Our Charleston Home: Exclusive Tour
Our Charleston Story
Last year my family made the exciting decision to purchase a new home in Charleston, SC and I am ecstatic! After traveling to Charleston last April, I instantly fell in love with the city. The people of Charleston were all so welcoming, the low country was beautiful and there was so much to see and do in Charleston. I felt an immense pull inside of me to make this city a more permanent part of our family’s story and after taking another visit, this time with Mike, we decided to pull the trigger and purchase a home in Charleston! We purchased our new home in August and have made several trips back and forth from Maryland since. Our family has made quick trips, I have made solo trips to decorate and we even spent Thanksgiving there in 2022. With each trip, our house has felt more like home. We have put a lot of time and hard work into cultivating home, and I am so excited to say that it is finally done and ready for the world to see!
Styling Our Vacation Home
After purchasing all of our household essentials and getting them in place, it was time for the fun part—decorating! I have so looked forward to this part of buying a new home. I love the process of making a house a home. A lot of planning, searching and hard work goes into styling a home, but it is so worth every minute of it. When it comes to decorating a home, I like to focus on one room at a time to keep things from being overwhelming. However, in the early stages of planning, I like to think of the overall look and style I am trying to achieve for my house as a whole. This step gives me clear direction and a starting point as I begin on each individual room. Having a color palette, accent metal and hardware colors chosen and a general style in mind helps to ensure each room will flow together nicely and complement one another. My goal was to decorate our Charleston home in a classic, coastal style with a focus on blues, sage green and neutrals.
After the planning process, I then start to focus on larger items like furniture, rugs, and light fixtures. I like to choose these larger items before coming in with decorative accents like coffee table books, vases, potted plants, sculptural elements, accent pillows, and other accessories. For me, its easier to incorporate accents and accessories once the larger items are in place. When focusing on larger items, I also like to consider what art work I will have in a room because that can also effect a space greatly. If I am wanting a specific piece of art in a room, I like to hang or style that piece before choosing or adding in accents. Art can steer an entire room as far as style, size and color palette go. Below I am linking a few sources that I referred to while styling my home and choosing home decor. Now that you know a little bit about my decorating process, let’s take a look at each room!
How to Decorate with Neutrals
75 Best-Selling Products on Amazon
Best Area Rugs for Every Room and Every Budget
How to Decorate with Throw Pillows
The Living Room & Dining Room
This room was one of my favorites to work on because I knew it would be the space that friends and family would gather together for all the years to come. I so look forward to hosting family for the holidays, having family game nights and talking to my girlfriends in this room. When I first came across this blue velvet sofa, I knew it was made for our Charleston home! After choosing the sofa, I then began to look for large area rugs that would compliment the blue velvet well. After looking high and low for the perfect rug that was full of color, I found this Riffle Paper Co rug. The colors are perfect and the floral designs are the cherry on top—I absolutely adore it! In the process of decorating this space, I shared a Reel of me unboxing my budget friendly velvet accent chair with fringe with and you all fell in love with it. I received so many messages and comments about it! Because there is so much color and bold prints and art in the living room, I decided to balance the room out a bit with these neutral “birch” curtains from Amazon. I have fallen in love with wallpaper and post about it pretty frequently on Instagram, so it’s probably to no surprise that I incorporated this subtle petal wallpaper in my living room. Having a home in the South means ceiling fans are a necessity—especially in the Summer. I bought this white and gold ceiling fan from Amazon—you’ll notice I bought this same fan for several of the other rooms in this vacation home. The stunning palladian blue lamps on either side of the sofa are from The Happy Lamp Company—a company I just adore! They have the most beautiful light fixtures and value cultivating real relationships within their business. They’re an amazing company—you can follow The Happy Lamp Company on Instagram.
As you can see in the pictures, the living room slowly transitions into the dining room. Because they share a space, I was intentional to carry over complementary design elements and colors. I loved the idea of a chandelier that made a statement and opened up the room so I choose this gold geometric chandelier. In the living room there are hints of sage in the framed panel artwork and the accent tables are also sage, so I decided to carry the color over to the dining room. This floral block print table cloth is one of my all-time favorite Amazon finds—it comes in so many beautiful colors and prints! I have to mention my scalloped placemats and cloth napkins because they company that makes them, Fenwick Fields is incredible and creates such timeless products! What’s so great about my “Garden Green” placemats is they were designed to function as both placemats and napkins—now neat?! I know I’ve mentioned these faux hydrangeas a million times, but they truly are so realistic and the perfect kind of floral for a home we don’t live in full time (also the perfect type of floral for someone who doesn’t have a green thumb….me). The framed art in the dining room is from a small business I found on Etsy. After purchasing the prints, I downloaded them and had them printed and framed in these affordable gold frames. My favorite part of this space is the dining chairs. Can we just talk about how beautiful they are? These woven dining chairs are not only full of texture, timeless and comfortable, but they are also very durable which is a must when you have 2 little boys!
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The Kitchen
This was one of the first spaces I started buying for. Typically when you buy a home you are moving all your home goods into it and you don’t necessarily have to buy all new. Since this is a second home, we had to buy brand household essentials, furniture and decor for it. We realized very quickly that the kitchen needed to be the first area of the home to tackle. You don’t realize how much you use your kitchen and everything in it until you are starting from scratch. First things first, we needed the basics. I found these vintage drinking glasses (2 sizes available) on Amazon as well as this 18 piece white dinnerware set. There are some items I bought for this home that we also have in our Maryland home like these nonstick baking sheets, cooking utensil set, blender (on sale right now!!) and coffee maker. I also found this beautiful blue and white bow decanter set on Etsy—so pretty for entertaining and hosting! One of my favorite kitchen purchases was this healthy ceramic-coated cookware set. This cookware set's coating does not include potentially toxic materials like PFOA, PTFE, other PFAs, lead, cadmium, or toxic metals. They also refrain from using any form of hard anodization. I can’t wrap up this section without mentioning this stunning—and very affordable—scalloped console. Can you guess where its from?
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Highlight: Emily Ward Art
I absolutely adore and value original art, so when I discovered Emily’s art on Instagram I was so excited and immediately began looking for the perfect piece for our Charleston home. Emily is a native to South Carolina and has an incredible ability to capture the unique beauty of her home state. Her “Good Vibrations” original painting now hangs over my bar area and makes the most beautiful statement. Guests and friends on Instagram have asked so many questions about my original piece of art, so Emily and I decided it would be fun to offer prints so more people could enjoy this piece of art in their own home.
Stay tuned for the official launch of the “Good Vibrations” print. Here is a run down on what you can expect once they are released.
The prints will be professionally printed on 100% rag watercolor paper which is really high quality giclee printing (not something that can be produced from a regular printer). The paper sizes are all standard frame sizes: 8”x10”, 16”x20”, 24”x30” and 30”x40”.
Orders will only be open for 1 week on Emily’s website, so definitely be sure to order quickly once we announce the release. The best way to know about the exclusive release is my following Emily and myself on Instagram. You can also sign up for my Newsletter!
The Powder Room
There is more to be revealed with this space, but for now I am just sharing some powder room essentials for our family and for guests when they come for a visit. You can never have too many extra toothbrushes especially when you are traveling back and forth a lot and like to host family and friends. This Revlon infrared hair dryer is my favorite and very affordable. I have one at our home in Maryland and I keep one in our Charleston home. If you have followed along on Instagram for any length of time, you have probably seen me share this intense stain whitening toothpaste—it’s my go-to!
Our Main Bedroom
There is something so incredible about moving into a new home and finally getting your own room decorated and settled into. I feel like it is pretty normal for the main or primary bedroom to be the last on the list to style. Typically the common areas and kids’ bedrooms come first. I was so excited to finish our bedroom—I feel like I can fully rest now that it’s completed. The three colors I really wanted to incorporate into this room were green, blue and white—they’re just so classy and timeless, right? Because the entire room is this gorgeous blue and green linen rose wallpaper, I decided to offset all the patterns with all white bedding that has blue trim and this wingback headboard from Wayfair in Zuma White. Although my primary colors to work with were blue, green and white, I was sure to implement other complementary color like this beige/yellow herringbone throw blanket and also incorporated pops of color through all the coffee table books I styled on my dresser. As far as lighting goes, we hung a white ceiling fan and then found these ceramic lamps with a natural wrap and this burl table lamp from none other than Target. What primary bedroom is complete without a full length mirror? I found my arched full length mirror on Amazon and it is the perfect size (more sizes available).
I want to highlight my bedroom bedding because it is truly so beautiful. My scalloped bedding is by Madre Dallas. I went with an applique monogram on their gorgeous pique bedding. Hands down the most gorgeous bed linens I have ever owned. The ruffle is structured enough to stay fluffed up as opposed to flopping over. My dressers and night stands are from HD Marigold, a small shop here in Maryland. I had them transported down south and it was so worth it. While the shop is local to Maryland, the owner ships nationwide. My bow throw pillow is from The Socialite. The art you see hanging over my dresser was created by Ally Sheppard and I am absolutely in love with it! The color palette matches my room perfectly and the art itself brings so much peace to this space.
Be sure to follow these incredible businesses and artists on Instagram:
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The Guest Bedroom
I have to admit, this is one of my favorite spaces in the entire house. I love how light and airy it turned out! The soft blues, splashes of pink, and various prints and patterns in this room have won my heart.One of my favorite design elements of this room is the “Coastal Birds” wallpaper designed by the very talented Laura Dro. The color palette of the wallpaper is exactly what I wanted for this space and the White Egret, pagoda and botanical pattern is more than perfect for our coastal Charleston home. The grasscloth side tables brought soft texture to this space and the periwinkle dresser from HD Marigold added beautiful color and balance to the room. I’m not able to link the bedside table lamps, but here’s a similar of white and gold table lamps on Amazon and here’s a light coastal blue table lamp that I considered for this space. I have searched and searched for a link for the scalloped shell bedding, but I haven’t been able to find it online. The bedding is from Home Goods —maybe you will get lucky and come across it at your local store like I did. In this room, I wanted to incorporate lots of patterns, so when I came across this timeless blue and white stripe platform bed I knew it was the one. This platform bed does require both a boxspring and mattress—both of which I ordered from Amazon.
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The Boys Bedroom
Children’s rooms can be tricky. You want to decorate in a way that is fun and personal to you little ones, but you also want to style it in a way that is timeless and something they won’t grow out of in a few months. My boys will be sharing this room, so it only seemed right to purchase a bunkbed for this space. This navy blue bunkbed has a trundle is from Max and Lily and was the exact style we were hoping to find. The blue and white starburst wallpaper is from none other than Kristen Leigh and totally completely this room in my personal opinion. The wallpaper is subtle and ties in nicely to the navy bunkbed. On of my favorite pieces in this bedroom is this bungalow arch mirror—isn’t it beautiful! The mirror adds great texture as does the boys rattan side table and this budget friendly table lamp with a rattan lampshade. We chose this slate and ivory area rug for the room to add more pattern and because it is inexpesive and will hold up well with two little boys. We wanted a solid color for the curtains since we had so many fun patterns going on, so when we found these dark green faux linen room darkening curtains on Amazon, we knew they were the ones. It wouldn’t be a little boys room without some neat saltwater fish art work. I love these prints because they’re inexpensive and because it’s art that isn’t bound to a certain age. It’s perfect for their ages now and will work just a great in their room when their teenagers!
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Our Charleston Loft
This has been my go-to spot when spending time at our Charleston home. To me, this space just feels like home. It’s cozy, inviting and full of life. One way I like to add life to a space is by incorporating greenery and florals. I opted for faux plants and florals since this is a vacation home and we will not be living here full-time. To add some height in what could be deemed as an “awkward corner”, I chose this artificial silk Birds of Paradise Palm Tree and placed it in this woven basket. You’ll also notice the white dipped vase with faux hydrangeas in it—some of my all-time favorite faux florals! As far as furniture goes, I chose this white and cane door console from Target, a full length slipcover sofa, white slipcover loveseat, this storage bench with woven baskets and I found this gorgeous coffee table at HD Marigold in Maryland (they ship!). A few of my favorite accessories and accents in our lofts would be these agate coasters, blue and white stripe vase and this conch seashell that styled on the console. We also purchased a beautiful piece of art for the loft from Holly Brocato that we still need to hang.
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Our Home Office
This was the last area of our home that we finished, but I am so happy with the way it turned out. I work from home, so having a home office in our Charleston home was a must. What I love about this space is that it doesn’t feel like an office. Sometimes offices can be sort of bland or uninspiring, so I was intentional to add warm tones and textures as well as vibrant colors, art and different patterns. This white bamboo desk is such a timeless piece and fits the Charleston style so well. To bring some texture into this space, I purchased this rattan back office chair, tabletop coral accent and this cute woven wastebasket from Target. Not only is it pretty, but it’s also comfortable for all those long work days. This affordable blue table lamp adds color and also ties in the art hanging above my desk.
If you would like more home office inspiration, click here to see my Home Office Makeover for our Baltimore, Maryland home.
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