vintage home decor – This is my hobby.

Maison Majorelle: A 1923 West Palm Beach Home Filled With History

Hanna Marks has lived in big cities like New York, but has always been drawn to the Sunshine State, where she was born and raised.

She resides in West Palm Beach, is the founder of a nonprofit school, and is the mother of three young girls.

Back when she started having kids, she worked in construction and design, and that’s what brought her to Maison Majorelle, a gorgeous 1923 home near Antique Row in West Palm Beach.

Hanna designed a pool lined in hand painted moroccan tile and Caroline oversaw the installation of the lush, tropical landscaping.

When she came onto the project, she instantly clicked with homeowner Caroline, a successful florist based in New York who entrusted Hanna to renovate the property and steward it as a vacation rental.

Hanna designed the home to suit modern living, but both she and Caroline were intentional about preserving its original charm.

Each room is designed around Caroline and her family’s collection of vintage and heirloom pieces, collected over time and from around the world.

Styling pieces like these feels second nature to Hanna — her father was an architect, owned an interior design business on Worth Avenue, and collected antiques.

Hanna was born later in her father’s life, and he loved to teach her about all he knew. So, she gained an appreciation for home aesthetics as a child.

Hanna lost her father when she was nine, and she has carried his wisdom and her inherited talent into the spaces she now creates.

Designing Maison Majorelle made her feel close to him.

The home now has history woven into every room and has become a sanctuary for Caroline’s family and every guest who is lucky enough to stay there.

Enjoy Hanna’s tour of Maison Majorelle on YouTube:

A Very Vibey Guest Bedroom

I re-styled my guest room and in a word it’s giving: vibes.

My mom stays in this room several months out of the year, so she has collected most of these pieces.

I don’t know where this came from — is it Gen Z terminology? My algorithm? — but now I just say, “vibes” in response to most things.

I say it so often that Vince asked me to stop.

Rude.

Sadly for Vince, this verbal tick is here to stay and now a core part of my personality *shrug*.

So, as I was saying — the room is v, v vibey and (naturally) full of thrifted finds. Here’s how it’s laid out:

My mom lives in this room several months out of the year, and there’s only one small closet, so coming up with storage solutions for her stuff has been tricky.

She found this gorgeous dresser at The Cozy Cottage in Lake Worth Beach last month which has been a total game changer. It’s just missing a handle on the top drawer, so she’s on the hunt!

My mom was worried this piece would crowd the space, but placing it against the wall near the head of the bed has actually made the room feel less crowded to me.

We have more than 60 house plants at this point, so we’re in a phase of coming up with creative ways to place them and make sure they’re getting enough light.

This little macrame hanging shelf does the trick in this room.

I love styling with books and stack them everywhere, much like our house plants. Mom’s old yearbooks and a few others are leaning against the chair in the corner here.

Mom found this chair and pillow at separate thrift shops. The chair previously lived at The Breakers Palm Beach.

Baskets are utilized as clothing hampers and extra storage.

The artwork was gifted to my mom from our neighbor in Columbia, Missouri. We have lots of this artist’s pieces throughout our home.

The tassel pillow is from a local thrift market and the crochet throw is from The Cozy Cottage in Lake Worth Beach.

My mom almost got rid of this little dresser because she thought it would be too heavy in the space across from the other larger dresser she found.

I convinced her to keep it for more storage (it now holds her purses) and also because I’m obsessed with it. The stud detailing and color is perfection — we found this piece at Quantum House Thrift in Jupiter.

The basket tray keeps tabletop items tidy and is sourced from Goodwill, the mirror is from Stone Button Studio in Northwood, and the matching pair of lamps is from The Nearly New Thrift Shop in West Palm Beach. They originally came with old fashioned lampshades so I replaced them with these modern gray ones I found at Home Goods years ago.

My favorite thing in this room is the macrame hat organizer I gifted to my mom for her birthday last year. It’s so practical but also feels like art.

I love the use of trays to organize surfaces. Mom found this tray at a local garage sale and I styled various thrifted and gifted items inside. The gorgeous shell box next to it is from Stone Button Studio.

This room is the only one in the house with so much gray. I tend to stay away from “millennial gray” but the cool tones in this room feel refreshing rather than bland.

Let me know if you want to come visit, the room is ready for ya. 😉

In other news, I wore a $15.99 Goodwill gown to a Gala over the weekend and truly felt like a million bucks.

My super comfy shoes are also from Goodwill.

I fear this is the type of dress you can only wear once, which kills me because it’s perfection.

I forgot to snag a photo of the back — it’s sheer!!

The only good full length photo I got of the dress. Here we are with our handsome cousins!

I found this gown a few weeks ago while shopping with my mom and remember telling her, “When am I ever going to wear something like this?!” I debated over it and decided the price was too good not to take it.

Who would have thought a last minute gala would plop onto my calendar?!

Goodwill comes through in all life’s moments, friends. Have I turned you into a thrifter yet??

Last week’s thrfited ‘fits:

Dress and Bag from Goodwill West Palm Beach

An Airbnb Refresh

Vince and I purchased our first home in 2017 — a tiny, historic Spanish Mission style house with a cottage behind it.

We had our two boys and lived on top of each other but absolutely loved that little house.

Vince used the Florida room as his office, we knocked out a closet to put in a stackable washer and dryer (a lot of old FL homes don’t have laundry hookups indoor or in the main house), and I filled each space with thrifted finds.

So many sweet memories in our first home as a family.

Had so much fun styling and sharing with my friends.

Love, love, love this piece and will never get rid of it.

The hardest thing about living in this house was that our headboard was right against the boys’ bathroom, so they were constantly waking us up!

I had a blast making style choices for the boys’ room.

Was obsessed with this bird chandelier we ordered on Etsy but had to eventually dismantle because of our cats.

We filled the cottage with thrifted finds.

We moved to our current home just as the pandemic started — it couldn’t have been better timing. I can’t imagine us weathering lock down and virtual learning on top of each other in that small space.

Our new house is much bigger, but it’s a cookie cutter new build, so we sacrificed the historic charm of our first house for modern comforts as our family grew.

It was fun and special to watch our new house being built.

We did keep our first place, though, and now rent out both the main house and cottage.

With my hectic schedule, I hardly drive by the house and haven’t been inside in over a year, maybe longer. With all the amazing thrift finds I’ve come across recently and left behind, Vince asked me to consider snagging some and saving them for an airbnb decor revamp.

The current styling of the airbnb is much more modern, neutral and less eclectic than my house — it needs to appeal to broader tastes — so my challenge is finding ways to update decor that fit within as specific palate.

I went out over the weekend and came away with some starting points:

At Goodwill, I found four matching pillows to brighten up the couch, a basket that can be used on the kitchen counter or maybe living room coffee table, some artwork for the kitchen, and a woven trunk.

I’m thinking the woven trunk would be good to double as a table and extra storage in the secondary bedroom of the main house.

We are in desperate need of a new couch (maybe leather this time around?), so I’ll be visiting the Nearly New Shop in West Palm Beach weekly to see if I can find the perfect piece.

What do you think? I’m open to all suggestions for sprucing up the place. I’ll share styling details here as I go!

Last week’s thrifted ‘fits: