Decorating With Tropical Island Decor

By
Jamie Wiebe
Jamie Wiebe

Jamie Wiebe is a freelance writer and interior design aficionado. She has more than 10 years of writing experience covering current interior design trends, DIY decor, and home organization and has written for publications such as House Beautiful, Veranda, and ELLE Decor.

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Updated on 03/04/21
Architectural accents in a tropical interior

Design Loves Detail 

If you're trying to get more tropical in your decor, there are a number of ways you can bring the beach indoors. Below, find 12 amazing tropical interiors that will inspire you to transform your own space.

  • 01 of 12

    Decorating With Tropical Style

    Room with Tropical wallpaper
    Design Loves Detail

    Tropical style is one of the decade's hottest trends—Justina Blakeney's #jungalow style sparked an entire Instagram movement, and homeowners everywhere are covering their walls with bold, jungle-inspired prints. This sunny, cheerful decor transforms your home into a retreat, even if you're tucked away in the middle of Minnesota. But upgrading your home into a tropical oasis isn't simply about adding plants. Choose big colors, the right accents, and (yes) funky indoor palms to make your sunny metamorphosis complete.

    Summer Home Tour by Design Loves Detail

    8 Types of Palm Plants to Grow Indoors
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  • 02 of 12

    Go Maximalist

    Maximalist tropical interior
    At Home With Ashley

    If you've ever visited a tropical garden, you'll know there's no way to limit the color and foliage. It just grows. Everywhere. Mimic this everything-goes aesthetic in your own home by piling color upon color, texture upon texture. At Home With Ashley chose bold tile, a rattan console table, striped gray-and-white walls, and towering palms and other foliage to transform a patio into a tropical retreat. A muted pink ties everything together—but still brings its own maximalist flair with the inclusion of two funky flamingos.

    Patio Retreat by At Home With Ashley

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  • 03 of 12

    Or Accent a Minimalist Look

    Minimalist tropical decor
    The Confused Millennial

    Not all of us enjoy the maximalist look. If you're not fond of bright colors and a potpourri of patterns, you can still get the jungle feel. The key? Picking the right accents. The Confused Millennial's stark, white-walled office still feels tropical due to a few careful choices: a single, bold, leafy plant and matching prints. The result is an island-meets-bohemian vibe.

    Inspired Home Office by The Confused Millennial

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  • 04 of 12

    Embrace the Light

    Lighting in a tropical interior
    Driven By Decor

    It's easier to transform a sunny room into a tropical paradise. Most jungle plants need tons of light (shocker, right?) and there's something about brilliant sunshine that feels downright equatorial. But even if the room you want to transform lacks a bunch of super-sunny windows, you can still get tropical. A large round mirror, such as the one shared by Driven by Decor, bounces back the light and makes the space seem sunnier.

    Master Bedroom by Driven by Decor

    About This Term: Primary Bedroom

    Many real estate associations, including the National Association of Home Builders, have classified the term "Master Bedroom" as discriminatory. "Primary Bedroom" is the name now widely used among the real estate community and better reflects the purpose of the room.


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  • 05 of 12

    Play With Your Tablescape

    Tropical tablescape

    Beauteeful Living

    When you can't paint the wall or throw up some monstera-leaf wallpaper or even remodel the room at all, you may feel like your tropical options are limited. Don't. Putting together a playful tablescape or coffee table display can easily fulfill your jungle aspirations. Beauteeful Living turned a standard outdoor dining set lush by covering it with color, pattern, and texture—and serving colorful drinks to match.

    Tropical Dining Oasis Makeover by Beauteeful Living

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  • 06 of 12

    Weave in Blue

    Using blue in a tropical room

    Rambling Renovators

    If you have to pick one color for your tropical retreat, choose blue. Paired with a few choice plants, dark wood, and neutral interiors, the color embodies coastal-jungle-cool. Rambling Renovators wove the color into their tropical-inspired dining room, and the result proves that the color grounds the space. Teal pillows and translucent blue dinner glass make all the difference.

    Tropical Dining Room by Rambling Renovators

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  • 07 of 12

    Choose Architectural Accents

    Architectural accents in a tropical interior
    Design Loves Detail

    Homes that do coastal cool right understand what makes the style special. One of the best parts of jungle style is understanding how dark wood interacts with light spaces—like in this magnificent doorway from Design Loves Detail. Sure, there is a lot of tropical style to love inside the space (the enormous palm, the avant-garde green artwork), but the dark door's triangular motif makes the room.

    Office Reveal by Design Loves Detail

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  • 08 of 12

    Sweat the Small Details

    Tropical bedroom
    Elisabeth McKnight

    It's the little things that make a tropical-inspired room sing. In Elisabeth McKnight's nursery, a few jungle-y hints go a long way. The rope-wrapped bedside light feels plucked from a ship (and yet thoroughly modern), and there's just enough green in the pillow to add a tropical feel. Monstera leaves on the rug serve as a great substitute for the larger-than-life plants if you're cursed with a black thumb or need to keep the room foliage-free.

    Tropical Nursery by Elisabeth McKnight

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  • 09 of 12

    Be Bold With Wallpaper

    Bold tropical wallpaper

    Audenza

    When you want to feel like you're in the jungle—not just in a room that's sort of decorated like the jungle—wall-to-wall wallpaper is the only approach. Today's designs are definitely not your granny's wallpaper, and they're significantly easier to install. Audenza's tropical retreat uses palm tree wallpaper and an actual palm tree to create a jungle escape that's both maximal and relaxing.

    Tropical Retreat by Audenza

    Painting
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  • 10 of 12

    Embrace Animals

    Animal prints in a tropical room
    Curated Nest

    Next to enormous, botanical drawings of palm leaves, there's no better artwork to complement your tropical decor than animals. And animal artwork is particularly well-suited to nurseries—meaning your child can grow up in a jungle-inspired paradise. Curated Nest's nursery includes three adorable pictures of baby animals atop a wall covered in foliage decals.

    Modern Boho Design Nursery by Curated Nest

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  • 11 of 12

    Make the Room With a Single Plant

    A single tropical plant
    Paper & Stitch

    When you're on a budget, consider a statement piece instead of a statement room. And if you're blessed with a big, sunny window, there's only one correct tropical answer for the question, "What should my statement piece be?" A plant. A really big, really bold, steals-the-show plant. Fiddle-leaf ferns are eternally popular, but Paper & Stitch uses a banana leaf palm to tie her office together.

    Office Makeover by Paper & Stitch

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  • 12 of 12

    Embrace Neon

    Neon tropical decor

    @fourcheekymonkeys / Instagram

    The tropical style needs a dash of color—and neon brings a heck of a punch. Blogger Four Cheeky Monkeys upgraded her daughter's bedroom with a cheeky, teal-legged side table, a bright yellow wire basket, and a bold donut-themed comforter (okay, not quite tropical, but the colors match). The final touch is the pink-painted petal headboard, which makes the room feel citrus-y and fun.

    Modern Boho Kid's Room by @fourcheekymonkeys via Instagram

30 Ideas for a Beach-Inspired Bedroom
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  1. Real-estate reckoning on 'master bedrooms' as a racist term took place after years of discussion — yet many home builders dropped the term years ago. Market Watch.