Easy-Breezy Summer Decorating Ideas

Shift Your Home's Style With the Seasons

It’s summer at long last — wondering what your home will be wearing? The tried-and-true ideas we’ve assembled here are like a deliciously floppy hat or an over-the-top caftan: This decor and DIY inspiration is easy, evocative and just plain fun. 

Accent With Textural Pampas

One of the biggest decor trends of the year has been the addition of pampas grass in the home, its wheat-toned plumes offering a dreamy, rustic look wherever you put it. The gorgeous Pampas grass adds soft, fluffy texture that brings the outside in, and provides a relaxing vibe to any space and design style. Look to local craft stores and greenmarkets for dried stems, or pick up West Elm’s faux versions.

Try Retro-Cool Rattan

This ottoman/table is a clever use of negative space: Check out all that usable surface area minus the visual weight of a solid piece! It’s also a comparatively low-key way to channel the glorious kitsch of old-school outdoor furniture without making your room feel like a faithful recreation of your Nana’s balcony in Boca. 

Deploy Floor Cushions

Make the most of cozy area rugs by turning them into spots for sprawling under the ceiling fan with a cold glass of lemonade. These bright cushions beckon vacationers to gather ‘round the coffee table — and provide additional casual seating that doesn’t make this living room feel crowded.

Lighten Up Textiles

As you make the bed in warmer months, opt for lightweight shams and toss pillows in pale hues with natural fibers like nubby cotton and linen. They offer the seasonal satisfaction of dressing in preppy-perfect linen pants.

Explore Jungle Prints

Bathe in tropical greenery by switching out your shower curtain for a classic, large-scale palm leaf print like this one. It’s the quick-change equivalent of a botanical feature wall, with none of the hassle of placing and pasting pesky paper. 

Go Wild With Garden Greens

Bringing flowers into your home is an easy win all year round, but with so many brilliant seasonal varieties to pick from at this time of year, bringing the outside in is a great way to give your home a summery feel.  

Double (and Triple) Up on Hanging Plants

While a single suspended pot might get lost against a massive window like this one, a trio creates a hanging garden (and will cast fabulous leafy shadows across the room as the sun goes down). Look around your home and reconsider each of its curtain rods: Where can you hang a few S-hooks and some leafy new statement pieces?

Riff on Nautical Stripes

This chic, summery Montauk bedroom is all about pattern play: Narrow navy bands on the bed’s coverlet layer beautifully with wider, bolder stripes on a pair of toss pillows. That old-school vacation vibe continues with a pair of black-and-white beach photos, and a dune-colored woven stool builds the Atlantic atmosphere even more.

Dabble in Indigo

From freeform, hippie-chic tie dye to more formal, Japanese-inspired shibori patterns, no color combo evokes the surf and shore quite so well as deep indigo dye on pale fabric. Try your hand at graphic napkins like these — and once you’re on a roll, don’t be shy about dyeing pillowcases, slipcovers, tablecloths and more.

Display Jewel-Bright Colored Glass

For a polished  take on classic beachcombing finds, splash out on a vase or set of tumblers in a marine hue. Stemless wine glasses like these mix into the table setting with ease, and their acrylic counterparts are perfect for dining outdoors. To elevate the look, turn to antique shops, flea markets and Etsy for shapely stoppered decanters in similarly bold shades.

Create a Themed Coffee Table

To pull together a classic coastal arrangement like designer James Farmer did here, balance a stack of coffee table volumes on local flora and fauna with quirky pieces like a decorative bowl full of shells, a pair of carved shorebirds and a low hydrangea bouquet. Broken down into its basic components, that’s books + bowl o’ trinkets + figurines + flowers = summer on a tabletop.

Layer Tropical Mantel Accents

Speaking of collections, consider how this arrangement of objects screams summer in combination with one another: Vivid protea in a caned vase pair beautifully with a monstera leaf and a palm frond in a blown-glass vase, and a brass sailboat plucked from a vintage sailing trophy summons virtual trade winds.

Hang a Boho Tassel Pendant

Got a spare afternoon (and three skeins of yarn)? Cultivate an on-trend beachy bungalow vibe by whipping up a fiber-art chandelier like this one. Take the look in a more contemporary direction with neon hues — or tone it down and aim for vintage-Malibu cool with ivory-colored strands.

Get Into Crystals

Lend your coffee table a bit of high-desert style by pairing a handsome raw specimen like this amethyst chunk with an arrangement of lighter-than-air wildflowers — in other words, all the scenery of a hike with none of the sunburn or bug bites.

Frame a Vintage Travel Poster

Travel posters are perfect decorations for those who are passionate about traveling, both near and far. It is also a great way to introduce into your home elements that will remind us of our favorite destinations and places from around the world. Their colors and design will give each space a unique character. Thanks to them you will go on a trip around the globe!

Make a Strong Color Statement

This vivid Martha's Vineyard home quite literally began with a splash: The painting mounted between the orange sconces above the loveseat served as inspiration for the color story that carries throughout its rooms. To make your home feel like a distillation of summer, choose a single scene (or fabric or sculpture) that speaks to your idea of the season at its peak, then let that palette find its way into everything else.

Embrace Kitsch

Summer style is all about relaxing rules and celebrating themed tchotchkes: Launch those miniature sailboats, display beat-up beach signs with pride, pile towels into buckets that look like Coast Guard castoffs! Clear out a corner of your home, pretend you’ve been tasked with decorating a vacation cottage, and live it up accordingly.

DIY an Orchid Arrangement

Channel your inner florist by turning multiple pots of grocery-store orchids (aka phalaenopsis, which are non-toxic to pets) into a jaw-dropping tropical arrangement worthy of a seaside resort’s foyer with a planter, moss, decorative stems and small, low-light houseplants. Psst: It’s also a spectacular dining-table centerpiece for summer parties.