- Date published: 09.16.26
- Category: Home Tours
- Author: Divya Venkataraman
How Creative Director Mai Nguyen Made Her Houston Home a Playful Paradise
A color-coded reading nook, mid-century touches, and a ‘no rules’ approach – this home is a lesson in trusting your own taste.
Editor's Note
Self-confessed maximalist and mother of two, Mai Nguyen has done what many of us dream of when decorating our homes: she’s thrown out the rule book and embraced the beauty in chaos.
Bold choices like textured timber panelling, blue pendant lights, eclectic sculptural pieces and glossy lacquered-green cabinets offer a sophisticated take on dopamine décor. This is a home so joyfully unrestrained you can’t help but find inspiration in every carefully curated corner.
We hope you love it as much as we do,
Genevieve Rosen-Biller, Co-Founder, Bed Threads.
Y ellow had a curious history. In 1895, Oscar Wilde was arrested in London for indecency, and he happened to be carrying a yellow book under his arm. The public didn’t need an official conviction to make up its mind on his guilt. You see, writes Kassia Saint-Clair in her book, The Secret Lives of Color, “What decent man would be seen openly walking the streets with a yellow book?”
In the Houston home of Mai Nguyen, an artistic and creative director, the color leans into its joyful connotations – and maybe a bit of its rebellion, too. There are sunny-side-up lamps, an ochre chair, and a whole nook is ensconced in yellow’s warmth and openness. “People just started sending me yellow things,” says Nguyen, whose Instagram handle @yellomai, may have something to do with it. But it actually reflects her Vietnamese heritage more than any preference for the color – she was named for the hoa mai, a kind of yellow apricot blossom that promises wealth and good luck during the Lunar New Year. “Now, it’s really grown on me,” she laughs.
Nguyen adores The Secret Lives of Color. She puts Saint-Clair’s meditations on how color impacts mood and choice into practice when designing for real living – which for her, means making a space that’s not only beautiful and functional but also rounded around the needs and whims of her two small children (three and five).
“My kids benefit from [color]. I use a lot of shapes, too – round pillows, patterns. I feel like children thrive off seeing color and shape in their everyday lives.”
Nguyen has lived in this home, nestled in a calmer suburb outside of big, industrial Houston, since 2020. “I actually had a checklist,” she says, reflecting on the day she and her then-partner saw it for the first time. “I wanted an atrium, and an open-plan layout – I love hosting. I wanted everyone to be able to see each other. And I wanted a lot of natural light.”
While the house was more ‘modern farmhouse’ in style than Nguyen’s natural gravitation towards mid-century modernism, she was hooked. “It checked off my list. I was like, ‘Oh, this is the one.’”
But it needed some sprucing up. Splashes of color, obviously – a sage corner became bright yellow, a wall of grey kitchen cabinets turned a glossy, lacquered green. She swapped out brass light fixtures for a set of dangling blue pendant lights and fit textured wooden panels for warmth and that dose of mid-century cool. Nguyen was determined to turn the space into a haven for inspiration.
“I was working from home, like 70 or 80 percent of the time, she says, “So I needed a space that really felt like mine. I didn’t like having to leave the house to get inspired – to have to go to a café, or a showroom, or wander around the city looking for beauty. I wanted to make that for myself.”
On a certain kind of day, when work and child-rearing and the day to day demands of life press up against each other, Nguyen finds herself sometimes a little… aesthetically overwhelmed. “I’ve never wanted a ‘minimal’ home, it’s just not really my style… But sometimes I look around, and I’m like, ‘Oh my goodness, this is way too much. Take it all away!” Usually the feeling doesn’t last too long – but it has led to some minor interiors-related regret. She recently sold her ultra-chic Rocco drinks fridge (“It was yellow – I know, shock”) that once took pride of place in her living room. “I was just overstimulated! But now I miss it,” she laughs.
Now, her latest project is Gurl Dinner, an event series for Houston-based creatives to gather together, share stories, commiserate and laugh. Nguyen’s friend and collaborator Yisel Simmons spins the tunes; Nguyen gets to tap into her love of hosting. “I’m an introvert, and I go out maybe once a month. But I’ve always wanted to create a fun but safe space for girls to have fun and let loose,” she says. Its last iteration in late June took over a Houston wine bar called Buried Seeds, and saw 150 creatives and aspirants mingle and rub shoulders into the evening. “Houston is very close-knit. If you’re in the creative scene, you kind of know everyone. There are a lot of artists and photographers, and it’s really sweet.”
Though Simmons commandeers the music at Gurl Dinner, Nguyen is in charge at home. “We love keeping vinyls out. I’ll listen to a record, or I have my Tivoli speakers. I always have music playing, I listen to music 24/7,” she says. “My kids and I are also big fans of music videos. I’m always showing them old-school music videos.”
If she gets time to sit, listen and breathe for a moment on her own, there’s one space in the home that she makes a direct beeline to: her ‘nook’. It’s stacked with color-coded books on a floating Bruno Rainaldi bookcase; a disused fireplace and a scattering of Floof pillows that look like clouds. It’s layered and textural, calming and invigorating at once. What are Nguyen’s non-negotiable nook necessities? (Say that three times without a breath.) “I think a really good nook needs very small, personal items that naturally live there – things that you use day to day,” she says. “A rug. The most, most comfortable seat. And a catch-all to make the mess look aesthetic.”
Because sometimes, it is all about making the mess beautiful, and embracing the chaos and joy and complexity – not just of colors, as Kassia Saint-Clair details, but of the daily work of living itself. “Who says what’s ‘cool’, or ‘childish’ or ‘too much’? There’s so much beauty around us, and I’m trying not to control it so much. I’m trusting my taste. Who gets to make those rules, anyway?”
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Credits
Photography by Josh Aranda
Styling by Sarah Jawda
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