Finding our Star

Learning to Love a Victorian Home

We don’t close for a few more weeks, but I spend every day thinking about our new vacation home. I imagine the ways we’ll use it and how we’ll make it a great vacation rental. I’ve spent many hours researching the history of the house and documenting what I find here. My plan is for that to be a living page as we learn more about this amazing property. It’s a beautiful Victorian home

, and the design will need to reflect both the house and our own needs and wants.
The “Map Room”, a bedroom at the Broughton Street House

Interior Design and Victorian Homes

Cathy has been thinking about interior design. While we’re purchasing the property furnished and ready to rent, we want to make changes to reflect our own style. One of our favorite design blogs is run by Mercedes and Karen at 1ChicRetreat. We’re interested in engaging them professionally at some point, but right now we have to make some choices. We can ask for help to get where we want to go, but we need to identify our destination, our “design concept”.

The Courtyard of the Broughton Street House

I tend toward period-correct furniture and design choices, but I do like informal. Cathy loves comfortable, accessible design that feels welcoming, unbound by the limits of a specific period. So we swap pins, pictures, and magazine articles in an effort to find a balance we can both agree on. We’re looking for our north star, the thing in the distance we can stay fixed on. As we make the hundreds of choices we’ll face as owners and caretakers of this beautiful property, we’ll need that.

The Dining Room of the Broughton Street House

Staying True but Adding Comfort

The house is well furnished with beautiful, period-correct furniture now, but the current style is formal. As beautiful as that is, it feels a little like playing dress up to us. We’re just not formal people. We can’t drastically change, as people have booked this house based on the current design. We wouldn’t want them to arrive and find a house that doesn’t meet their expectations. Since changing out paint and major design elements takes time, we won’t make any major changes during peak season for Savannah. Therefore, most of our thinking is for the future.

The Parlor of the Broughton Street House

Until then

, we’re going to enjoy playing dress up. We’ll use this blog to show our progress and discuss our historic Victorian home, design, and the furniture and fixtures we find and add to the house.