Show Us Your Mom’s Influence on Your Home

Maybe it’s a great chess set or a style philosophy. With Mother’s Day nearing, where do you see your mom in your space?

Gwendolyn PurdomMay 6, 2018

Lover of architecture, history, dogs, the Chicago Cubs, crowded bookshelves, and homes with a story. Former editor at Preservation mag and Culturess.com.

Mina Brinkey

Chances are, you got more than your hazel eyes from your mother. Lessons learned likely linger in the energy of your home or hang on the living room wall. Her passed-down taste reveals itself in your love of clean lines, or perhaps you see the autographed baseball that once sat on her bookshelf now sits on yours.

Mother’s Day is an opportunity to reflect on the ways our moms have shaped our lives. We want to hear about the ways you see her fingerprints on the pieces and places that surround you and your family daily (maybe even literally if Mom is a regular houseguest).

Show us: Share in the Comments a photo or two of a piece of furniture or a decorative element in your home or garden that came from your mother. Did you design your room around it? Is it something ordinary but meaningful, like a ticket stub, that you display? Do you have memories of it from childhood? Does it clash with the rest of your stuff? Will you pass it down to your children? We want to hear about it.

Mina Brinkey

In John and Jamie Dombroski’s 1920s Florida cottage we profiled in 2013, for example, the couple chose to adorn their walls with artwork painted by Jamie’s mother.

Is there something your mom created that you have on display? We want to see it.

For home professionals, that emotional connection to Mom’s belongings or decorative instincts can even drive a business. U.K. interior designer Jasmine Orchard of Jasmine Orchard Styling told Houzz she traces the mix of flea market finds and interesting, colorful objects she uses in her work and her home to her mother.

Collectie and Jasmine Orchard Styling

“We couldn’t walk past a charity shop without Mum dragging us in to find things for our home, and holidays often involved exploring flea markets or finding unusual shells on the beach to bring back,” Orchard said in 2015. “What I considered back then to be a bore, though, turned out to shape me and my desire for searching out interesting items to use for decor, and decorating a house on a shoestring.”

Tell us: What in your home came from the woman you’ll be celebrating this month? And what does it mean to you? Post your photos and stories in the Comments below and you might see them featured in a future story on Houzz.