HOUSE TOUR | An Elegant Charleston Home with Floral Accents

oh hey homeworthy welcome to Charleston my name is Monica and I'm so excited to give you a tour of my home come on [Music] in your you're watching homeworthy where we believe every home has a story before today's episode click the join button below to support all of the storytelling we do on this channel our growing community of members help to directly fund more videos so we can capture these extraordinary homes from around the world so join today to receive early and exclusive access to new home worthy videos hi my name is Monica Lavin I'm based in Charleston South Carolina and I am the owner of a company called Art of the entry where we offer uh exterior accents for your entry like I said we moved here about 3 years ago and we actually moved from Savannah Georgia we lived in an older home that was built in the 1800s and so when we were moving to Charleston we actually wanted to find something that was totally opposite and so we found this house it was built in 2001 and mainly the difference is that it's a much more open floor plan which works really well because my daughter loves to like run ride her scooter throughout the inside um so I feel like there's just a lot more space I feel like it's just modern living when I first walked into this house I think uh what I always Envision um when we're looking at homes to buy is where am I going to put the Christmas tree I don't know if anyone else does that but that's something that my husband and I do and so whenever we first locked in we looked to the right and um real there was this amazing place right next to our staircase that had really high ceilings and we looked at each other and said all right that's it and welcome to my front porch which is actually one of my favorite places in my house we spend a lot of time here like I said eating popsicles doing crafts and just talking about the day so when I envisioned this porch I really thought about having with chairs these are actually from mainly baskets which is a company that I love and this uh console table is actually one of my really good friends Julia Barrel timer she did a collection with Pottery Barn and I just love the sweet scallops and the green um for a pop of a soft color on the porch I love how it's shaded I love the plantation shutters and really this is just where my daughter and I come out here she has a little fairy garden that is um to the left of of us that she goes and plays with and I can just sit here and honestly like read a book or drink some coffee I would say the most favorite thing about my house is my front porch and the reason being is that when my daughter comes home from school we'll go and get a popsicle and sit on the steps and it's just this feeling that evokes inside of me it reminds me of my childhood uh it's we have beautiful weather here so it's just um it's a way that I'm really just kind of hoping that I'm creating these memories for my daughter but now it's time to come inside so come this way to my [Music] foyer foyer is actually kind of small but it gets a lot of use and it's mainly because of my husband's piano that I've talked about he plays most mornings um and my daughter will come down and address and she gets on our uh little entry rug and thinks it's her stage and she starts dancing so even though it is kind of this like small area that sits between our dining and our living room it definitely gets a lot of use in our house and then the artwork that we have above the piano is actually from a local artist his name is Rick reinard and it's a view of downtown Charleston uh specifically Wentworth and King which is where I used to work at the College of charlest these sweet little chairs that I put on either side are actually from Casey's mom um I just loved the curve of them and that they were lower and also more petite and then these uh paintings that we have above it are actually things that we snagged when we were in Italy uh I just love the colors I'm as you can tell I'm drawn to Blue and so uh these really caught my eye and then again I just put a sweet little plate above just for a pop of a different element kind of a different material and then the stage I was talking about with my daughter is uh this beautiful rug that actually has some Reds and burgundies colors I don't typically uh kind of lend to but I loved it in this space and this was just an antique find at one of the markets a lot of the light fixtures that we have in the house are actually from Circle Lighting and the owner lives in Savannah Georgia which is where we used to live prior to Charleston and so I love to incorporate her pieces whenever I can this one I just loved the white with the pop of gold uh I thought it was simple yet it had just such a beautiful design and I really think it goes well in the space and I'm sure many of you have a plate collection so this is mine I actually got a lot of these pieces whenever I went antiquing with my mom so they're pretty special to me um I don't have a big collection yet and so I just have these are my favorites that I put um kind of FL blanking each side of our front door so when I'm looking to add to my collection for me it's really about the shape of the plate as you can see here they're not just really square or round they have some scalloped edging even this one up here little baby scallops which I think are so cute and honestly my advice would be to just uh kind of go to things that you love right so whether it's the color whether it's the pattern Motif I obviously love floral so I'm drawn to the floral design I love this sweet little pattern but honestly I think it just has to be whatever speaks to you I don't think there are any rules when you're starting a plate collection I moved to Charleston about 3 years ago and I would say when I first moved into this house I really wanted it to feel light and Airy and fresh also relaxing I have a little four-year-old at home a little girl and so I wanted her to be able to feel free and play and get things dirty um without it feeling a little too stuffy when we first walked into the the house the previous owners actually really had great taste and style it just wasn't necessarily what I was envisioning for being on the coast and being in this um kind of like white picked neighborhood that we live in and so I took a lot of the bold colors a lot of navies plaid um there were a lot of oriental rugs and just really brightened it up so a lot of the rooms are actually white uh which is something that I haven't done in a previous house and then I added some floral patterns I guess you could say I have a little bit of the grand Millennial style there um but yeah just kind of wanted it to be clean and uh like I said initially like fresh and so really just getting out some of the Bold patterns that they had in here so now I can take you to our formal living room which is just right off the entry just follow [Music] me obviously this is where my daughter likes to play in the morning especially since my husband's playing the piano uh you know I guess part of the decor is her dollhouse that's in here um but I also have some antique pieces that I found really throughout markets and just antiquing one is this chest here which again I just loved kind of how delicate it was and the femininity of it all right and then for our fireplace it's a gas fireplace we actually really don't get that many cold temperatures in Charleston so sometimes whenever it hits 6 I turn on the fireplace um but I love it in this room I feel like it grounds it it makes it homey and again I had um just an area where I could put some plates of course so I did and this right here is one of our frame TVs that we use I love it because it really sits flat against the wall and the design is actually from one of my really good friends who also lives in Charleston and her name is Jordan Connelly uh I just love the colors and I thought that it fit well with the rest of the room these spindle chairs have been with me in about three homes so here I went ahead and just recovered them in one of my favorite Fabrics I loved the darker tones of the wood because really in this room I have a lot of new pieces um like this coffee table and this uh the sofa that I have um a lot of pastels and light colors and so I wanted to find some things that really grounded it like the darker tones and the furniture but then also this beautiful antique piece that I have and one of my favorite coffee table books is actually called mother and child from Clayborn Frank and it was a gift whenever I um had Julia from one of my dearest friends and it actually made me cry so uh it's definitely one that I hold close to my heart so again here's the collection of my coffee table books mine are really focused on probably gardening but also Interiors I love architecture um I love mirand uh Veranda magazine uh I just love pieces that also have a beautiful cover um and that speak about the home I love this piece that I got from an auction um I love the shape of it I love how it's petite I've brought it with me for a couple of homes I won't let it go uh the drawers are so delicate um and I also love that it's black because I feel like it just really kind of brings that like that aha moment to a room I actually graduated uated from college with uh Master's in education and I quickly realized that I didn't want to be a teacher and so I um I really transitioned into higher education which still worked with my educational background but really threw me in the world of technology which was great because that's really where I learned how to use social media blogging podcasting really all of the emerging technologies that connect with um people right I mean it's all about relationships so then from there I uh was actually getting my doctorate and I realized that um I didn't want to stay in the world of technology and I started a Blog uh I'm pretty sure everybody second guessed what I was doing I did myself but I knew it was the right way to go and so I started Lavin label probably about my goodness like 8 to 10 years ago and really fell in love with the creativity I love the Interiors of homes but specifically I'm sure you can guess it I loved the exterior entry I felt like it really um gave a glimpse into the owner's personality and so throughout the years I really started focusing on the exteriors then that led me to starting art of the entry which I just launched about 2 weeks ago so it's a really exciting time I would describe my style as Timeless but using Heritage pieces that really ground it and that's also how I kind of look at Art of the entry I create these elements that are rooted in history but really have a fresh new [Music] perspective and here I wanted to create something really special and so I actually lacquered the ceiling a light blue I added this beautiful floral pattern from schacher it's actually one of my favorite and then one of my good friends is an artist in Savannah Georgia Margaret monsy and she actually created and painted these beautiful Botanical prints and at first I didn't know if it actually worked because Flowers on flowers uh but I put them up and I actually really fell in love with how it anchors this wall another statement piece in this room I think is the chandelier I love it it has also again along with the theme some floral uh notes and designs that I just really love I love the pop of gold I think it adds just a little bit of Elegance to other rooms that are kind of just a bit more casual and look lived in um I ended up having these chairs recovered in a light blue uh performance fabric because we do eat in here my daughter eats in here she eats spaghetti with meat sauce in here and so I definitely needed something practical um but this is a performance fabric by TBO by TBO and I really loved just the softness of it uh but also that it was durable then I would say my biggest Splurge which I don't know if I've even told my husband this yet is my dining room table it's one of my favorites it was custom made it's from dunes and Duchess and I loved the darkness of the top but also I was able to pick a custom color for the base and it is just this beautiful shape I've always wanted a round table in my dining room and and this house I finally went with it so like I said I really wanted a dining room that was a bit more formal because we do host a lot and one of those reasons being is that my husband is one of eight kids and so when the whole family comes together like you know we need a lot of space um so these chairs are actually probably a little bit too large when they come so we swap these out for something a little bit more dainty and my husband is actually the cook in the family which is really great for me me uh because I can then focus on like setting the tables and make sure the lighting is just right um yeah so we kind of just do a lot of family style meals in here and then the table is actually pretty versatile because whenever it's just me my husband and my daughter we come in here and have pasta and whatnot and we can move some of the chairs out uh obviously we remove some of the the large vas and the arrangements so that we can see each other uh but this is a pretty special room for me then what I think think gives a house or a home some soul and personality is bringing in some um pretty personal uh kind of artifacts or artwork and so these are actually menus that we've had from just a bunch of restaurants that we visited that actually are our favorite um this one I had framed when we really it was kind of our probably like second international trip where we went to uh London and had tea at the Ritz and then my husband is in Hospitality so he um has experience with restaurants and high-end hotels and so this is actually a menu from one of uh the restaurants that we met which is the Charleston Grill uh and it was his Farewell dinner years and years ago when we left Charleston and it's just such a it's such a special memory for me that um I decided that's what I was going to do for the walls uh in the dining room when I started Lavin label the best thing about it was I was able to experience a bunch of different design Styles so I would go to some friends I would go to some houses that I was showcasing and I got to see the whole Spectrum right things that were super colorful to things that were very modern um and because of that I feel like I really was able to hone in on my style and I wasn't scared to have a house that was all white and I thought it kind of more of a challenge I guess in a way so when I started Lavin label I really had the experience of of seeing a bunch of different styles from homes that I was showcasing but also homes that I were renovating and so this is probably our oh my goodness like fourth house that we've renovated and designed and so because I've had so many options I guess I one I could play with color the other I could play with pattern and then now you're seeing a house that um is a bit more softer and sophisticated [Music] and this area is actually where we have our Christmas tree it's usually minimum 10 ft tall uh we really go big for Christmas but the next room up is going to be our den this is our den which is arguably the most used room in our house especially because I'm cooking and Julia is in here typic building a fort uh and always on the days when I have someone helping me clean um and this is graci she is our dog that we've had for 15 years um and this is her special spot that she loves um and luckily she is a good neutral in this room so as you can probably tell right by now I'm drawn to like light Airy pastel color so in here I wanted to have a lot of fun obviously with the sofa that again is a performance fabric because we um eat in here we have snacks we watch TV just all the things of what a young family does um so I went ahead and chose this really beautiful aqua color uh I wanted to bring in a pattern but very soft and so I brought in this sweet little climbing vine on the window panels that actually works uh matches the um arm chair the club chair that we have here I wanted a soft ottoman um something that if when Julia was learning to walk like she couldn't get hurt again it's performance fabric she stands on here jumps on the couch jumps on the chairs you know like I said we really live in our home and then these sweet chairs are swivels and these are from Gabby and my husband doesn't typically allow me to bring pink in some rooms but for this room he was okay with it so I rolled with it and ended up doing these uh sweet little blush chairs and then this is another special piece of artwork this is actually St Philip's church and it's the church where we got married in Charleston South Carolina uh we got married in 2011 and again it's by one of our favorite painters Rick reinert who has a studio downtown on King Street so I guess the main piece in this room the focus piece is this really beautiful original painting of a marsh I would actually rather live on the marsh than on the ocean I don't know if um everyone else could agree with that but I just feel like it's peaceful I love the colors this is really probably when it's fall when all of the Marsh Grass starts to change this beautiful golden hue oranges um and I just loved it it spoke to me and I really loved it in this room because I have a lot of color with the pinks and yellows and greens and I thought it could use um something that was a bit more Dynamic all right and then over here we have our shelving again we have our frame TV um this is where my daughter really loves to watch Bluey if you haven't seen Bluey yet it's like one of the best shows out there anyway um a fun fact about me I hate styling bookshelves it is something that I just really don't like it I feel like it's not a strength of mine give me a room give me a coffee table I can style all day bookshelves I think it just for me it's like a lot of clutter um but I I did my best I think my mom would be proud uh here again I just have a collection of all of my coffee table books these sweet brass um book ends that are again uh of an English Springer yeah I think they're English Springers um and then again with just some beautiful vases that I've collected over the years and some family photos so for the side tables I actually picked something that I felt had a bit more of a modern shape um I also with something round because all of the other pieces in this room are square and a bit more traditional and so I wanted something that was a bit more um yeah just kind of like a bit more modern I actually love the texture of the actual base if you can see it here I feel like it adds a lot of Dimension to the room and also these were just the perfect size I needed something a bit more petite for this side and also on the other side of the sofa um and they're from Gabby and I really love them and we probably are in the den as much as we are because it is right off of the kitchen where um reluctantly I'm cooking again not one of my favorite strains it's my husbands but I got to do it um but at least it's in this kitchen right I guess I really can't complain as you can see this kitchen has a pretty big island and so I ended up putting like a pretty big vase that really never moves although I do kind of change what's inside of it but I love the texture that the ferns the you know the assortment of ferns that I use um and now I just have some white orchids to make it like a nice clean look uh we love to bake cookies in here um whether it's for Easter or Valentine's Day or Christmas um Julia's godmother comes over and this is a space that we definitely utilize here in the kitchen probably the most whenever I moved in the kitchen was actually already designed and so I feel like I didn't get to put my personal stamp on it um I love how it's clean modern but I think if I had the money and my husband said yes I would probably change out the tile the backsplash to something a bit more like handmade probably something with a little bit of pattern on it um but I love this space I feel like it has a ton of storage and I love the light that shines in and also that these windows are operable so for the glass shelving I actually wanted to keep it with the monotone of like the white uh that you find in this space and so here I pretty just H much have our everyday dishes which is probably different than what most people would use they might put their Crystal or their China but here I wanted something pretty practical and so I just have my white dinner plates salad plates things like that things that I can easily reach to um and then randomly I have all of my China uh in the drawers that are covered um maybe they should switch but I just I'm constantly grabbing here and so I wanted this room to be really practical for our family and at the end of our Island I had uh these sweet little chairs recovered and actually added this Starling little pleat on the edge just to make it you know a bit for more feminine cuz that tends to be my style and how I roll and over here this is where Julia has most of her meals this is her sweet table um I just love the cute little ran bunny chairs but this way she feels like she's a part of the whole scene um she also does a lot of arts and crafts and speaking of arts and crafts I have this whole little wall dedicated to Julia some of it is her artwork some of it's things that I've um did for her whenever I was leaving town was a little trait but again this is what brings the personality the soul of the home even though it's not framed or from uh a famous artist we still um we still appreciate uh all of the work that we have posted and the art that we have here on this wall above Julia's sweet little table is really again just pictures of marsh what I'm typically drawn to I love that it's a bit more traditional Framing and actually the art is a bit more traditional I lean toward that rather than abstract but I just felt these two actually really grouped together and I just really love how it filled the wall and I don't know if you've noticed or not but our kitchen actually doesn't have a refrigerator it's actually in our bar area which is really nice especially when we're hosting because we're not opening doors and people aren't crowded but here we have our refrigerator we also have our wine cooler and honestly this wallpaper if I could create wallpaper this would be it it's like white blues and greens trellis florals it's just it has me written all over it I loved it in this area kind of in this transition area um again the light fixture above is from Circle Lighting I just felt like it fit in this sweet little space um really that helps transition into our morning room I am constantly inspired by travel um I am constantly inspired by history architecture one of the best things about living in Charleston is just the history that we have here the Beautiful Homes the beautiful gardens I'm inspired by people with style that I follow like taste makers really it's just I look to the beauty in my life [Music] and our morning room also called the mud room morning room sounds a little bit better but this is pretty much our Drop Zone it leads to our garage so when we come home we have Cabinetry that we put all of our coats and shoes and all the things and then these are actually storage and I'm not going to open them because if I would just a lot of toys would fall out so I will save you um but again it's just a practical room uh these are the Botanicals that I've had left from uh Margaret Mary Margaret Mon's again she hand painted these I loved them I felt like they added some color in here and then also we added this custom kind of um Cabinetry piece we love having a coffee machine in our home uh our first house that we ever moved into we actually bought foreclosure and randomly it had a coffee machine a built-in coffee machine and we were like wow this is amazing so we've always included this in our budget from our homes that we've lived in since then it really is a game Cher If you're thinking about it um but yeah and what I did was I added just a little bit of a bead work of an accent color uh just to make it again a bit more soft and just give it you know something for your eyes to be drawn to what I like about this room are the really high ceilings and also how it's um just really all of the molding and The Woodworking I think gives this room its detail and then we ended up finding this really lightweight chandelier I feel like it's a bit of a farmhouse style which typically isn't my vibe uh but when I saw it I thought that it really kind of fit the room perfectly in the morning room or the mud room whatever you prefer to call it and our den actually both open up to our side porch so in this room specifically I was like oh this is going to be great this is going to be an area where we Lounge um come out here and have like wine in the evenings whatever it is and then we realized that we actually wanted to use this room um a lot more for dining so when we had guest over we wanted to be outside but we also loved how it was screened in so we were shielded from all of the mosquitoes that we have here so we actually ended up turning it into uh another area that we could have dining this table is is actually reclaimed wood from a church in Louisiana it was after the hurricane hit and it's actually a pecky Cypress Wood which really you wouldn't think that this texture works well for a table cuz you have things that get in and out of the grooves but I've always gotten the most amazing feedback whenever people come over and I just I love how they did like a really light white wash on it and I just really love it in the space against you know kind of like the pale gray floors I typically don't have a green thumb but this fiddle fig has lasted two years uh so I'm pretty proud of it we had a freeze this winter and I thought that she was a goner but she came back so I feel like she really loves this space so just going to leave her there um and then the other thing that I have out here is this sweet little bar cart again this is from mainly baskets it actually matches the furniture that you saw on my front porch I just had it painted in a custom pharaoh and ball color and out here here it really just holds all of my kind of gardening things also my maang tiles that I love I don't know if any of you are into maang right now but it is quite the scene in Charleston um but again I just come out here I grab my watering cans typically Julia has one too out there and we go and water our flowers in the afternoons so the ceiling in this room and also on the front porch actually has a really pale blue color on it that is pretty um kind of typical in the South especially in Charleston it's supposedly to keep bugs and um evil spirits away but I just love how it adds something of a little pop kind of like my dining room remember the ceiling was light blue you know have to bring it into every room not really but definitely just the porches you'll see a lot of the hint blue ceilings when I think about a home that has soul I really think about what pieces are in there that may be heirloom pieces so for instance we have a grand piano that my hus that has been in my husband's family for years and years and years and whenever I look at it I think of it's just a story piece so I think of his history his family um I love antiques I really feel like it grounds the room but I also love you know things that are happening in our life now like in my kitchen there's a wall of my daughter's drawings um you know again she choen for so it's just some color you really can't see some of the images that she's making but I just think about you know really what what really represents your family and how you can sprinkle them in here and there whether that's in modern times like my daughter's drawings or whether that is a piece that that has been passed down from years to years [Music] thing I love about this room is I mentioned that it's all screened in because we can have all of the doors to the house open and not have to worry about mosquitoes and things like that uh but it also leads out to our sidey yard so our outside area is probably the cleanest that you've seen it because typically behind me there is a bounce castle that my daughter is sitting on while I'm out here trying to do work or reading a magazine but here we really just wanted a SP days that flowed well from the inside of our house because we have such beautiful weather here in Charleston we have this sweet little Lounge area um the furniture is from Harbor classic which is founded here in Charleston South Carolina and then we use this outdoor dining table quite a good bit um honestly in the mornings I come out here and work on my laptop and fix my morning matcha um it's not as bright yet and uh in the mornings there really aren't as many bugs so it's a good time to take advantage of this beautiful space because this area gets so much sunlight as you can see we wanted to add a sweet little umbrella moment and here we ended up bringing in the color that you found in the den specifically if you're remember in my like Aqua sofa so we wanted to pull that color out here this is a custom umbrella of course I wanted it to be ins scalloped I really wanted double scallop but they said no so this is what we got uh but again it's just nice because we can use it over the dining table that we have out here or if we're working on um doing some work out on the sofas we can just easily move it since it's on Wheels if you have an outdoor space that you're looking to furnish for me it's a little tricky but you can definitely find pieces that will help and weather all of the elements that you experience I would definitely recommend teag which is what I've used here for the coffee table the side table and the dining I would look into finding Fabrics that that are um maybe a umbrella or performance or something that does well with direct sunlight so for me I really love outdoor and the gardening and the front porches and so I do spend a lot of time out here it's obviously why I started art of the entry um you know Finding beautiful elements that really kind of add value to your curb appeal that are Timeless a home to me is a home well-lived and so I love to see rooms that are actually being used I love to see my daughter ride her little scooter through the kitchen I love to um you know have her running and playing with a ball or whether it's my husband playing the piano in the mornings with the window open um I really just think it's utilizing all of the spaces and just cherishing the memories that we have and that are that we are making thanks for watching be sure to go to homeworthy tocom for exclusive content shopping guides and so 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Channel: Homeworthy

Views: 63,397

Keywords: house, house tour, home, home tour, homeworthy, architectural digest, veranda, quintessence, house beautiful, interior design, interior designer, charleston, charleston home, home decor, timeless interior design, vintage decor

Id: jf47ehKJQwQ

Length: 34min 58sec (2098 seconds)

Published: Sat May 11 2024