Botanic Bleu: Bulletin Board Inspiration No. 8 | French Country Coastal Decor

A Paper Series Post

Summer is flying by! Before it slips away, I created a bulletin board for coastal decor inspiration with a French Country twist. France has miles and miles of coastline from the far north Normandy region down to the southern Riviera making French Country Coastal an authentic phrase for French decor ... and for style of living.

Ideas for blending French Country and coastal decor

La Mer (the sea) offers sights, sounds, and feelings with countless images to conjure fun-filled hours of a day, a week, or a whole summer. Cool blue and white color schemes echo water, skies, sea creatures, and coastal architecture.

Only recently, I saw a blend of simple coastal decor and traditional French Country decor that makes a perfect pairing.

Bulletin Board Inspiration

No. 8

French Country Coastal

French Country Elements

Blue and white banner letters with fleur de lis in each letter

Previously, I created custom blue and white letters with a unique fleur de lis in each letter for use in banners. Links to other posts with them are at the bottom. So, I had an inkling in the past to connect coastal decor with French Country, but only in a small way.

Using brass fleur de lis and Eiffel Tower tacks to pin the La Mer letters and paper pages torn from magazines and catalogs adds more French Country decor to the bulletin board. Yet, once again, not new for me since I use the same tacks on most of my bulletin board inspiration.

Ready to see the French Country coastal look that inspired this new bulletin board?

Toile wallpaper with seaside decor is a fresh take on coastal decorating

Westwind Toile wallpaper on a bedroom wall in a seaside home brought French Country design and seaside decor together!

Toile patterns are typically monochromatic scenes of everyday life, often pastoral scenes. A Frenchman in the mid-1700s began printing Toile de Jouy (fabric of Jouy) as competition to Chinese made fabrics. The fabric gained favor with the French, including royalty. While the word toile originally meant fabric, today toile most often refers to a pattern of monochromatic scenes and is considered French Country style.

Westwind toile wallpaper creates a coastal design for a blue and white bedroom

The pattern layout also plays a role in calling a design toile. The staggered repetition of items clumped together is part of toile style. Each small scene is a vignette of its own connected to the other small scenes in the pattern by a theme. In the Westwind Toile wallpaper, the theme is coastal living. Small scenes that make up a seaside town are distinctly separate from each other, yet clearly connected to each other.

The monochromatic navy and white outlines printed on the paler blue background is a classic color scheme for coastal decor.

Coastal Elements

Coastal design includes round windows that a nod to nautical portholes old cruise ships, modern yachts, and naval vessels

Coastal decor appears all over the world since many countries have ocean boundaries. Seaside simplicity is often expressed in views of the sea through windows in seaside cottages that allow nature to be the focal point without competing with indoor furnishings.

Round windows are a nod to nautical portholes on old cruise ships, modern yachts, and naval vessels.

Hues of blue and turquoise sea coral, starfish, and sand dollars provide classical coastal decor colors to any room

Coral, starfish, and sand dollars in hues of blue and turquoise instantly add coastal touches. Michel Design, a beautiful brand for home fragrances and kitchen linens, currently has three coastal themes.

Add coastal design to bathrooms and kitchens with candles, soaps, and kitchen linens.

The Shore is a new Michel Design collection this year.

The three coastal collections include a variety of candles, home diffusers, hand lotions, both bar and foaming soaps, paper napkins, cotton kitchen towels, pot holders, etc... Search online for Michel Design to locate sites to buy the products to add coastal decor to kitchens and bathrooms.

Inspiring coastal decor ideas include a bulletin board of paper clippings

A blue translucent cloche and a starfish decorated glass hold collected seashells and starfish to complement my bulletin board of inspiring coastal decor ideas.

Catalog pages on a bulletin board provide ideas of how include similar coastal decor for summer

The inspirational catalog page on the bulletin board shows white shells and coral on the navy chest. To create a similar large seascape accent piece, I stacked four real starfish inside the tall glass cloche.

A single white shell tied with navy twine at the top of cloche adds coastal design for summer

A single white shell is tied with navy twine through a small hole in the top of the shell.

A glass decorated with a glass starfish is perfect for holding small shells for coastal decor during the summer

A cluster of small shells are inside a glass with a glass starfish. The starfish was melded into the glass during production.

Look closely to see a small hole in one of the shells inside the left side of the glass. That is how I found the shell on the beach. That is also like the hole through which I tied the white shell to the top of the cloche.

French Country Coastal

The fleur de lis pins the white shell to the navy bulletin board through a small natural hole creating a French Country Coastal blended design element.

Where the Bulletin Board Is Displayed

A French Country coastal bulletin board sits on a chest between a country kitchen and living room

The stone fireplace separates the kitchen from the living room and is visible from both rooms. This spot is my favorite place to decorate since it is both the kitchen and living room. This view is into the adjoining kitchen.

French Country coastal bulletin board sitting at the end of stone fireplace provides inspiration in both kitchen and living room

Take a couple of steps toward the kitchen and look the opposite direction back into the adjoining living room.

Pin a photo of a French Country coastal bulletin board to Pinterest boards for future inspiration.

Pin the photo to both your pinterest board for French Country design and for coastal decor for inspirational ideas to decorate your home in the height of summer.