The Best of My Houzz: 20 Beloved Collections Artfully Displayed

Collections tell us a lot about a person, and there’s a story behind each one. Here’s a peek 20 of our favorite collections from My Houzz, our series featuring one-of-a-kind homes and the people who live there. Whether you have the same interests or not, these cleverly displayed collections may inspire you to show off your favorite things in a new way.

Candy colors in Manhattan. Photo archivist and interior designer Jeanie Engelbach didn’t start collecting metal lunch boxes until she was in college. Now they add to the color to her lively kitchen, neatly displayed on shelves. “My personal design influence is based on my 9-year-old self: candy, cartoons and late-’70s pop culture,” Engelbach says. “I love bright colors and anything that sparkles and shines.”

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Bell jars in Brooklyn. Designer and artist Alina Preciado mixes favorite new, old, found and designed objects in a collection of cloches on her dining table. “Little touches can really make a place feel like home,” she says.

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Cuckoo for clocks in California. Greta Eskridge fell in love with cuckoo clocks as a teenager on a trip to Switzerland. Her husband, Aaron, made a note of it and bought her one for Valentine’s Day years later, kicking off her collection. Now she keeps her eye out for them at yard sales and thrift stores, adding to the arrangement hung on their living room wall.

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While Barbie likes Malibu, Ken prefers Portland. Miles Mayberry has scads of collections in his apartment, but my favorite is his Ken doll display.


Mayberry lets his friends choose which Ken best represents them and labels the dolls accordingly.

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Packing it in, in a Pennsylvania powder room. Danny and Denise Sabia’s home has lots of camp-inspired style. They cleverly replaced the drawers in a roadside dresser find with vintage suitcases for storage.
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Reflecting in a New Jersey living room. Merchandiser and jewelry business owner Joanna Madden has collected vintage mirrors for years. Organizing them via picture rails gives them a pleasing order and an uncluttered appearance.

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Ready for an emergency in Vancouver. “When you start collecting things, people start finding them for you,” says first-aid-kit collector and artist Meghan Paterson. It’s true — once your friends know what you collect, they think of you when they see them and help your collection grow. This is how I wound up with a whole lot of elephants.

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Even a fine art photographer can’t resist a photo booth. With simple lines of string and clothespins, Erin Kirkpatrick turned a collection of photo strips taken in photo booths around the world into a dynamic composition for her hallway.

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Capping the bar in Tampa. Amy and Chris Bay have collected bottlecaps for years and found a very appropriate place to display some of them: their outdoor bar top. Look carefully at this photo: The orange caps spell out “Bay,” their last name.

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Shells light up an Australian display case. TV commercial art director Sal Boucher proudly displays his treasured shell lamps, all lit up and artfully arranged in her New South Wales, Australia, kitchen.

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Hats off to this Florida home. Sometimes couples need to compromise. This bedroom seating area used to be decorated with purses, but the couple agreed to display their collection of hats — something they could both relate to.

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Shoes don’t clog up this Brooklyn apartment. This is the home of Isobel Schofield, the creative mind behind Bryr clogs. She backed display shelves for them with chalkboard paint in the main living area of her place.

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It’s always Mardi Gras on this New Orleans mantel. A different kind of collection graces this colorful home. The Krewe of Muses throws specially decorated shoes off their Mardi Gras parade float every year. Ray and Kim Martin gave some a place of honor on the mantel in their Victorian home.

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Skeletons in the … fireplace. Brooklyn homeowner Maya Marzolf has collected skulls and Dia de los Muertos figurines for years. Her collection includes objects from all over, including Jamaica, Mexico, Brazil and New Orleans. Since she can’t make a fire in this decorative surround, she placed her favorite pieces there instead.

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Pulling a midcentury mix up to the table. Not all collections are made up of collectibles. This extra-long inherited table required a lot of chairs, so Penny Mims and John Buxton amassed a collection of disparate dining chairs for their Canberra, Australia, home. Most of them have a retro midcentury look, which ties them together.

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High tea in the barn. On a half wall in the kitchen of his converted barn in Ohio, Tim Franklin displays his growing metal teapot collection. Franklin believes they have the power to entice people to put down their smart phones, sit a spell and visit over a cup of tea.

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Cooping up chickens in a Newfoundland kitchen. Jonathan and Tammy Greenland aptly opted for chicken wire doors on the cabinet that displays their hen and rooster plates.

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Classified information in Florida. In the Gerardi home, the kiddos love to collect shells on the beach, but it doesn’t stop there. They classify their finds and label all of them appropriately.



Here’s how their shell corral fits into the room. The round trays play off the geometry of the adjacent spiral staircase.

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Crosses cap a California dining area. Santa Cruz homeowner Lorri Kershner has collected crosses from all over the place for over 20 years. Her collection includes crosses from artist friends, vintage tramp art and authentic pieces made by the Kiowa Indians. They’re hung as a border, drawing the eye up and letting each individual cross have a place of pride.

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Layers of fossils line a shower surround. Wyoming homeowner Becky Pickrel amassed a collection of fossils from her region and arranged them to look as though they were layers of the earth in this unique shower.

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