11 Nostalgic Design Choices From Erin Napier

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

Minimalist home design has been steadily fading in popularity as people grow bored with plain neutrals and stripped-to-the-bones decor. These days, nostalgia is the name of the game. And Erin Napier, host of HGTV's "Home Town", is all for it.

Nostalgic home design emphasizes warmth, coziness, and comfort while firmly anchoring itself to the past. On the surface, this style is encapsulated by antique furniture and vintage, granny-chic decor. But nostalgia is about more than simply "vintage" or "antique." The goal isn't to recreate a random house from the past, but rather to pay homage to your grandmother's living room and the way it felt on a crisp fall day. It is about memories and selecting pieces that are meaningful to you and evoke emotion. "Personal over pretty," said Napier during an interview on The Drew Barrymore Show. "That's always our concern."

Modern-day furniture tends to come in shades of beige, gray, and more beige. One of the best ways to add some color to your decor and evoke a sense of nostalgia is by embracing patterns on your upholstered pieces. "So you know when you were growing up at your mom and dad's house in the '90s," said Napier in an Instagram reel, "and it was fall, and it was cozy inside. It was cold outside. Your mom had this wonderful, colorful, cozy sofa, and it was probably plaid or striped or floral, and there's just none of that anymore. But I want it back."

Luckily, patterned sofas are a bold living room trend that no one saw coming. These days, printed sofas are becoming easier to find, thanks to their recent surge in popularity. Even so, bringing the trend to life in your own home can be a bit tricky. New furniture isn't cheap, after all, and most retailers still heavily favor a mostly neutral inventory. So, you'll likely need to spend some time finding the perfect option. 

Slipcovers, like Lamberia's Printed Sofa Cover, can transform your current couch if you aren't in the market for a new one. If slipcovers aren't your thing, or the shape of your current couch doesn't work with them, harness the spirit of the design by adding printed pillows or a patterned throw. It is even possible to completely reupholster a couch if you are handy and looking for a new project. If you are in the market for a new couch instead, local antique and thrift stores are a great place to start. 

Framing old family photos and hanging them around the house is a great way to add a warm, deeply personal touch to your home. Napier recommends choosing photos that are playful and show off the personalities of their subjects. "My favorite tip, which I learned from my mother, is to include photos of our ancestors around our home," said Napier in an interview with Home & Gardens. " ... I have a black and white picture of my grandfather holding this giant watermelon and my grandmother posing on the hood of this pretty car beside him. They were young, they were fun, they were silly, and it was unexpected. I want to encourage people to embrace the unexpected in their houses and let it guide every decision they make."

To really nail the look, try using black-and-white photographs and mismatched, vintage-style frames to create gallery walls that are both stylish and deeply sentimental. Oval picture frames are particularly good for achieving that "granny-chic" vibe, as are ornate, gilded, and brass ones. If you don't want to do a full gallery wall, sprinkling old family photos throughout your house will give a similar feel. In her own home, Napier displays photos of her husband's family on one side of the hallway and her own family on the other — another trick she learned from her mother.

Remember your grandma's kitchen and all the decorative plates she had hanging on the wall? Using plates as decor can be a fun way to add some whimsy and nostalgia to your home. "There's something about a plate wall that just says 'grandmother's house,' but in a warm, loving way," said Napier during the Season 3 premier of "Home Town Takeover" (per HGTV). "It makes the space feel like home." Plate walls are easy to personalize, and can even be added to over time, creating a curated, slowly evolving collection. "It's something you can ... add to for the rest of your life so it becomes a plate room," observed Napier in an HGTV Instagram clip.

Adding a plate wall in the kitchen or dining room is a classic choice, but you can make this vintage design tip from Napier work for any room in the home. Rather than going for a matching set of dinnerware, try curating a variety of sizes, colors, and shapes. To make your design more cohesive, it helps to pick one element that unifies your collection. You could choose to use only scalloped plates, for example, select plates in a certain color, or look for ones that include a unifying pattern in their design. Try milk glass plates for a beautifully vintage, neutral design, or look for floral-adorned porcelain for a more colorful take. 

Erin Napier loves color, and she often chooses hues that evoke historic design styles, pointing out that colors like blue and green can make a home feel like it's part of nature. "People sometimes ask what inspires my designs," said Napier in an Instagram reel. "And the answer is, I look to the past. Old movies, old books, old magazines. They all give me ideas for classic colors and designs ... In historic designs, people were not afraid to use bold, vibrant colors. Somewhere along the way, we became afraid of color, and the world became very gray."

Color can do a lot to change the feeling of a home. It can be a good way of connecting with our own past as well. Think of the sunshine yellow walls of your room as a child, the deep sage exterior of your grandmother's house, or the emerald green carpet in a beloved aunt's living room. 

To up the nostalgia, pick colors that resonate with you and make you feel at home. And if a shade you love seems to lack the nostalgic, live-in feel you're looking for, use this tip from Napier for picking paint color that makes so much sense. On Laurel Mercantile, she wrote, "Choose whatever color you like that has a bit of yellow in it to make the color feel integrated and truly part of its environment instead of too-new, too bright, not quite right, and out of place."

Another way to evoke nostalgia is by repurposing things from the past. In a clip from "Home Town," she shared on her Instagram, Napier decided to save a piece of family history she found while renovating a house. "When we were demoing the kitchen, I found these handwritten recipes taped up inside a cabinet door," Napier said in the clip. "They looked like they could have been there since the 70's. I want to print these recipes on tea towels."

Handwriting can be a powerful, physical reminder of the past. Using it in your decor is an easy way to add a personal touch to your home. For example, old recipe cards written by your grandma can be framed and hung on the wall, or scanned and used as a printed design. Napier had the recipe cards screen printed on tea towels to use in the kitchen, but there are plenty of other ways you can borrow the idea. 

The uses for handwriting in your home decor are limited only by your imagination. Instead of handwritten recipes, for example, you can use handwritten letters, greeting cards, notes — even diary entries or signatures. These pieces of memorabilia can be displayed in a multitude of ways. They can be framed and hung on the wall, printed on throw blankets, embroidered on pillows, or engraved on a wooden cutting board.

Quilts are a great way to add color and a vintage feel to your home. "I have a kind of boring, very comfortable massive sofa that was my mom's," said Napier in an interview with People. "I had it reupholstered in like a beige oatmeal color. But I wrap it in a suzani quilt that's super colorful. Without having to paint the room, you can just add color that way." Quilts can make any bedroom feel nostalgic when draped over the bed, but there are countless other ways to use them.

Napier uses a quilt on her couch to add color to the room, but they can also be folded over a blanket ladder or quilt rack, rolled up in a basket, hung on the wall, or used as a tablecloth. Old quilts can even be repurposed into new items like pillows, placemats and kitchen towels, or used to reupholster the padded seat of a dining room chair.  You can give your heirloom quilt a place of honor with a headboard hack that involves hanging it behind your bed as a focal point. If you don't have any hand-me-down quilts, they can easily be found at thrift stores or in antique shops. If you are crafty and have the time and patience for a large DIY project, you can also make one yourself!

Erin Napier often uses vintage and antique silhouettes in her designs. A great example of this is the bobbin-style furniture found throughout her home. Bobbin furniture is great because it is incredibly versatile and can add a subtle "old-world" flavor to almost any room and design style. Using strong silhouettes like these in your home design is a great way to really ground your space and add a sense of depth and history.

Bobbin isn't the only silhouette you can use to add vintage charm to your home. Try decorating with bold, geometric pieces for a bit of Art Deco flair, or swing the opposite direction and lean into the flowing lines of the postmodern era. Want to go back even further? Look for curved settees, vintage rocking chairs, and wingback armchairs with claw feet and ornate, wooden details. There's no need to stick with one era, either. Mixing and matching pieces is a hallmark strategy that Napier uses quite often in her designs.

Erin Napier loves decorating with pre-loved pieces. One of her favorites is an old sofa she inherited from her mother. "[Our] oatmeal colored sofa is 25 years old, the greatest sofa my mama ever owned that was passed down to us when we got married," said Napier in an Instagram post. Napier had it fixed up with a new upholstery job, an easy-to-clean linen blend, to make the piece good-as-new. Pre-loved furniture can help make a room feel lived-in and cozy. It's often easier to find vintage and antique silhouettes in pre-loved pieces. Plus, in many cases, the quality is much better than it would be in a modern-made piece. 

When choosing pre-loved furniture, it is important to look for sturdy, well-designed items that can stand the test of time. Pay attention to structural elements while shopping. As Napier demonstrated, fabric, padding, and paint can often be renewed, but issues with the frame of an item are harder to fix. 

Some of the best pre-loved pieces to look for are solid wood items like dining room tables, desks, or bed frames. Hand-me-down and pre-loved couches and armchairs are great for adding a sense of coziness to your space, but can be a bit trickier because they often require more restoration. Don't have any relatives ready to pass down their furniture? Thrift stores and antique shops are always a good place to start your search, as are online platforms like Etsy, Craigslist, and Facebook Marketplace.

Colorful, vintage-style rugs can be spotted in many of Napier's designs. Her rug choices are so popular, in fact, that they have sparked a whole collection of internet comments and articles dedicated to helping fans find look-alikes. Napier herself has even commented on Instagram, in response to curious fans wondering where she gets her rugs (she finds them on Etsy).

Rugs can instantly transform the look of a room. They add a literal layer of coziness to otherwise cold, hard surfaces and can really impact the visual layout of a space. Etsy can be a surprisingly great place to score a deal on high-quality, hand-knotted rugs with intricate patterns. According to experts, you should pay close attention to the product photos while shopping (especially the pile style), and look for rugs that are made from wool to ensure you are purchasing a long-lasting, easy-to-clean piece. You can find both new and vintage rugs on Etsy in styles that are similar to Napier's. Shipping is often included in the price, but make sure to double-check before making your purchase.

Wallpaper is a nice change of pace from bland, neutral colored walls. Napier has her own peel-and-stick wallpaper brand that is full of colorful and whimsical designs meant to evoke a sense of nostalgia. In an interview with People (via HGTV), Erin Napier said that she "wanted wall coverings for my projects that felt like a modern take on historical designs from a century ago, and it was a style gap I kept finding in the wallpaper market. I'm excited to see how people use it in their own homes."

Do you remember the wallpaper that decorated the walls of your grandparents' home? Wallpaper was very common in historical designs, so using it can immediately make a room feel more nostalgic. Using vintage motifs in your home is also a fantastic way to add personality to a room. Napier's wallpaper line is heavily inspired by nature, — think folk art, woodland creatures, and plenty of florals. Covering all four walls with a pattern creates an immersive vibe. However, if that feels too busy, just use the wallpaper on one wall and paint the rest a complementary color.

An antique table full of drawers stands behind the sofa in Napier's home. "The sofa table is an old store fixture that we used to use in the @scotsmanusa general store," said Napier in an Instagram post, "but I stole it, and now it's my candle storage cabinet (and every other odd and end you can imagine)." Napier's sofa table is the perfect example of how, with a little imagination, something old can be reimagined and given new life.

A mercantile antique is exactly what it sounds like — a vintage piece that was originally used in an old general store or similar location. Napier's sofa table is one example, but there are plenty of other options. Old store counters, cabinets, and shelving all fit the bill, as do items like antique cash registers, scales, candy jars, coffee tins, and wooden crates. The former are perfect for use in your home as furniture pieces. Jars, tins, and crates can be used anywhere you might use a basket to display collections and organize items in your home. Just make sure you are careful when using vintage containers to store food, as many contain lead. If you absolutely "must" use that cute glass jar you found to store your jellybeans, make sure to test it first. Otherwise, play it safe and use the jar for something else.