Beach House Style

My boss shops at Beach House. Its an upscale shabby chic Marin beach theme. Sort of hard to describe. Its Sausalito meets Stinson Beach style. The owner has an overall theme here that goes as far as casual beach wear to furniture. After browsing for a while my boss had picked out a few furniture items and pretty white and blue embroidered throw pillows. A very laid back atmosphere here. The perfect place to walk through after a trip to Good Earth across the street.

Adorable shabby chic /​rustic chic stuff — very very dangerous. Compared to upscale/​rustic stores the prices are quite good. They mix it up with ethnic pillows and earrings, cashmere sweaters and jeans shirts. Adorable. Tiny ethnic stuffed animals… art…
I didn’t realize until the other day when I drove by how nice it is.

You just cost yourself a $ 400 sale for not greeting us as we were looking around. I guess talking to your friends about Piper was more important. Customer service always wins business.

If you’re a fan of flea markets, swap meets, garage sales or estate sales I dare you to drive by this place without slowing down. Most of the «store», as it were, is outside and there’s a lot to see from the street: Old Adirondack chairs, old metal lawn chairs, big old wooden signs. In a nutshell, lots of outdoor shabby chic furnishings that are on their second or third lifetime.
But park your car and explore more deeply ’cause there’s a whole lot of things being sold here at very reasonable prices. Spread amongst the outdoor furnishings are smaller recycled and re-​purposed desirables like paper-​white narcissus bulbs blooming from silver coffee servers.
There are 4 small buildings (more like gardening sheds) comprising the store, and 3 feature used goods of a more indoor nature: clothing, purses, cowboy boots, teapots, fruit bowls and more. The largest little out-​building features new goods, all really well priced and cute: women’s clothing, jewelry, pillows. The newer merch may not be top quality but then again, the prices aren’t top tier either. I scored 3 colorful pillows and a necklace for under $ 25 (and no, that’s not a typo).
Cute place, doggies welcome.

This store is a fab find. Cool vintage things tucked in amongst interesting design sheaths, pillows, and beach décor… These woman are so good and creating an environment where you want to change your whole house! I bought everything from a Moroccan style tablecloth to a cowboy hat to an interesting picture frames and more… great place to find one of a kind gifts as well…

I have to change my review from 2 stars to 3. Not because my last review was wrong or because I’ve suddenly changed into someone who likes to buy IKEA bags for thrice the price, but because I got a nice Unilocal message from someone (the owner? I don’t know) at BHS and I have to give them props for that.
A few weeks after my review, I received this message:
«dear Lauren,
We are so sorry to hear about your experience at our store. We have many local artisans goods and they do use some of the big box stores to buy some of their crafting materials. We also sell some things vintage and/​or genlty used on consignment and somestimes we don’t know the origin. We can assure you that this doesn’t happen very often because most of our merchandise is truly vintage or ordered directly from specialty wholesale vendors.
We hope you will give us another chance and would like to extend to you a $ 20 gift credit as a gesture of goodwill.
We are a small business run by two busy mommies and value each and everyone of our customers. If you would like to use this credit we will have it on file at the store.
Kindest Regards,
Alisha & Susan»
Clearly, these are two nice people who are committed to making their customers happy. (I would have been even happier if they’d said they’d take both the Target and IKEA bags back and give me the $ 20 for my inconvenience, but…)
Yet still:
I didn’t use my $ 20 credit. I was a little too embarrassed to be the mean lady from Unilocal who was lured back to the store with the promise of $ 20. («Yeah, that’s her right there – she’s the one who gave us 2 stars.»)
Also, nothing in the message from Alisha and Susan made me think that some buying policy had changed that would keep me from spending my $ 20 credit on a $ 2 tote from Wal-​Mart. You know? I changed my rating to 3 stars because they really do seem like nice people, but I can’t go any higher because it sounds like the problem still exists.

This place is so darned cute. Beach loungers, table cloths, random beach house acoutremont. They have a good selection of sun dresses and tops in a price range not usually seen in Marin (affordable). I’ve also lucked out at many a sale. Hint: look for the basket near the door with the $ 10 sign on it.
The draw-​back: most of it is not great quality and made in China.

This is a fabulous little boutique in Fairfax. When you walk in, you are immediately transformed into the type of house you would dream of living in… filled with beautiful, beach-​inspired accessories and décor. Not to mention the great clothing finds! Definitely worth a visit!
One of the owners also has another boutique in Petaluma called, «Splendid Little Shoppe». I haven’t been, but I have seen photos which definitely make you want to take a drive to Petaluma.