New England Coastal Living

Happy Summer, friends! I’m so excited to share some ideas for New England Coastal Living.

If this is your first time visiting my home. Welcome! I’m Danielle and I live in the heart of Scituate Harbor (a town South of Boston and about 40 minutes from Cape Cod) with my husband, two sons and two rescue dogs. I love New England Coastal Living and thought this post would be a fun way to share how to get the look in your own home. This is part 2 of our Summer Home Tour and I’m taking part in Krista’s Seasonal Simplicity Tour of Outdoor Spaces. Be sure to visit all my friends at the bottom of the post for more fun ideas.

What is New England Coastal Living & Style?

New England Coastal Living and Style is my favorite style! Think climbing roses, white fences, lots of blues and whites, weathered cedar shingles, white Adirondack chairs. New England Coastal Style celebrates beauty in the imperfect – gray teak, patina, faded and sun-bleached colors, rocks and sea glass worn by the sea. To me this imperfection allows people to at once feel calm and at home in a New England home. It’s comfort. It’s easy elegance. New England Coastal Style is timeless and classic.

Ways to Get the Look of New England Coastal Style for your Home

Weathered Shingles

The shingles on the front of our home are red cedar and with time and age they’ve weathered to a brownish gray. Our home was built in 1927. This look says easy elegance especially paired with sparkling white trim and the pretty blue of our front door and shutters.

Luscious Blue Paint

The color is Buxton Blue by Benjamin Moore in high gloss. This colors is beautiful in any season and I highly recommend it! I always get asked about it on social media 🙂

Use old fashioned plantings

On the side of our house we have wild climbing roses (they’ve gone very wild) and our bridal wreath was the most glorious this May. Look how spectacular it was.

I love our white azaleas and always fill our window boxes with seasonal flowers. I actually just took out the pansies so I’ll have to share post on our summer window boxes soon.

Our sunroom is just above these plantings and gets lovely views of our pool.

You will see we’ve used crushed shells for mulch and this adds to the New England Coastal Living vibe.

Add a pathway and a Secret Garden

We created this paver walkway the other year to welcome friends and family to our yard and pool area. Click here for the tutorial. You may also want to check out how this Sweet Autumn Clematis looks in late summer / early fall.

This walkway is so fragrant with all my peonies. I shared 5 flowering plants I love and you might want to check that out.

These peonies smell like heaven. Take a moment to smell them!

Okay, let’s head into the back yard!

Add Wisteria to a Deck

We have a love hate relationship with our wisteria. It has the most beautiful flowers in May that are fragrant and attract bees and it creates a lovely privacy for our back deck but it’s really invasive. We’ve loved having it for the past 8 years but thinking of replacing it with New Dawn Climbing Rose when we build a new deck next year.

For now this is how it looks this year:

Since taking these photos the flowers have passed and the vines and leaves have already grown in.

Create Calm Zones for Entertaining

We have several “zones” in our yard.

• A pool house for drinks and indoor fun. You can see more of that here.
• A fire pit area with white Adirondack chairs – it’s perfect for all different seasons to enjoy drinks and toasting marshmallows.
• A pool for summer fun
• A patio area on the pool deck
• A back deck (as seen above)
• Multiple gardens – vegetable gardens and a NEW cutting garden of flowers

Here’s a peek inside our pool house:

Grab this coastal watercolor free printable for your home, click here.

Add a Pool

4 years ago we added this pool and it’s the best decision we ever made! I think people thought we were crazy because we have 7 beaches in our town but this pool has provided us with a tranquil place to gather in our yard. My husband loves swimming laps and I practice yoga every morning on the pool deck. It’s such a lovely way to start the day – being able to see the sun rising, the clouds floating on the ocean breezes, and hearing all the birds singing.

You can read more about our pool reveal and my tips on adding a pool.

Luke and I built the retaining wall and did all the landscaping ourselves. I thought maybe I should share a before and after photo to help you see it took us time to create this space. Now after four years I’m so happy with how everything is growing in. It’s what I envisioned at the beginning stages of planning.

This space has brought our family so much happiness. It really is our favorite place to be!

Use Ornamental Grasses and Limelight Hydrangeas

We planted many sea grasses around the pool and fragrant limelight hydrangeas. Conor, our 11 year old, also has a sunflower which has become a perennial and it’s threatening to take over!

Comfy Seating

We have a variety of seating and lounging areas around the pool.

We loved our loungers so much we bought an additional one. They are from Ikea and look as good as the day we bought them. The other thing we love about them is they stack easily for winter storage.

I’m a huge fan of teak furniture and love that it weathers to a muted gray if untreated. You can see my favorite affordable sources here.

Our umbrella is from Ikea and much needed for shade in the hot summer sun.

Well, I think that about covers it for ways to achieve that New England Coastal Style.

Before I go, though, I want to share a couple shots from the past few nights of us enjoying this area. I snapped these with my phone but I think it gives a look at Real New England Coastal Living 😉

This was on our Father’s Day.

Conor enjoying this space with friends:

We spend most of our time outside in the summer and that’s how we like it! I hope you enjoyed this post as much as I did writing it and let me know if you have any specific questions.

Now check out some ideas from my friends below:

This week I’m joining some of my talented blogging friends for the Summer Seasonal Simplicity Series: Outdoor Spaces Tours! Be sure to check out all of the beautiful inspiration by visiting the links under the images below.

Sharing Wednesday….

The Happy Housie // Joanna Anastasia // Cassie Bustamante // The Tattered Pew

Life is Better At Home // Tatertots and Jello // Finding Silver Pennies // Lemon Thistle

A Pretty Life // Dans le Lakehouse // Clean & Scentsible // Willow Street Interiors

Sharing Tuesday…

Inspiration for Moms // She Gave it a Go // Grace in My Space // Deeply Southern Home

Life is a Party // Nina Hendrick // Happy Happy Nester // Craftberry Bush

Maison de Cinq // Hallstrom Home // House by Hoff // My Sweet Savannah