The Woman With A Keen Eye For New Trends - And The Ability To Combine Them With Old Andalusian Country Style. My wife is the coolest at furnishing and running our Andalusian finca with tourist apartments. We own places together, but she is in charge of the interior design, decoration and the final touch. She studies emerging color and interior design trends constantly - and combines them with the local Andalusian style of our 100-year-old Andalusian country house. Every year we reform an apartment. She decides what needs to be done and how it should be - and I do the heavy lifting. But she works at least as hard. For example, she is in charge of sanding down wooden furniture, treating it and painting all the woodwork. She is several years ahead of the color trends that are coming - and makes bold combinations that no one else would dare - before it later appears elsewhere and becomes a trend. Our guests always refer to the apartment as 'coming home' after a busy day. They immediately feel at home. See examples of her interior design here: https://autentical.com/lakeside-finca/
President at The Good Space Pilates Studio & Elmwood Place Pilates
Answered 9 months ago
Hey there, I'm Melody Morton-Buckleair. I run The Good Space in Houston and Elmwood Place Pilates in Palestine, Texas — a wellness retreat built inside a 100-year-old two-room schoolhouse. We always called it Aunt Ruth's Place. She was my uncle's wife's aunt, and she taught school in this very building as a young woman. She later retired here, holding Bible studies while her husband — a retired pharmacist — quietly turned the home into a space known for healing. It's got soul. The original cloakroom and bookroom? Now bathrooms and closets. One of the school's two entrances became our front door, and the other now leads into the laundry room. I restored the original potbelly stove, and I even found the old school bell, just waiting for a stand so it can ring again. Aunt Ruth's lemon poppy seed pound cake is still talked about in our family, and her handwritten recipe cards sit in the kitchen drawer, perfectly penned. Her husband's work table now lives under the pergola by the pool — turned into an outdoor dining space surrounded by crape myrtles, koi ponds, and granite paths. The Pilates studio is tucked into a tiny home on the property, where we host weekend getaways and retreats blending movement, breath, and trust. We call it Conscious Contact — a method that combines classical Pilates, equine-guided learning, and nervous system restoration. One of the books we study is The Book of Ruth. When I made the connection to Aunt Ruth, it gave me full God bumps. The schoolhouse itself has become a metaphor. This is a place where women come to learn again — how to breathe, how to move, how to listen. We come back to the classroom of the body, and to the sacred stillness where the real wisdom lives. Elmwood Place isn't just a stay. It's a return — to strength, to story, to the deeper lessons we were always meant to remember. Websites: www.elmwoodplacetx.com www.thegoodspacehouston.com
From my work designing and staging spaces across Colorado, I've noticed this exact trend happening in the mountain communities around Denver and Evergreen. The most successful B&Bs I've worked with understand that creating "home" goes way beyond just cozy aesthetics - it's about intentional design that tells a story. I recently helped a client transform her Victorian home into a B&B where every room celebrates Colorado's mining heritage through authentic period furniture and locally-sourced art pieces. We incorporated curved furniture and soft lighting - design trends that are huge in 2025 - but grounded them in historical context rather than following generic Pinterest boards. The revenue impact has been substantial. Properties that commit to this authentic, story-driven design approach see 30-40% higher booking rates in our market because guests share their experiences on social media. When you layer textures, use statement lighting, and create those Instagram-worthy moments while staying true to local culture, you're not just designing a room - you're creating content that markets itself. What separates the winners from the wannabes is understanding that hospitality design isn't about following trends blindly. It's about using design principles like multi-functional spaces and romantic lighting to amplify the authentic cultural story that only that specific location can tell.