Beach Dwellings

Total renovation of my North Wildwood condo. I hired Beach Dwellings to decorate the condo. Maria was great to work with. She nailed the initial design which I only made a few minor changes to but I was impressed with here design ideas. She coordinated ordering, delivery and set up. She is a true professional and easy to work with. I highly recommend her if you need design help.

Imagine building and decorating a home with your best friend...one with impeccable taste, who keeps your best interests in mind, who works tirelessly with you to make selections that honor your vision and your budget and your need for compromise with your spouse...all in a non-stressful and fun manner. That is Maria Toczylowski, the owner and designer of Beach Dwellings in Stone Harbor, NJ. She guided us through the selection of flooring, furniture, cabinets, countertops, hardware, window treatments, lamps, outside house colors, garage door selection, fireplace designs, and more. She worked diligently with our building staff to become an essential, dependable, and innovative partner. We all cannot recommend her highly enough!!

Maria is amazing! She has a great sense of design and was so easy and pleasant to work with. I wanted to have input on the project and she let me while making sure I didn't make any big mistakes. She had so many creative and unique ideas that we implemented from the blueprint phase through the final touches. I love that she doesn't decorate every home the same way; she really works with the homeowners to customize the house based on their style. Our house was on the 2017 Cape May Hospital House Tour and Maria pulled everything together perfectly and on time so it wasn't a stressful experience. I would absolutely hire her again!

Working alongside Maria could not have been easier. Her style and design expertise took the quesswork out of every decision. Maria combined a good mix of classic furnishings to create a beautiful, comfortable living space with inspiration taken from our coastal location. Our home is sophisticated, polished and fresh, yet still functional and timeless in a soft palette of blue and calming grays. Our goal was to make everyone feel welcome as they walked through the front door and feel the tranquility of the space. Maria accomplished that for us!

My husband and I contacted Beach Dwellings to help guide us with our whole-house renovation. Wow, did we hit the jackpot! We couldn’t be more pleased with that decision. Maria worked closely with our architect and contractor to ensure that we had an intelligent layout that worked beautifully for our home and family. She was integral in that initial design process, making sure the spaces were functional, as well as aesthetically pleasing. She and her amazing assistant, Kathy, worked tirelessly behind the scenes to ensure that we had a stress free experience with our renovation and we are so grateful for that. They were available from day one. What a difference! Maria’s love for design is apparent and the quality one sees in her work reflects that. She is definitely the most talented designer we’ve ever worked with and we would use her again in a second. Maria has a personality that is warm, engaging, enthusiastic, and she’s a complete professional. Her gift for design and is a true pleasure to see. She delivers and she’s fun to work with! Sent from my iPad

We contacted Maria to assist us with updating the interior of our old beach house in Stone Harbor. The challenge was the old "Stone Harbor" pine paneling in the front room. Maria was extremely easy to work with and she understood what we wanted to accomplish. She worked within our thoughts and improved them. Her color palate was perfect. Becky and I could not have been more satisfied with the way our interiors turned out, exceeded our expectations. We are so much more comfortable and at home thanks to her patient effort!

Two of the best decisions my family and I made in the last year were to buy a townhouse at the shore and hire Maria from Beach Dwellings to completely re-design the interior. We are new to Stone Harbor and actually found Beach Dwellings by doing an internet search. I soon realized Maria was one of, if not the best, interior designers in New Jersey. The initial consultation was at our home, and she quickly made me feel at ease with her confidence, vision and sense of personal style. I knew by the end of that meeting and having already seen her portfolio, it was an obvious choice to hire Beach Dwellings. Over the next several months, we met in her design space and had a lot of fun. We are the types of people that like to cut out pictures in magazines of rooms we like, but don't want to sort through books and books of fabric, wallpaper and furniture (isn't that why you hire a designer?).....Maria made the process easy!!! She listened patiently as we showed her pictures and then asked questions to start the process. She would pull out swatches and suggest 2-3 options and each were amazing. Then building from that, we picked out furniture, carpet, paint colors, lighting, accessories, molding, granite, tile, etc...I am happy we made that decision, as in the past working with other designers, we would only do one section of a room and never felt like it flowed together...for the first time, we have a place that is coordinated. I also want to mention, Maria is a very fair person....I never felt like I was over charged (which you have to be careful with, I am sure you have heard of the Stone Harbor and Avalon "mark-up") and billed for things I didn't want. In the end, we love our new house and it honestly is thanks to her. Now if only I could get her to move near our full time residence so she could re-design that. I cant thank Maria from Beach Dwellings enough for all her help, patience, style and talent in making our Beach home feel like it could be in a magazine.

Maria from Beach Dwellings has been a pleasure to work with! Prior to her hire, I reviewed personal recommendations, toured homes that she had completed and met with her and her staff. I was impressed with all! Maria is creative, pleasant, patient and professional. We asked her to help us create a waterfront beach home that was fresh, current, durable, refined, and yet relaxed for a large active family with pets. Paramount was our wish for design choices to highlight, rather than compete with, the sweeping ocean views and create an easy flow between indoor and outdoor spaces. We wanted to incorporate specific cherished belongings from our old home. In addition, each of our children wanted to participate in the design of his/her bedroom suite. Maria was able to make a wonderfully cohesive home that incorporated a South Pacific surfing suite, classical nautical suite, boardwalk bunk room, princess under-the-sea suite, comfortable beach guest suite, vintage country French suite, bohemian beach suite, and a serene master suite. Our multiple common areas are equally exquisite, and function very well with our lifestyle of family ease and large formal and informal gatherings. These include a to-die-for gourmet kitchen, refined living and dining rooms that are flanked by a beautiful fireplace on one side and a unique wet bar that Maria helped design. These rooms connect via Signature Doors (completely fold away, leaving an open space where once there was a wall) out to an expansive travertine-covered beachfront deck. The comfortable family/TV room flows easily out to the pool, patio, lawn and ping pong areas, all of which are proportioned and outfitted with the utmost attention to detail. Her skilled support staff (shout out to Amanda- you’re the best!) and many professional connections with custom providers, all provided pleasant interaction and quality product. Although our family chose to be intimately involved in the creation of our home, Maria is also very experienced with clients who prefer delivery of a fully completed, turn-key home. Beach Dwellings services clients of all budgets and home sizes. Ours was one of the largest on the island (8 en suite bedrooms), requiring a two year architectural and design period and a ten month construction. During that time, Maria collaborated extensively with many of the subcontractors. She was easily accessible via email, text, calls or meetings and always replied promptly to my inquiries. Maria educated, explained and was open to discussing multiple design possibilities, without judgment or any pressure. I always felt that I understood the process, costs and trade-offs of all decisions. Every project has a budget and Maria helped me stay within our budget and make cost-effective and impactful choices for any upgrades. Beach Dwellings offers two payment schedules. We chose the “time and materials” plan as it was easier for me to track. Billing from Beach Dwellings was always detailed, accurate, and timely. We are working on photos of our home to share with you. In the meantime, I’m looking forward to working with Maria on some of our other homes. She’s that good!

Judy and Russ Gombos: Judy found Maria and Beach Dwellings Design via an Internet search and felt that Maria would be perfect for help on interior decorating ideas for our beach house. Judy’s feelings were right on the mark — Maria is the perfect decorator to work with. She has a knack for sensing what we wanted and totally flexible to our tastes and lifestyle — seeming to have a sixth sense for the colors, fabrics, and style that fit out home. Moreover, the professionals Maria uses are also truly top notch and exceptional — she provided an excellent upholsterer; an outstanding painter; recommended a remarkable electrician; and, her choices/suggestions for furnishings were first rate! We couldn’t have been more pleased and were extremely satisfied working with Maria. She is someone you could easily work with and someone who could turn your ideas on decorating into a pleasing reality that you and your guests would enjoy.

From the very beginning, Maria helped us with every aspect of our home design as we built our house in Cape May. She was always available to discuss ideas and meet not only with us, but with our builder and other professionals working on the house. She helped pick out kitchen cabinets, bathroom fixtures, tile, flooring, paint colors, furniture, lighting, bedding, as well as all the accessories that make a house a home. She really listened to our ideas about what we wanted our home to look and feel like and she most definitely turned those ideas into reality. Maria and her staff were so easy to work with; they were professional, knowledgeable, and always accessible. On many occasions Maria would meet contractors at the house and check on work being done when we were not able to do it ourselves. It was very comforting to know that we could always count on Maria to manage things when we were unavailable. We would highly recommend Beach Dwellings to anyone who is looking for design help. Maria is the best!

Having known Maria personally for several years and also having seen her work, we were very excited to hire her for our own project. To summarize, the result was spectacular. I would say that we were very opinionated in what we wanted and the style we wanted our home to portray about us. She got it and implemented the concept perfectly. She steered us in the right direction when we went astray, and inserted her creativity at various points to give us that extra 'punch' that we definitely wouldn't have initially thought of, and always keeping within the lines of our key concepts. Everyone who visits or walks through our home can't say enough wonderful things. Maria and her team showed exceptional professionalism and attention to detail (which for me is the #1 thing in working with a designer). We loved working with them and would recommend Beach Dwellings for any size project - from the smallest to the largest. Matt B. and Robin A.

Maria came recommended from a friend who saw her work at a house tour in Avalon. Our project was to transform a kitchen, dining room and living area. When Maria came over to meet us and discuss the project I got the sense she understood our vision and desires. She recommended a talented and hardworking contractor. In a few months our home reflected who we are. Maria is a true professional and I look forward to doing many more projects with her.