FEATURE WALL.

A bookshelf wallpaper hangs along one wall in Amy's office as an accent wall.

"It's a trompe l'oeil, meant to look like built-in bookcases," Amy says. She surrounded it with vintage furniture, which she prefers to buy in person and use as is. "I like it when I find pieces that are preloved because I live with my furniture; there's nothing precious," Amy says. "I have three big dogs, and I like living in my home and having things comfortable. All the better if I don't have to worry about breaking it in."

MERRY MUDROOM.

What looks like a screened-in porch is actually the mudroom and laundry room. "The whole space is interior; that's the quirk of an old home," Amy says. "It has exterior siding on the walls, so maybe at one point it was a breezeway." Now, Amy can use it to do laundry and get ready for snowy weather during the winter months.

People talk about seeing a house with "good bones," but what does that really mean? "When I found the house, it had been abandoned for 10 years," says homeowner and designer Amy Whyte of her Virginia home. "There were holes in the roof. It was infested with a colony of snakes. But when I walked in, I could see the bones, the original mantel and French doors and the original footprint with a symmetrical layout I love."

LAURA ASHLEY INSPIRATION.

When Amy went to decorate this guest bedroom, she started with a focal point of a vintage 1980s wallpaper. "I'm an '80s girl, so that spoke to me, reminded me of vintage Laura Ashley," she says.

She paired it with blue gingham curtains and other textile details that pull out the various hues from the wallpaper. "I knew I wanted a gingham curtain and I have 9.5-foot ceilings, so I wanted to extend them all the way up," she says. With a vintage chaise lounge and headboard that she covered herself, the room is a riot of saturated color, just as Amy likes it.