slender dining furniture fit the shape and size of the room. The wood ceiling, floors, and furniture and the warm colors keep the room from feeling cold. The watery grey-blue kitchen cabinets mixed with the warm sandy tones bring beach colors inside | Andrea Davis for Pexels

You can apply a coastal style to many different home types, from Victorian to midcentury modern. But sometimes architecture and furnishings work less well together. The more pronounced a home’s own architectural style and materials are, the more you may want to follow its lead in choosing a style that works with it.

For example, if you have a Spanish style coastal home near Santa Barbara, decorating it in a traditional Cape Cod style could look confusing. A home with a pronounced architectural style usually looks best when the structure coordinates with its decor. Instead of adding white wainscoting to smooth blue walls and pale wood floors, as you might in New England, a Spanish or Mission-style Southern Californian coastal home asks for different materials. It would be well served by including terracotta tiles, white plaster walls, a rustic oak dining table, and hand-woven linen table runners. Displaying collection of regional Indian pottery or basketry would be a respectful nod to the local history and culture. The textures, colors, and colors would also complement each other well.

Consider styles that mix well

A monochromatic room with only beige and white elements: white walls, beige textured rug on a pale parquet wood floor, a sheepskin throw rug, a beige knitted pouf footstool with a beige boucle chair and sofa (both in MCM shapes), and woven wicker round mirrors over the sofa. A low marble-topped tripod table acts as coffee table. All furnishings are low and textured but colorless.
A light-filled but neutral MCM room with organic textural materials and lots of soft round elements feels perfectly at home in a seaside setting | Spacejoy for Unsplash

A home in a strong style, such as an early 20th century Craftsman, could work well with a lodge or other mountain style. They share the use of dark woods with strong grains, thick support beams, and powerful horizontals. They also tend to have rather dark interiors with lots of woods that look great with warm colors. A midcentury modern (MCM) house with a strong horizontal orientation and open-plan rooms could also work with a lodge style. MCM handles boxy geometric shapes and organic curvy shapes equally well.

Midcentury homes can be surprisingly versatile. MCM homes usually work well for beachside bungalows because of the midcentury emphasis on openness. MCM houses also use lots of sliding doors and picture windows, which let in lots of light. Midcentury homes with pale beige or golden woods pick up the sandy colors of the seashore. Their open plans also allow for long views toward the ocean.

Some styles make better partners than others

Consider the house you have and the look you want. Compare their shared shapes, colors, materials, or orientations (heavily horizontal versus highly vertical). If you can imagine them sharing color palettes, textures, and major pieces of furniture, you can probably mix them successfully.

One Way to Mix It Up

A Mediterranean-style veranda with mottled amber-colored walls and a white ceiling from whch hang Morocan-style glass and brass lanterns. At right is an arcade of arched openings ; large terracotta pots of plants are between each arch. At back the archway opens to a dark corridor which enters the house. At left is a wall against which is a large wooden chet topped by a teal vase full of papyrus branches. At the foreground is a wooden armchair with cream cushions. On the floor covered in large pale tiles is an amber area rug.
You can mix different coastal regional styles in your home—just keep different styles in different rooms if you want each room to feel cohesive and calming. Using the same or coordinating colors in adjoining rooms keeps moving from one space to another from feeling jarring | Maria Orlova for Unsplash

Maybe you’re devoted to displaying coastal elements from many locations. You can make this work! Just keep the style consistent within each room (or within adjoining rooms that connect to each other visually).

You might go for a Cabo San Lucas kitchen and family room, a Bahamian bathroom, and a South Beach bedroom. It’s your home—make it feel as fun and fabulous as you want. But I’d recommend keeping colors compatible in rooms that connect with each other so that colors don’t clash when you look through open doorways.

Remember, decorating guidelines aren’t rules, they’re just suggestions—do what pleases you most.

Clutter Isn’t Luxurious

No matter what style you choose, if you have to move your trinkets to make room to put your feet up or your plate down, you probably have too much decor on display. Every home benefits from ample space to stretch out and move around. Open spaces feel luxurious, so don’t feel you need to fill every wall or bit of floor with. Let your home breathe. Feel free to store some decor pieces, then swap the stored pieces with those on display occasionally. This avoids clutter. What’s more, rotating decor gives your eyes new things to view and enjoy throughout the year. Give your home plenty of natural light and good ventilation, and provide a good mix of public and private spaces. Now kick back. Ahh—isn’t it good to feel at home?

At top:

Relaxing cool blues and whites get a boost from contrasting warm amber and contemporary gold pendant lamps in this chic modern coastal home | Max Vakhtbovych for Pexels

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