Beside the Seaside (no sea required)

pestridgegroup
Jul 23
3 min read

Coastal bathrooms for the landlocked — three rooms that dream of the rockpool, the beach hut and the shell collection.

INTERIORS - BATHROOMS - JULY 2026

For those of you who haven't quite reached the heady heights of the summer holidays — who are still dreaming and counting down to the sea — I have some inspiration for you.

And it doesn't matter one bit whether you're landlocked or perched on the coastline. If you do like to be beside the seaside, I have some dreamy bathroom ideas for you. Because who says you need salt in the air to have your own interpretation of the ocean?

The bathroom is the obvious place to start. It's the one room in the house that's already about water — so the seaside doesn't have to be forced upon it. No rope-wrapped mirrors. No "BEACH" spelled out in driftwood letters. What we're after is quieter and far more interesting: the seaside as the Victorians drew it, and the beach hut as it looks at dawn — chalk, coral blue, ochre, blush. Three rooms follow. Each one dreams of the coast in its own way.

The first room dreams of the rockpool

Seaweed pressed and etched in coral blue, climbing the wall like plates from a naturalist's notebook. Beneath it, a basin hand-painted in stripes that might have come off a fishing boat, sitting on reeded joinery finished with a scalloped apron — because the seaside was never minimalist. And then the surprise that makes the room: a mirror wreathed in raffia, a great sunburst of texture among all that print. Every scheme needs one thing that isn't flat — one thing the light can catch and the fingers itch to touch. Here, that's it.

The second room dreams of the beach hut

Stripes, floor to ceiling — soft-edged and watercolour-brushed, like awning canvas faded over one good summer. Against them, a double vanity in ochre: the colour of sand at four o'clock, of deckchair canvas, of the best kind of English optimism.

Twin mirrors with scalloped edges hang in pairs, and the floor answers back in yellow diamonds. This is the boldest of the three rooms, and it works because everything in it agrees: two colours, committed to completely. The nerve is the point.

If it looks like it belongs in a museum drawer, it belongs on your wall.

The third room dreams of the shell collection

Scallop shells etched in silvery grey on parchment — drawn, not photographed; collected, not scattered. Below the shells, fluted tiles in blush run like ribbed sand at low tide, and a painted washstand in soft mushroom holds a marble top, aged brass, the copper trap left honestly on show.

This is the quietest room of the three, and the most Victorian in spirit. The whole scheme lives inside half a dozen closely related tones, so the eye rests — and the shells, the only pattern in the room, get to speak in a normal voice rather than a shout.

What the three rooms know

One pattern per room, given the whole wall. One texture that breaks the flatness — raffia, flute, shell-edge. Metal with some history to it, aged brass or old copper, and the plumbing worn openly rather than boxed away. Terracotta pots, a laundered towel, something green and alive.

That's the whole recipe. No salt air required — just water, a bit of nerve with pattern, and the good sense to stop before the driftwood letters.

Get the look

Walls

Kelp Forest wallpaper

Hand-drawn seaweed by XV Interiors — printed to order in the UK, six colourways.

Vanity

The Ellis

Reeded panels and a scalloped apron by London Basin Company — painted to order in any Farrow & Ball or Little Greene colour, made to any size.

Basin

Margot in Harbour Blue

Hand-painted stripes, no two the same — London Basin Company.

Room Two · Vanity

Hope double sit-on basin unit

Twin basins on painted cabinetry by Harvey George — ours imagined in deep ochre.

Room Two · Floor

Semaphore Mayflower

Patterned porcelain diamonds by Claybrook — sunshine underfoot.

Room Three · Washstand

The Victorian Washstand

Turned legs, Carrara marble and a painted finish by deVOL — ours in Mushroom.

Order the samples, pin them to a board, and build your own tide line at home. And yes — we've kept a few pieces off this list on purpose.

If something has caught your eye, ask us.

Ridge & Scribe — the interiors studio of Pestridge Construction — design interiors for period and characterful homes, wherever the house is.

Products featured from XV Interiors, London Basin Company, Harvey George, Claybrook, deVOL and Nicky Cornell. Original product imagery and designs belong to their respective brands.