5 Ways to Effortlessly Pull Off Coastal Grandma Style
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Even non-grandparents can reflect coastal grandma style, a social media-fueled trend. It’s a lifestyle choice for anyone—easy-breezy and airy, less seaside kitsch and more coastal chic, big on gardening, entertaining, and home decor.
How the Trend Started
TikTok creator Lex Nicoleta kicked off the trend with her coastal grandmother musings about Diane Keaton in Something’s Gotta Give and Meryl Streep in It’s Complicated, in all their neutral-cotton-sweater-and-linen-pants-clad glory. Celebrities like Anne Hathaway and Selena Gomez have posted pictures of themselves in grandma chic style—men can also pull off the look with cozy shawl-collared sweaters and linen shirts.
The Coastal Grandmother Lifestyle
In sea-green kitchens, coastal grandmas whip up salads with heirloom tomatoes from the farmers’ market and bake loaf cakes (don’t be shy about the butter and sour cream). Also, they like a nice glass of pinot grigio with their linguini and clams.
On their kitchen table is a fragrant bowl of lemons and garden hydrangeas in an antique ginger vase, near a wildflower-imprinted linen tea towel. You don’t have to live at the beach to lean into the aesthetic. Try adding a touch of sea living with an Adirondack chair or even peel-and-stick wild beach grass wallpaper.
The beach-inspired look has always been popular, but this current take is more modern and pared-down. Here’s how you can get that coastal grandma style.
Annie Schlechter; Interior Designer: Allison Elebash
Mood and Inspiration
To put yourself in the right mindset, envision the clear and cool natural light you encounter on an early morning walk on the beach. Coastal grandma style has a duality: Relaxed yet refined, casual but elevated. It conveys a warm, inviting, laid-back luxury without being overtly cozy. The lines are clean, and the designs are unembellished and minimal.
Palette and Pattern
Coastal color is a range of subtle simplicity. Start with 50 shades of white, ivory, and cream, all mixed together. Then layer in neutral tones borrowed from nature—stone, sand, sea, and sky: Tan and beige, taupe and greige, and pale, watery blues. Introduce accent colors like deeper blues and shell pink with a light hand. Use little to no pattern, and keep it simple and abstract if you do.
Annie Schlechter
Materials and Texture
Natural fibers like cotton and linen are the go-to choice for fabrics, from light, gauzy sheers to heavier twills and canvas. For accents, think touchable—chunky knits, nubby bouclés, maybe even some tailored fringe. Various weaves of natural fibers like rattan, jute, sisal, raffia, and seagrass come into play for accessories, furniture, and rugs.
Add seagrass baskets to hold throw blankets or pillows. Woods take their cue from driftwood—light, bleached and whitewashed. Hardware in metals like brushed nickel keeps the feeling soft and sophisticated.
Make it Your Own
Whether you’re ready to commit to coastal grandma style with a total room redo or simply wish to join in on the trend by adding a few elements to your existing decor, here’s a cheat sheet to get the look.
Scent
Fill the air with a fragrance that follows the feeling for an uplifting interpretation of coastal grandma style that requires little work. Scented candles, like White Waves and Salted Sands, hit the mark in more ways than one. Fragrance oils in scents like linen and sea spray release slowly over time via a diffuser; you can get a similar effect with scented wax cubes melted in a wax warmer.
Paint
A quick color change conveys a coastal mood without much expense (a gallon of paint can be less than $30)—paint a whole room or tackle a smaller project like the inside of a linen closet or a single accent wall. Or try transforming a piece of furniture with a new color to fit the trend.
Indoor Decor
Gauzy window coverings and rugs in natural jute or faux natural fibers are a good way to ground the room with breezy color. A few carefully chosen coastal-inspired accessories can easily fit right into your home. Lush flowers always feel right. Arrange mounds of hydrangeas in a vase or bowl or peonies in a pitcher (all in white porcelain, of course).
Accessorize a tabletop or sideboard with family photos in frames with rope or rattan details and pillar candles in clear glass hurricane holders. Toss a throw in a luxe knit-like chenille and some new tactile pillows on a couch or chair—look for neat cotton fringe or substantial knits in a chunky or sweater style. Around the room, you could add a mirror in rustic wood or wicker, weathered wood lamps with linen shades on end tables, or woven baskets for on-trend storage.
Tabletop
Coastal meals are easy and fuss-free, served on a mix-and-match selection of white platters, bowls, and white dishes set at each place. Coastal grandma style is perfectly complemented by a nice California chardonnay, or a Long Island rosé savored from simple wine glasses.
Bed and Bath
For the breeziest bedroom and bath, think white cotton. The utter simplicity of coastal style calls for luxurious, textured materials. So for towels, choose the plushest cotton you can find, and while you’re at it, swap out your shower curtain with a tone-on-tone white design.
For sheets, go with a high thread count. To finish the look, update your bedframe with an upholstered linen headboard and add a cotton waffle blanket to the foot of the bed.
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