Creating a personal, lived in feel in a new home can raise challenges.  There's something so austere about freshly painted walls and pristine floors.  But our new contributor, Esther, is showing off how she established her own unique style in her new Raleigh home.  The last thing you want when you walk into a home is to feel like you've stepped into a textbook open house - nondescript styling and accents just to fill a space.  Esther wanted to bring in both traditional furniture (her home has very traditional finishes) and the modern aesthetic that she personally loves.  Here's what she accomplished in the most-used social room in her house, her kitchen/dining room:





Since I don’t host sit-down meals often, I wanted casual dining table settings that wouldn’t show a lot of dust. To keep with the graphic patterns I'm layering in this space to create a modern aesthetic, I layered stripes napkins and geometric place mats, all in neutral grays and whites to make a more cohesive look. The coasters are my favorite purchase; I love the pop of color from these Anthropologie geodes!  For an improptu centerpiece a make-your-own terrarium is a low maintenance counter to traditional fresh flowers. 


 The two large focal pieces of my gallery wall are the items that I most identify with.  An aerial map of my current home town, Raleigh, and a portrait of my actual DNA (below).

The days are longer, the Japanese maples are covered in pink blossoms, and yes, it's somehow finally spring.  Easter snuck up really quickly this year and I am embarrassed to admit I haven't changed out our place settings since January.  Full fledged maroons and gold over here.  Luckily I stumbled across a #hpmkt fave, Blue Pheasant for some spring-inspired tabletop ideas.

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Not that long ago I was mindlessly scrolling through Instagram and came across a little blurb on Anna Spiro's account  about her spending a peaceful afternoon with her daughter hanging up a gallery wall.  No plan, they just started hammering, and of course because we're talking about Anna Spiro here the result was like a spread out of Veranda magazine.  What really struck me is how carefree the gallery wall seems to be to other people -- how random and perfectly imperfect the end result.  I am not cool enough to pull off this kind of bohemian attitude to hammer and nails, so if you are feeling paralyzed by fear by permanent holes in the walls like I was, let me show you how you too can look effortlessly chic by systematically organizing and planning your wall to your heart's content.

We have a huge blank wall without windows behind our bedroom TV just like this one, so my plan was to roughly achieve this end result.  image via

• 5 x 7
• 8 x 10
• 11 x 14
• 16 x 20  

How do you really know where to hammer though?  Getting things from your computer screen to the wall can be a challenge, so you need another visual way to lay out your space on the actual wall before you start hammering away. A great idea here is to use the paper inserts from your frame as your wall guides.  You can mark exactly where the nail should go for each frame on the paper insert, and then hammer right into the guide.  If you buy nicer frames they often come with paper guides inside, but even cheap frames come with a paper advertisement photo that you can use to make your own guide.  While you are at this taping paper to the wall stage, you can make sure everything is level with a free leveler app on your cell phone.

Click here to see the other great homes on this Holiday Housewalk

Nothing beats a faux fur throw for snuggling up on the couch.  This thing is seriously warm!!  The faux fur pillows and throw are on sale at World Market right now (click the pictures to shop):

You can make your own tassel garland with our easy guide!

Of course I needed a little blue and white in there!  This is a lid to one of my chinoiserie vases -- I just flipped it over to turn it into a candle holder.

The Entry
This gallery wall definitely came out better than anything else I've done so far.  For the holidays I've kept things pretty simple with fresh greenery and gold ornaments in the chinoiserie I keep out all year round.  By the way these photos are making me realize what a nightmare my entire house is for babies.  I've become my grandmother for sure.






Front Porch
My magnolia wreath is definitely far into dried magnolia mode, so this year and last I've added fresh greenery from around the yard to fill it out with some green.  I've also seen great ideas of people painting their wreaths gold which may give me a good project for next year.