Decorating a beach house for Christmas

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, so get in the spirit with these ideas to decorate your home with a coastal twist.

Punch up your palette with color or keep it white and delicate. Fresh green sprigs will always add that holiday touch.

Adding some sparkling silver will make a festive statement.

Decorate a Christmas tree outside.

Make your own Christmas Wreath with treasures from the beach.

Decorating a beach house for Christmas

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, so get in the spirit with these ideas to decorate your home with a coastal twist.

Punch up your palette with color or keep it white and delicate. Fresh green sprigs will always add that holiday touch.

Adding some sparkling silver will make a festive statement.

Decorate a Christmas tree outside.

Make your own Christmas Wreath with treasures from the beach.

Sensibly Shabby Beach Bungalow

Room-by-room, Françoise O'Neill transformed her derelict cottage into a chic little shack. She calls her style Sensibly Shabby.

All-white interiors and 10-foot ceilings create the illusion of space in this tiny cottage. Françoise filled her home with "regal rejects and relics"―items found in thrift stores and flea markets―most of which she has refreshed with white paint.

Pictures from Coastal Living Magazine

Sensibly Shabby Beach Bungalow

Room-by-room, Françoise O'Neill transformed her derelict cottage into a chic little shack. She calls her style Sensibly Shabby.

All-white interiors and 10-foot ceilings create the illusion of space in this tiny cottage. Françoise filled her home with "regal rejects and relics"―items found in thrift stores and flea markets―most of which she has refreshed with white paint.

Pictures from Coastal Living Magazine

Coastal Living's 2009 Idea Cottage: Space-Savvy Design

Right-Size Living

The next big thing in architecture is right-size living. That means using money-saving, environmentally sound materials to build a smaller but savvier house in which no square inch is squandered yet luxuries still abound. With its eco-friendly construction and beach-chic feel, the Idea Cottage in South Carolina, shows how to live large in a small footprint.

Design Trick: Pull the palette all the way through a room―essential for cohesion in an open space. Here, a poppy-orange chair and plum pillows echo the stairwell and den beyond.

Favorite Detail: The bold portrait by Molly B. Right, fashioned entirely from bottlecaps (even the eyes!). So intricate up close, so striking from afar.

Favorite Detail: tiling an entire wall, not just the backsplash.

Designer Trick: Paint every surface―walls, trim, and bookcases―one rich color like this dark eggplant for a seamless look.

Favorite Detail: Planting between pavers. Soften hardscape with low-maintenance strips of green between easy-to-install concrete squares.