Multi Family Interior Design in Charleston

The Lowcountry builds more than one kind of apartment. Mid-rise and wrap buildings suit the peninsula and North Charleston, where land is tight and the building has to carry its amenities vertically. Garden-style communities suit Berkeley and Dorchester counties, where the site opens up and the leasing experience can spread across a single clubhouse and a set of low buildings.

The building type decides where the design budget does its work. A mid-rise lives or dies on its lobby, its elevator landings and its corridors, because every resident passes through them daily. A wrap building turns inward toward a courtyard, so the amenity rooms and the outdoor furniture have to read as one composition. A garden-style community leans on the clubhouse and the model units, since residents arrive by car and judge the property in the first few minutes.

• Mid-rise: lobby, mail and package area, elevator landings, corridor finishes
• Wrap: courtyard-facing amenity rooms and shared outdoor seating
• Garden-style: clubhouse, leasing area and a furnished model that carries the tour

Charleston is hot and humid in summer, with salt air and hurricane-season storms. Interiors there take more abuse from moisture than from foot traffic. Entry flooring has to handle wet shoes and tracked-in grit, corridor wall finishes need to wipe clean, and soft goods in public rooms should be performance fabrics that tolerate humidity rather than hold it.

The local look also gives a designer a palette to work with. Historic single houses, pastel facades, piazzas, wrought iron, brick and heart-pine detailing all point toward a warm, hospitable Southern scheme. In a model unit that can mean softer color, natural wood tones and a restrained use of ironwork, styled so a prospect sees how the floor plan lives without a showroom feel.