It isn’t the most expensive coffee table. It isn’t buying everything from one luxury showroom. And it definitely isn’t filling a room with expensive things just because they’re expensive.

If I’m going to splurge, I want to splurge on the pieces that completely change how a room feels.

For me, that almost always starts with custom draperies and pillows.

Custom Drapery Changes Everything

Window treatments are one of those things people don’t always notice right away, but they absolutely feel the difference. A beautiful custom drapery panel softens a room. It adds height, warmth, texture, and personality. It makes the architecture feel more intentional.

Those are the details that make people stop and ask, “Where did you find that?”

The answer is usually... you can’t. Because it was made specifically for that room.

Pillows Are Small, but They’re Mighty

If you’ve worked with me, you know I love pillows. Probably more than the average person.

They’re one of the easiest ways to introduce color, pattern, and personality into a space, and they’re one of the first things I like to customize.

Sometimes I’ll use one fabric on the front and another fabric on the back. A completely different fabric, or a solid color, to separate the two.

Then comes the trim. Brush fringe. Tape trim. Caterpillar trim. Contrast welts. Butterfly flanges. There are so many ways to make a pillow feel completely one of a kind, and those little details have a huge impact on the finished room.

They may seem small, but layered together, they create the kind of home that feels collected rather than cookie-cutter.

If the Budget Allows...

Once we’ve invested in the drapery and pillows, my next splurge is usually custom upholstery. This is where a room really starts to become yours.

One of the homes I’m currently working on in Florida has a pink velvet sofa that I absolutely cannot wait to see installed.

The sofa itself is beautiful, but it’s the details that make it special. The backs of the pillows have one trim. The welts are finished with a playful caterpillar trim. (Which is just so fun.) The skirt has an entirely different tape trim that ties everything together.

None of those details happened by accident.

They’re what transform a beautiful sofa into a piece that feels completely custom.

Beauty Should Also Be Practical

As much as I love beautiful fabrics, I also design for real life because homes are meant to be lived in.

Kids spill juice.

Dogs jump on the sofa.

Someone eventually shows up with a glass of red wine.

That’s why I always encourage clients to choose performance fabrics whenever possible. Today’s performance fabrics are incredible. They can handle everyday life while still looking beautiful, which means you don’t have to choose between a room that’s gorgeous and a room you’re actually comfortable living in.

The best designs don’t ask you to tiptoe around them.

They invite you to sit down, put your feet up, and enjoy the space.

The Best Splurges Feel Personal

At the end of the day, I don’t think people remember a room because every piece was expensive. They remember it because it felt different.

Those are the design decisions worth investing in. Not because they’re flashy. Because they’re personal. And that’s what turns a beautiful room into one you’ll love for years to come.

Some of them are probably not that controversial.

Some of them might be.

And some of them I feel very strongly about.

So, in no particular order, here are a few of my design hot takes.

Beige Isn’t Bad. It’s Just... Boring.

Before everyone gets upset, let me explain.

I don’t hate beige.

I don’t even hate a neutral room.

But I do think our homes should have a little more life in them.

There is a scene in The Wizard of Oz where Dorothy steps out of the black-and-white world and into Technicolor. Suddenly, everything feels bigger, brighter, and more alive.

That is how I feel about color.

Life is full of color. We wake up and see it outside our windows. We wear it. We eat it. We travel to places because of it. We surround ourselves with it in so many ways.

So why should our homes feel completely devoid of it?

Now, how much color someone wants is a completely different question.

Some people need a few quiet touches of blue or green. Some people want a soft, calming palette with just a little bit of contrast.

And some people *cough, cough, me* need bright pink.

There is no right amount of color.

The right amount is the amount that makes you happy.

What I do believe is that our homes should feel alive. They should have personality, warmth, and some indication that real people live there.

A home doesn’t need to be loud to be colorful. It just needs to feel like someone made intentional choices.

Your House Shouldn’t Look Like Everyone Else’s

I don’t want to walk into your house and immediately know exactly where everything came from.

I want to see you.

That is one of the reasons I love custom design so much.

Custom does not always mean starting from scratch or spending a fortune on every single piece. Sometimes, it is the small details that make the biggest difference.

I love working with custom pieces because they give you the opportunity to make choices that no one else would make in exactly the same way.

And those little choices add up.

Don’t Ask Me to Make Your House Look Like Someone Else’s

I never want a client to come to me and say:

“Please decorate my house to look exactly like so-and-so’s.”

I would much rather hear:

“Please make my house feel like so-and-so’s.”

That is a very different request.

Your home should reflect your family, your life, your interests, your history, and the way you want to live.

The goal is not to recreate someone else’s house.

The goal is to understand what you love about it and then translate that feeling into something that is completely your own.

The Details Are Never “Just Details”

I think people sometimes underestimate how much small decisions can change a room.

A trim.

A fabric.

A paint color.

The shape of a table.

The finish on a piece of furniture.

A piece of art that is just a little unexpected.

A lamp that is slightly more interesting than the obvious choice.

These things may seem small on their own, but together they are what create the feeling of a room.

I love a room that makes you look twice.

That is the magic.

More Is More... If It Is Intentional

I am a maximalist.

I like color. I like pattern. I like art. I like collections. I like a room with a lot going on.

But more is not automatically better.

The goal is not to fill a room with everything you like and hope it works.

The goal is to make a lot of things work together.

It takes knowing when one more pattern is exactly what the room needs, and when one more pattern is, in fact, one pattern too many.

The Best Design Is Personal

Ultimately, I think that is my biggest design hot take.

Your home should be yours.

Not a room designed to impress people you don’t even know.

It should reflect the way you live and the things you love.

And if you want a pink room, you should have a pink room.

If you want a neutral room with one incredible piece of art, do that.

If you want color everywhere, I am probably your person.

There is no one-size-fits-all answer to good design.

So those are a few of my design hot takes.

I am sure I will have more in the future 😉

Not in a judgmental way. (At least, I don’t think so.)

I am simply very curious about people.

How seriously do they take themselves? How do they live? What makes them laugh? What do they care about? And, perhaps most importantly, how am I supposed to act in this house?

Should I be very reserved and polite? Or can I take my shoes off, open the refrigerator, and make myself at home?

I need to know.

I will talk to anyone, anywhere. My husband gets on to me about this because I will absolutely shimmy over to a stranger in the ocean to start a conversation. I want to know where they are from, what they are doing there, and how they ended up standing next to me in the water.

So naturally, when I walk into someone’s home, I am paying attention.

The Art

The art in someone’s home tells you a lot.

Is it loose and abstract? Funny or quirky? A little weird? Is it something they found while traveling? Is it a family portrait? Is it an enormous professional black-and-white photograph?

None of these choices are right or wrong. They simply tell you something different.

A home filled with playful, unexpected art often tells me that the people living there are comfortable having a little fun. Maybe they don’t take themselves too seriously. Maybe they have a great story about where they found that strange painting.

A home filled with beautifully framed black-and-white photography tells me something different. It might feel more thoughtful, restrained, or collected. Maybe the homeowner has a very specific point of view.

And then there are the homes where every piece of art has a story.

Those are my favorite.

I love when you can walk through a house and tell that the art was collected over time rather than purchased all at once to fill a wall. Maybe there is something from a trip, something inherited from a grandparent, something a child made, and something that simply made the homeowner laugh.

That combination tells you a lot about a person.

The Pets

Do they have pets?

I find people who have pets are generally a little more easygoing.

I have a hard time trusting people who don’t like dogs.

I’m only half joking.

There is something about the way people live with their animals that tells you a lot about how they live in general. Are the dogs allowed on the furniture? Is there a cat asleep in the middle of the most beautifully designed chair in the house? Is there a bowl of dog food in the kitchen that is very clearly not going anywhere?

Good.

I like a home that is being lived in.

The most beautiful house in the world is still a home, and homes are meant to have a little evidence of real life.

How Do They Actually Live Here?

This is probably one of the biggest things I notice as a designer.

How hard are they living in this house?

Not how hard do they work. How much are they actually using the space?

Where does everyone end up at the end of the day? Does the family room really function as the heart of the home, or does everyone gather in the kitchen? Is there a formal living room that is never used? Is there a room that was technically designed for one purpose but has slowly evolved into something completely different?

I love seeing how people actually use their homes.

Sometimes the room that gets used the most is not the room you would expect. The beautiful dining room becomes the homework station. The “formal” living room becomes the place where everyone watches TV. The kitchen island becomes the office, the homework table, the craft table, and the place where everyone drops their keys.

That is the good stuff.

A home should support the life that is actually happening inside it—not the life you think you are supposed to be living.

And Then There’s the Closet

I also think you can tell a lot about someone from their closet.

Some people wear the same five outfits in rotation. Some people have a very specific uniform. Some people have every color imaginable. Some people own 47 pairs of shoes and wear the same pair every day.

I understand all of these people.

But what someone chooses to wear—and how they organize their clothes—can tell you a lot about their approach to their home, too.

Are they drawn to color? Pattern? Texture? Neutrals? Do they love a classic piece but always add something unexpected?

Our personal style doesn’t always directly translate into our interiors, but there is usually some connection.

At the very least, I can usually tell what colors someone is drawn to by looking at their closet, their art, and the things they choose to surround themselves with.

The Overall Feeling

Ultimately, I think you can tell a lot about someone by the feeling of their home.

Not whether it is expensive.

Not whether it is perfectly decorated.

Not whether it looks like it belongs in a magazine.

I mean the feeling.

Does it feel like people are allowed to relax? Is there room for a little chaos? Do the objects feel personal? Does the home tell you anything about the people who live there?

Because a home should tell a story.

And the best ones usually tell you a lot before the homeowner ever says a word.

Now, I will probably still talk to the homeowner.

I am very curious, after all.

And if there is a dog there, I will definitely be talking to the dog, too.

The Mann project happens to be both.

My clients built this beautiful home in Hollywood, a historic neighborhood in Birmingham, Alabama known for its stunning architecture and timeless charm. The home itself was built by Nequette Architecture & Design, and from the beginning it had all the ingredients of a classic Southern home: beautiful natural finishes, thoughtful architectural details, and an incredible sense of scale.

But what made this project especially fun was the family behind it.

They are truly some of the most entertaining, welcoming, and joyful people I have ever worked with. Their home is constantly filled with friends, family, parties, and gatherings. Like me, the homeowner loves traditional design, but she also loves color, personality, and a little unexpected fun. The challenge was figuring out how to weave those things together without disrupting the beautiful architecture of the house.

I often joke that this house became “business in the front, party in the back.”

From the moment you walk through the front door, you can see through multiple spaces at once—the living room, dining room, hallway, and even into the primary suite. Because of the open floor plan and bright white walls, every design decision had to relate to the next one. Nothing could feel disconnected.

One of the biggest misconceptions about colorful homes is that you simply add more color. In reality, creating a colorful home often requires more restraint than people realize.

Color can become overwhelming very quickly if it isn’t thoughtfully layered.

Instead of introducing bold color immediately, I started with wallpapers and grasscloths that featured white or neutral backgrounds. These selections allowed us to bring color into the home in a quieter way. Some of the walls almost read as neutral from a distance, but once you step into the room, the colors begin to reveal themselves.

I love that kind of surprise.

There are moments throughout the house where the color isn’t screaming for attention. It’s simply there, adding warmth, depth, and personality. The effect feels collected rather than chaotic.

The goal was never to make every room the star of the show. The goal was to create a home where every space felt connected, allowing your eye to travel naturally from room to room.

That balance is what made this project so rewarding.

One of my favorite memories from this home actually came after the project was complete. We photographed my collaboration with Loom & Co. throughout the house, and it couldn’t have been a more perfect backdrop. Seeing my rug collection layered into spaces that embodied so much of my design philosophy—classic architecture, thoughtful color, and collected interiors—felt like everything had come full circle.

The finished home feels traditional, welcoming, colorful, and sophisticated all at once. It reflects the architecture of the neighborhood, the personalities of the homeowners, and the way they actually live and entertain.

And if you ask me, that’s always the goal.

Because the best homes aren’t the ones that follow the rules perfectly.

They’re the ones that tell a story about the people living inside them.

The pink door sits on a white house, and it is really the perfect symbol for how I approach design: traditional at the foundation, but with unexpected details added. It also gives a little warning of what’s waiting inside!

Last year, I had the honor of welcoming House Beautiful inside for their 2025 Color Issue, where they featured our home and the colorful way we live. It was such a surreal experience seeing spaces that have become the backdrop to our everyday life appear in the pages of a magazine I’ve admired for years. I’ll share a few photos from that feature throughout this post, along with some of my own favorite snapshots from around the house.

We live a colorful life, I would like to think. Right now, we have two teenage girls and a six-year-old boy, so it’s safe to say that nothing here is calm or boring. We also have three small Pomeranians who waltz around like they own the place. (Honestly, they do.)

If I had to describe what is actually behind our pink front door, here is how it unfolds:

You walk into a wallpapered foyer on a neutral background, but the pattern of dragons and clouds adds whimsy and movement. We’ve layered art throughout the space, so it immediately feels collected and personal.

To the right is my hot pink dining room, lacquered from top to bottom, with a large oil painting of my husband’s Aunt Vinny. It is a perfect example of how I blend traditional and modern design. We also built a custom china wall to display sets we have inherited over the years, along with our wedding china. We seldom eat off of it, so at least we get to enjoy looking at it.

To the left is a lacquered, bright yellow room. We call it the “everything room.” It has a desk, a mahjong table, and two sofas facing the TV. We need multiple hosting spaces, so this room works for kids having friends over, homework sessions, or cocktails with girlfriends. It still reads as a formal living room, but it is anything but formal. (The stories that room can tell!)

You continue into the kitchen and breakfast nook, which steps down into the main family room. With its high ceilings and floor-to-ceiling pink bookcases, the space feels open and layered. The shelves are filled with family photos, travel mementos like seashells and art, and ceramics my kids have made over the years.

This is the heart of the home. It is where we live the most, host Christmas, do puzzles, watch movies, and often have friends over, too.

Upstairs, there is a central space we call the playroom. There are not many toys anymore, but there is a large sectional, a TV, and chairs. With two teenage daughters and a six-year-old, it is a space that works for every kind of movie night and sleepover.

Off this space are two wings of bedrooms, with two rooms on each side that share a Jack and Jill bathroom, along with a laundry room and office.

And that, dear readers, is what is behind the pink door!

Think about something like the It’s A Small World ride at Disney World or the beach. Every environment affects the way we feel, but differently for everyone. Some people are minimalists, and some are like me, maximalists. For me, more is more, but in an organized, intentional, and colorful way.

Everyone has a color that makes them feel good. (Hint: it should not be gray or white, unless you’re depressed.) Maybe it is a peaceful blue, a grounded green, or for me, a bright, playful pink.

When I begin designing for clients, I can usually tell what colors they are drawn to just by looking at what they already live with, whether that is art, accessories, or even their closet. If I am being honest, most people hire me because they want color. Still, I often start with a more restrained palette so they can ease into it and decide how far they want to go. I always leave room for that evolution because jumping into color can feel intimidating at first.

For the past several years, everyone has been living in neutrals. All neutrals. But life is full of color, so why should our homes feel so muted? Why shouldn’t they feel like that nostalgic ride at Disney World or your favorite beach destination?

Our homes are meant to host friends and family, to hold memories, and to reflect who we are. They are not meant to feel like sterile environments.

I am sharing some of my favorite projects below in hopes they inspire you to bring a little more color into your own life, whether it’s incorporated into your home or everyday style.

Before we dive into design, trends, and all the things inspiring me lately, I thought I’d start by sharing a little about myself and how Colordrunk came to be.

Colordrunk’s origin story came about in a roundabout way. I come by the design business naturally—my mother and grandmother owned an interior design store in Columbus, Georgia, while my grandfather and uncle worked as upholsterers in the back. Some of my earliest memories are of spending afternoons in the shop, lying on carpet samples, flipping through fabric books, and listening to Wilson Phillips.

When it came time to choose a career, I knew I wanted to do something creative, but I was also determined to carve out a path of my own, at least at first. After graduating from the University of Georgia, I traded small-town Southern living for the bright lights of New York City and a career with fashion icon Marc Jacobs. It was an exciting chapter filled with colorful patterns, inspiring people, and endless creativity. While I loved my time in New York, I knew I eventually wanted to bring that vibrant energy and fresh perspective back to the South.

After returning to Georgia to marry my high school sweetheart, my next chapter quickly came into focus. I began renovating our Atlanta home, infusing it with the color, personality, and boldness I’d fallen in love with during my time in New York. The project ultimately landed me on a design television series, and after that show aired, inquiries started rolling in. One project led to another, and by 2013, I had officially launched Colordrunk Designs.

Since then, I’ve been creating meaningful spaces for homes and boutique commercial properties. My style blends traditional Southern roots with a fresh, playful edge, resulting in interiors that feel layered, personal, and full of life, and yes, plenty of color.

Along the way, I’ve had the opportunity to collaborate with incredible brands including Loom & Co, Oh My Mahjong, and Tela Mercantile, on projects that I’m really proud of. Recently, I was also featured in Better Homes & Gardens discussing why whimsy is becoming one of the biggest trends in home design, a topic that’s very on-brand for how I think about creating homes that feel joyful and personal.

When I’m not working, you’ll find me cheering on my three kids at their sporting events, spending time with my Pomeranians, hunting for great art and fashion inspiration, enjoying a margarita, or tracking sharks online. (Yes, really.)

And that’s exactly what you’ll find here on Mini Bar: a mix of design, color, creativity, inspiration, and the occasional unexpected rabbit hole.

Welcome to Mini Bar. We’re going to have fun.