It's easy to imagine watching the sun set across the water from the Green Home's beautiful living room. The expansive windows and French doors make it feel like a solarium, the abundant glass capitalizing on the view from all angles.These are among the most energy-efficient windows and doors on the market. They reduce the amount of glare and heat gain through high-performance glass and are surrounded with additional flashing to help prevent moisture problems.
In this room, the furniture is simple and beautifully upholstered with eco-friendly fabrics in neutral colors and rich textures. The couch is a high-backed settee, its low arms perfect for propping a pillow against for a nap.
Linda Woodrum, the home's interior designer, used an antique vineyard table for a coffee table. "Everything is square and boxy in here and I used the oval table to soften it up," she says. On the table are an antique cheese basket and an unusual geometric vase.
Four chairs and an ottoman complete the seating area. These pieces are upholstered with a striped fabric that resembles finely woven seersucker in camel and cream. The chairs face each other in a formal arrangement that is balanced by the casual ottoman.
The area rug in the seating area is made of recycled nylon carpet, which can be recycled again. Beneath the carpet, walnut veneer planking covers a dense inner layer of recycled wood fibers. This product uses up to two-thirds less harvested wood than alternative wood flooring options and comes from managed forests. Woodrum used the walnut throughout the first floor.
In the front corners of the room there are two stands made of recycled wood palettes. Vases made of stacked pine cones hold an arrangement of greenery from the yard. These pine-cone vases hold tropical leaves, a choice Woodrum made to mirror the types of vegetation found in the Hilton Head area.
On the north wall between the French doors, two watercolors hang. They are framed in simple brown frames with white mats. On the south side there are three colorful paintings of beach scenes. All of these paintings have white mats with frames of similar size. The black and brown frames work well together, picking up the chocolate of the chair legs and the lighter tones in the fabric.
The lighting sconces on the walls are exterior wall-mounted lanterns with Energy Star rating. In addition to their energy efficiency, Woodrum chose them for their simple, strong lines.
On the south wall next to the French doors rests a bamboo étagère. It adds an important decorative element to the room, filling what would otherwise be an unadorned white space, and grounding the back wall without feeling heavy.
"When I first started coming to Hilton Head, every villa had one of these. I wanted to use this one because it evokes the feeling of old Hilton Head," says Woodrum. She decorated it with letters spelling out GREEN, framed photos, candles, metal and beeswax candles.
Take a 360-degree tour of this room »
View a slide show gallery of this room »
Shop for furnishings, fixtures and other products found in this room in the HGTV MarketPlace »
