Coastal Colors and Boho Accents Revive This 130-Year-Old Victorian

Interior designer Jenny Minns loves the "fancy feel" of her coastal Victorian home, with its period moldings, bay windows, and tall ceilings. But strategic use of modern elements meant it didn't go stuffy. "I wanted to counteract the darkness and heaviness a Victorian can have," she says of the 1890 home in Cohasset, MA, that she shares with her husband Brian and their 7-year-old twins, Isabelle and Oliver.

The starting point was simple: lightening walls and most of the trim with Benjamin Moore's White Dove paint and contrasting it with high-gloss black. The treatment provided a crisp, blank slate and accentuated the woodwork. In the entry, for example, glossy black brought a mahogany banister back to life. "It disappeared before," she says.

The subdued color and grass-cloth finish of the console mellow the high-contrast entry, which also gets touches of whimsy from claw-foot stools and a peacock print.

Jenny enlivened her living room with bright white and coastal accents. "I kept the whites from looking sterile by layering in black, blue, and beachy textures," she says. She repeated the formula throughout the house.

Jenny is drawn to the yin and yang of black and white but softens the combo with warm tones in the beaded chandelier, worn wood dining table, and gilded mirror.

Jenny also played up contrasts with light fixtures, where her taste skews big and bohemian. She hung fixtures fashioned from wood beads, twisted jute, and fringed tassels in the dining room, breakfast nook, and her daughter's bedroom as counterpoints to the formal architecture. "I'm drawn to boho-style lighting because I can go oversize for drama, but the organic materials keep them from feeling fancy," she says. "A crystal chandelier would take the look in a completely different direction."

Most of the windows are bare for the same reason. "A heavy curtain would push toward the extreme end of Victorian; clean windows modernize it," Jenny says. Bare windows also keep the original stained glass on display. They are part of the inventory of what she calls the "razzle-dazzle moment" in every room. In the living room, the golden coffee table gleams against white slip-covered sofas. In the dining room, the bold black-and-white rug is the statement. ("Pattern on the floor doesn't overwhelm the senses," she says.) And then there's the moody portrait of a rabbit dressed in a tuxedo in the kitchen. "My husband smiles every time he sees it," Jenny says. "Art offers that final quirky layer."

Jenny's husband built a banquette in the breakfast nook. Installing period trim salvaged from a demoed wall makes the nook feel like it was always there.

Beachy touches in the rush seats, a rattan chair, and seagrass stools counter bright white Shaker cabinets and subway tiles. "A kitchen by nature is hard, so I softened it with warm, natural textures," she says.

Jenny painted the kitchen island Benjamin Moore's Newburyport Blue. "It references historical New England, but the shade is current." The blue sconce above the sink echoes the island's color.

Boho accent pieces, including the tassel-trimmed chandelier, hanging rattan chair, and shaggy rug, set off Isabelle's traditional spindle spool bed in front of the bay window (a quintessential Victorian feature).

Benjamin Moore's Warm Blush casts a subtle glow in Isabelle's bedroom and the home office. "It isn't sticky-sweet, and I grounded it with black accents in the office," Jenny says. The velvet chair pulls in the blues from the rest of the house.

Damask-inspired wallpaper makes a dramatic accent wall in the master but "doesn't drive you crazy" when it's behind you in bed.