In honor of Mother’s Day, I need to give my mom some credit. If I have good taste, it started with her. An East Coaster by birth, a former resident of Tokyo, and a Los Angeleno of thirty-five years—my mom Robin has taken the traditional look, peppered it with Asiana and given it a West Coast cool. She is a great collector, ruthless bargain hunter, brilliant DIY-er, and a woman who knows her style. As I was growing up, she dragged me to antique shows, flea markets, flower markets, fabric houses—and I may not have loved it at the time but now these are the places I get my inspiration.

No one wants to have their mother’s taste—but I'm not embarrassed to say, it has rubbed. Here’s a tour of my mom’s house and some of the tricks and traits I’ve taken with me.

(Top) My mom's garden looking towards our house. She ran a dried flower business out of our home for the majority of my youth; interior designers were the bulk of her clients. (Coincidence?)

Though we had a formal dining area and a kitchen table, we still spent most meals and nearly all our chats around the butcher block island.  When Mike and I moved into our new condo and were presented with an empty kitchen—I knew an island would be the answer to a warm and inviting space.

This sitting room is an extension of the kitchen. I’ll never get sick of this color red.

This is her sitting room, one of the many places blue and white dishes can be found. Flow blue, Canton, Willow, transferware—you name it, she's got it somewhere in the house.

The obsession of hanging blue and white plates led to a less discriminating love of china in all colors and backgrounds. The pattern hanging here in the dining room was actually my great grandmother's dinnerware.

Chintz may be where our tastes diverge. It's just too traditional for me to ever use in my house but I can completely appreciate that wing chair when paired with the red linen velvet sofa. (I actually want that exact fabric in chocolate for my sofa.)

In recent years my mom has been cutitng back on her antiquing but recently she spotted this adorable tufted green chair and couldn't resist.

With a house fully decorated with tokens of her travels, family history, collections and comforts, she only makes room for the things she loves. That's the foundation of a house in good taste.

Anne E. Collins
Executive Editor, PointClickHome