Surf’s Up!
by habituallychic
06 . 23 . 09
Now that the calendar officially says summer, I’m all about summer related posts! I’m hoping my new adage, “if you post it, it will come” will bring about warm and sunny weather and what better way to begin that with surfing! Not real surfing mind you but decorating with surf boards. Seems it’s very popular with surfers and non-surfers alike. I’m ready to hang ten! How about you?
Carolyn Murphy, a real surfer, at home in Venice Beach in a photo by Eric Cahan.
You can always decorate with a surfboard coffee table like Annie Selke.
James Victore hand painted surfboard for DWR – on sale for $2400!
Guest room at The Surf Lodge in Montauk – too bad they are on the bay and not the ocean!
Design by Tim Clark
Tim Clark’s store Tower 20
Kips Bay Decorator Show House 2007 entrance hall designed by Beale-Lana with surfboards by Dirk Westphal.
Artist Dirk Westphal in his studio with paintings and surfboard.
Kips Bay Decorator Show House 2009 room designed by Natasha Bergreen and Liza Cousins.
Montauk house of Robin Standefer and Stephen Alesch of Roman and Williams.
The surfboard seems right at home in this bathroom designed by Kerry Joyce.
Interior designer Brooke Giannetti likes to use surfboards in her designs inside and out.
A dining room by Brooke Giannetti contains a surfboard.
Brooke Giannetti also likes to decorate her own home with a surfboard as seen her in C Magazine.
Nate Berkus also decorated a California beach house with a surfboard and was also featured in C Magazine.
If you can’t decorate with a real surfboard, you can always try vintage surfing photos like Waldo Fernandez.
You and a group of your friends can carry your surfboards in a big old vintage woody wagon like in this photo from Tim Clark or…
…you can go it alone in a cute little Isetta like this surfer! All we need now are some tasty waves! 
16 Comments
I love that first Victore board.
Terrific post. I’ve always thought if you showed off a surf-board, you were automatically cool! Have you ever seen in print the Chanel board? Unreal!!
Now I want a woody wagon & a bunch of boards & head to the beach. I think I see a wave!
Brilliant post. Though it looks kind of awkward in some places (very gimmicky in Brooke Giannetti’s drawing room), the surf board can be a beautiful decorating tool… at least for real surfers like Carolyn Murphy.
What I like as well is that it looks very American… Would look ridiculous in a European house but somehow it works in large American houses.
All of these photo (with or without surfboards) make me happy! Love the colors. Have a great summer.
What a terrific post.
I’m emailing this to my surfer husband immediately. Colleagues will no doubt ask him what he is smiling about.
I agree with hansaxel, it does not work in every setting. In some cases it looks like the movers took it to the wrong room. Done right it just makes you smile.
Tim Clarke – Sigh. When Spielberg buys the rights to my trashy novel I’ll be speed dialing this man to build my luxe surfer shack.
Any idea who that pony sketch in the first picture is by? Love it!
I totally love the look of a surfboard in a house, but like the others have said, it works in some settings and not others. I would love to have one in my (imaginary) beach house! Great post!
LOVE the old woody and love the surfboards. My family always has surfboards around to trip over… never thought of decorating with them!
Not the surfboards so much, but the Woody!! <3 I added that photo to my post today. Hope you don’t mind!
Check out Coastal Living’s coverage of The Surf Lodge, in the July/August issue, and Tim Clarke’s Tower 20 store!
The beach house that Nate Berkus designed……my god when I saw the view from THAT work area going onto the living space down below,I was simply reduced to tears……Love it! Love it all!!!
I absolutely LOVE this post, it makes me want to go out and buy a surf board to put in my home…and I don’t surf.
Loved this early in the a.m. this morning, it was my inspiration for my beachy post this morning.
Leslie
Thank you for the mention.
The images you used are of my home in Santa Monica and our weekend home in Channel Islands Harbor.
Both of our homes are by the beach, so our boards get a lot of use.
The surf boards are so pretty, that we tend to leave them out in the rooms that we use the most.
xo
Brooke
Great post theme!
I am tempted to take up surfing just so I can have an excuse to get me one of those Dirk Westphal numbers!!
great site! beautiful!
–t42