The Accidental Coastal Grandma: How Taylor Jochum Embraces Old-Soul Style

Taylor Jochum’s bedroom is a curated collection of “a bunch of bits and pieces” of her life and the lives of those around her.

Her grandmother’s Blue Willow china — a cat and a letter holder — sit on the shelves, and her grandfather’s 1970s Polaroid camera has made a home next to her Lego flowers. Behind her bed, a rosary blessed at St. Louis Cathedral in her dad’s hometown hangs delicately on the wall. 

Jochum moved into her apartment a little over a year ago, and while she originally envisioned a room with a clean girl aesthetic, she quickly realized the style’s minimalism simply wasn’t her. 

“I kind of realized, with how much of a maximalist I am in my personality, that I could never be the clean girl aesthetic cause I love to collect things,” Jochum said. “I’m a hoarder, as some people would say, but … things make me happy.”

Her staple colors are blue and white, found in everything from the navy blue cat tower next to the window, to the fabric backing of a framed picture of her and her boyfriend, Bo. While unintentional at first, a coastal grandmother interior decorating style was born out of this color combination. 

“I remember looking at my Pinterest for blue and white inspiration … it said ‘hashtag coastal grandma’ so I looked into that hashtag and found a whole sector of coastal grandma aesthetic,” Jochum said. 

For the college junior, the style’s blend of cozy interiors and “beach house vibes” offered a vintage look that wasn’t overwhelming. Beyond Pinterest boards and breezy linens, though, the room is anchored in real family history. 

Two of the largest pieces in the room, the chest of drawers and bed frame, both from the 1920s and 1930s era, were inherited from her maternal grandmother. The summer before she moved into the apartment, Jochum took on the task of refinishing them. 

With the help of her dad, boyfriend and several dedicated friends, she cleaned away the old nicotine stains, recrafted the drawers, sealed them with beeswax to prevent sliding and stripped and sanded the wood. To finish off the project, both pieces were painted with a crisp, clean white.

“I try to use as much from the original as possible, which I think I did mostly,” she said. 

Jochum wasn’t close with her maternal grandparents, but the sentimentality of inheriting their furniture isn’t lost on her. Jochum’s mother grew up with the pieces, and her eyes lit up when her daughter refinished them. 

“I used to think it didn’t have significance, but … seeing my mom react that way, it had a special place in my heart,” Jochum said. 

Growing up without those strong grandparent relationships ultimately shaped the warmth Jochum wanted her space to project. 

“I love the style of grandmas … and I love my friends’ grandmas that I’ve met, and they’ve taken me in as their own,” she said. “So I kind of want to be what I think a grandma should be — that warm, welcoming soul — and I want to greet people with that because I never got that growing up.”  

Though Jochum did not consciously consider these emotional ties while designing her space, she said looking at the room today, it is what she wanted to achieve all along. 

Now, the vintage frame is adorned with a mattress topped with plenty of thick quilts and pillows. The chest of drawers displays jewelry, perfumes and countless photos, while a blue and white tray of seashells sits by the bedside, bringing a touch of the ocean to Athens. Everything is cast in the warm multi-colored glow of the two stained-glass lamps in the room, one an old banker’s lamp passed down from her grandfather. 

“I hope (people) think I have an old soul,” she said. “I want them to think of me like a grandma.”