Ah Venice, I can taste you and smell you and feel your warmth from here.... ME. Sitting in a cold apartment, on an east coast of Australia winters day unable to take my annual trip to the States because of a global pandemic. Cool.
Annnnyway, let's look on the bright side and journey in our imagination to live vicariously through gorgeous design. Today, to the iconic, surprising, and bohemian beautiful Venice Beach on the LA coast, best known for it's canals, beach front performers, vendors, muscle men, and art. Full of interesting history and homes, including modernist, minimalist mansions, surf-side bungalows and everything in between, let's take a leaf out of the areas style files and create the Venice Beach vibes in our own interiors, minus the flights!
1. BRING MURALS & SCULPTURE INDOORS
If you've ever wanted to paint art on the walls of your home, consider this your permission slip and call it Cali coast inspired. Whether you paint a realist mural or play with colour and pattern - who cares, have at it - because art is art if you say it is! Feature living room wall of a different kind anyone? Feeling like you want to fling some paint around your bedroom in lock-down madness? Or keen to keep your wallpaper masterpiece a secret discovery for the powder room, basement or even the garage?!
Same goes for sculpture - bought, found or DIY-d - embrace the artist within and live with creativity.
And remember, even existing items in can become art when you simply display them as a statement - think, hanging that giant rug on the wall, popping that beautiful broken ceramic pot on a tall black plinth, or polishing that white paint spill on the concrete floor and calling it a day.
2. INJECT LUXE BOHEMIAN BEACH VIBES
Bring boho seaside vibes into an otherwise boring interior by swapping out basic light fixtures with over-sized rattan pendants over staircases, entryways, dining tables and kitchen islands. Layer rugs wherever there is floor and wherever you wanna be cosy underfoot, and display crystals chunks, large (faux) coral and shells, weathered linen bound books, and warm it all up with wood tones.
Luxury can come from size and scale, simplicity of colour (think muted bohemian patterns over brights), and letting natural details have their space to "speak," rather than brand names necessarily. In fact, sometimes too many boldly designer brand logos on display has quite the opposite effect. Keep it chill and chic, not clunky or kitsch - verging on eclectic, but not messy.
3. YOU CAN NEVER HAVE TOO MANY PLANTS...
It may be a growing trend (getit, getit?!) right now, but you could almost say the Venice Beach locals have loved the leaf life for a lot longer and been big advocates for the more the merrier in the house plant movement! Actually, inside and out, layer your bookshelves, bedsides, kitchen nooks and cabinet tops with a diverse array of living decor - in all shapes, sizes, colours, and containers, for all sorts of climates, seasons and sunlight streams.
4. EMBRACE THE OUTDOOR ROOM
You cannot live in a place with that many days of salty sunlight in a year and not extend your living areas outside! Embrace an outdoor room to suit your home's climate - coast, country or city - with practical eating seating, toasty fire-pit, all-weather screening, more potted plant life, and all the soft furnishings for long comfortable sunsets and late night star-gazing.
"Venice Beach is incredibly quiet at night: no streetlights, no traffic, hummingbirds in the garden, palm trees everywhere."
- KT Tunstall
