There are certain movie houses I would move into tomorrow. The ones that make my eyes wander around the room during a living room scene. The ones that I’ve seen over and over again, but a different beautiful detail catches my eye each time.

Give me the warm, slightly chaotic McCallister house from Home Alone. Kathleen Kelly's little apartment in You've Got Mail. Monica Gellar’s living room with patterned couches. Pretty much any kitchen Nancy Meyers has ever put on a screen.

And while we're at it, I'll happily take a walk through Stars Hollow and spend the afternoon at Lorelai's house too.

I don't think I'm alone in this. There are homes many of us saw growing up that somehow lodged themselves into our memories. We can picture the kitchens, staircases, bookshelves, and the lamps glowing in the background.

Decades later, we're still saving photos of them for that sense of home, warmth, and belonging. And as the trending 90s decor keeps popping up, it makes me wonder...

What exactly are we trying to get back to? Because I don't actually think it's the house.


(Gilmore Girls living room)

I think what we’re really longing for is wanting to remember how the room made us feel.

Think about Kathleen Kelly's apartment in You've Got Mail. It's not enormous or grand, but there are books everywhere. Patterns, warm lamps, art, flowers, little objects sitting around that seem as though they've been collected and placed without over thinking it rather than styled. You immediately know something about the woman who lives there.

Or the McCallister house at Christmas– ok maybe I’m drawn to this more because it feels more like the chaos of my own home sometimes (cuz seven kids!).

But the plaid and wallpaper and wood and lamps and layers upon layers of Christmas decorations draws us back each season. The house is beautiful, but it isn't quiet or perfectly curated. It feels like something is always happening there, like life is full and loud and energetic.

And then there are the Nancy Meyers homes—the kitchens we all apparently decided we'd like to spend the rest of our lives in. (there’s a reason her name is such a big trend right now, but really I think the “trend” has always been there; some of us are just waking up to it).

They're beautiful, yes. But what I remember most isn't the clean countertops.

It's the feeling that someone might walk into the kitchen at any moment, turn on a lamp, make a cup of coffee and sit down to talk for two hours. A place where I would want to snuggle up and make memories in. That's the magic.

The goal here isn’t trying to recreate these houses exactly. The goal is recreating or making alive in our own homes how these ones made/make us feel.

Warm. Safe. Interesting. Creative. Lived in. Known. Maybe even a little nostalgic for a life we've once lived growing up or never quite lived out in our own childhood.

(McCallister living room in Home Alone)

I’m a big environment person. When I walk into a room I instantly can feel the engergy– is it cold, warm, alive, stale, stressful, calm? I think atmosphere of a room and decorating a room are completely different things.

I think this is why you can walk into one perfectly beautiful room and admire it, but feel like you want to leave or not touch anything too precious...and then walk into another and immediately want to put your feet up and stay a while.

That’s something you can't quite photograph.

Atmosphere.

It's the music playing while dinner is being made. The lamp that's always turned on before the sun goes down. The books that are actually being read. The wallpaper filling the room in color. The painting you've looked at so many times you barely notice it anymore because it's wrapped up in the story and rhythm of your home.

It's what you see, but it’s also about what happens around what you see.

And that's good news for those of us who don't happen to own a sprawling Nancy Meyers kitchen (raising my hand here). Because the atmosphere we create doesn't require the movie house. We can create the feeling right where we are.

(my kids craft/art table in our living room)

So how can we create that feeling? 

Look at what you instantly notice and love about those rooms. Instead of trying to recreate a favorite movie room or someone else’s home exactly, I think it's much more interesting to ask:

What is it about this room that I love so much?

Because then it becomes personal, yours, no one else can take that or decide for you and that’s the beauty of it! 

Maybe it's the abundance of books on a tiny bookshelf? So bring more books in and don't worry about making every stack look perfectly styled. Maybe it's the glow of a lamp filling the room at sunset. So turn off the overhead lights and add a lamp somewhere unexpected.

Maybe it's the layers of florals, stripes and color that make the room feel like it has existed there forever? Bring in patterns, textures, and colors you love.

Maybe it's the artwork tucked between shelves and windows and doorways? So hang more art in unexpected places, wherever there's a blank wall so you can see it and smile every time it catches your eye.

Or maybe it's simply that the room feels personal, so then make yours more personal. Not by copying someone else's home, but by paying attention to the things that make you feel at home.

Your home should contain clues about you

This might be my favorite thing about movie homes. Good set design tells us who someone is before they ever say a word. Notice this…

Of course Kathleen Kelly has books everywhere. Of course the Gilmore house is a little quirky. Of course Monica’s Kitchen is open shelved and filled to the brim with pots and pans and easy to get cooking items. The objects are helping tell the story and our real homes can do that too.

If someone walked through your home without meeting you, what would they learn? Would they know what you love? Would they see where you've traveled, what you read, what your children make, what colors you're drawn to, what you've collected, what you've inherited? Would they find things that could only belong to your family?

I love thinking about a home this way and the more I work on our own home the more I love making it our own. Not as a collection of rooms we're supposed to decorate “correctly” (which actually gives me so much more freedom to be creative), but as a place where we get to leave clues about our family and who we are and how we live here.

Make the feeling, not the movie set

So no, most of us probably aren't going to wake up tomorrow in a Nancy Meyers movie. And our kitchens may never have that many copper pots (nor do they need to). But we can pay attention to what those homes have been showing us all these years.

Turn on the lamps. Leave some books out. Use the florals and patterns anywhere and everywhere. Hang the painting you love even if it doesn't perfectly coordinate with the room. Frame something your child made. Choose the wallpaper that makes you smile every time you walk past it. Keep something old and collect meaningful things slowly.

Because that's what I'm becoming more interested in, not just how a home looks, but the atmosphere we're creating inside it. And it's becoming a big part of how I think about the artwork and patterns I want to make too.

I want to create pieces that feel at home in these kinds of rooms. Art with warmth and personality. Patterns that make a room feel a little more storied and nostalgic. Things that can sit alongside your books and children's drawings and old furniture and collections—and eventually become familiar themselves.

Because I want it to feel unmistakably like yours. The kind of place where someone walks through the door and doesn't just think, This is beautiful. They think, I want to stay here awhile.

If you're beginning to imagine what this could look like in your own rooms, I've gathered more of the art, ideas and inspiration behind this world here.

Step inside the world of Coley Kuyper Art →

Come find something that makes your home feel a little more like the place people will remember forever.

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