Fieldnotes: CB Chats with Morgan Hood & Ally Holderness
Morgan Hood and Ally Holderness are the creative minds and longtime friends behind Elliston House, a design studio celebrated for vibrant, easy-to-layer textiles and wallpapers that bring personality, joy, and ease into the home. What began six years ago as a friendship rooted in shared interests and a love of interiors has blossomed into a full-fledged design house, where creativity thrives on friendship and every collection tells a story.
Raised in homes that celebrated making things beautiful, Ally and Morgan bring complementary strengths to their business: one sharp-eyed for detail and operations, the other visionary in creative direction and storytelling. Their designs capture the joy of family life, the inspiration of travel and nature, and a fearless flair for mixing the unexpected.
This fall, that creativity takes a new form: we’re collaborating with Elliston House for the Round Top Antiques Show to bring their lively textiles into the home in a collection debuting this October. Tea towels, coasters, and napkins, alongside pillows, bolsters, and a stunning range of hand-sewn lampshades, showcase their fabrics in playful, practical ways—adding even more color, pattern, and whimsy to the shop!
I'm thrilled to dive into the vision, process, and personal stories behind the collections that make Elliston House—and Morgan and Ally—so unmistakably alive.
xx CB
How did you two first meet and how did your friendship grow into a creative partnership that ultimately became Elliston House?
EH: We met 6 ago in Greensboro, North Carolina at a mutual friend’s birthday party. What started as wine nights and long walks quickly grew into an easy friendship built on shared values and a mutual love of design. We’d find ourselves talking for hours about fashion, colors, interiors, and the joy of making a house feel like a home.
Over time, those conversations became daydreams—and those daydreams became a vision. We realized we each brought something different yet complementary to the table: one of us with a knack for strategy and big-picture thinking, the other with an eye for detail and storytelling. That balance, combined with our shared love of pattern and color, planted the first seeds of Elliston House.
What began as two friends tossing ideas around a living room floor has grown into a full-fledged design house. But at its core, Elliston House is still about friendship—about the joy of building something beautiful together and creating fabrics and wallpapers that spark connection in the homes they inhabit.
What early experiences with fashion, design, or color influenced your path to founding Elliston House?
EH: We both grew up surrounded by women who cared about making things beautiful, whether it was setting a table, choosing fabrics for a room, searching dark corners of dusty warehouses for the perfect antique chest, or pulling together an outfit. That early exposure sparked our love for color and pattern in our own unique ways.
Over the years, we each gathered inspiration from travel, fashion, and interiors, discovering how much joy comes from mixing old and new, playful and classic. As young adults in our first careers, Morgan spent her days behind a computer marketing a B2B packaging company while diving into all things color and graphic design, and Ally worked for Belk in their buying department, surrounded by fashion and back-end analytics.
Looking back, it’s funny to see how each step led us here. Elliston House really grew out of those early experiences—a desire to create textiles that feel timeless, yet fun and fresh.
When you first launched, what was your original vision, and how has that dream evolved over time?
EH: When we first launched Elliston House, our dream was simple: to create fabrics and wallpapers we wished existed but couldn’t find—playful, high-design pieces that still felt approachable. At the time, it was really about sharing our love of pattern and color with friends and designers in our own circles. Over time, that vision has grown into something bigger—building a brand that celebrates collaboration, expands into new categories, and connects with people everywhere who are drawn to the same joyful, layered way of living.
What lies at the heart of your collections—colors, places, fabrics, nature, memories? And in what ways do your family and children inspire the designs?
EH: What makes Elliston House unique is that each of our collections is completely different, emerging from distinct goals, desires, and sources of inspiration. Despite these differences, the heart of EH never changes—we’re constantly inspired by colors and patterns drawn from travel, nature, and even the little everyday moments at home.
Family life plays a huge role as well. Our kids remind us to see design through a playful lens and to create fabrics and wallpapers that feel livable, not too precious. That balance of high design with a friendly, approachable spirit is what truly drives Elliston House. Recently, we’ve spent months exploring performance fabrics and woven textiles, which add even greater breadth to our ever-growing, ever-changing database of boutique textiles.
Is there a particular pattern or collection that holds a special place in your heart?
EH: Our first Inaugural Collection will always be our most beloved and special. We have countless memories of the two of us sprawled out on our living room floors, drinking wine and riffling through digital renderings and samples. That season—the season of beginnings—was full of second-guesses and not really knowing what we were doing. We will forever cherish those silly, uncertain times spent together, talking in circles about the business, our hopes and dreams, and the kind of “crazy moms” we were becoming!
How do your unique strengths as friends and co-founders complement each other in shaping the business?
EH: One of the best parts of working together is how different our strengths are, and how naturally they fit. Ally is detail-oriented and has a gift for operations, keeping everything running seamlessly, while Morgan is more big-picture, loving to dream up creative direction and storytelling. We joke that one of us keeps our feet on the ground while the other keeps her head in the clouds—but it’s that balance that makes Elliston House work.
We truly complement each other, as cheesy as that sounds, both in what we’re “good” at and what we naturally gravitate toward from a business standpoint. And of course, our personal styles blend well even when they’re polar opposites—don’t let the color burgundy near Ally, and avoid bubbe gum pink around Morgan! When we both love something, we know it’s going to be a home run.
Are there any design rules you love to break—or things you simply refuse to do?
EH: We love breaking the so-called “rules” around mixing patterns. Stripes with florals, bold colors with softer tones—when done in balance, it creates a layered, personal look. What we absolutely refuse to do is design something that feels too precious or intimidating. Our textiles are meant to be lived with, spilled on, and enjoyed—not tucked away for safekeeping.
Don’t be afraid of the color red, or that old chest passed down from your grandmother. Mixing old and new makes a home feel lived in, and unexpected color makes a home fun!
For someone just starting to decorate, what advice would you give for incorporating Elliston House pieces into their home?
EH: Start small and have fun with it. A pillow, a lampshade, or a set of drapery panels is often all it takes to bring a room to life. Don’t be afraid to mix patterns—ours are designed to play well together—so try layering a stripe with a floral or a bold print with something more subtle.
At the end of the day, your home should feel joyful and lived-in, not perfect. That’s exactly the spirit we hope Elliston House brings.
Is there an object or detail in your studio that never fails to delight or surprise guests?
EH: Definitely Webb’s pack-n-play. Fun fact: both of Ally’s babies were raised in EH HQ. They’re real-life office groupies, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.
Do you have any guilty pleasures or little indulgences—music, snacks, shoes, or late-night Netflix binges—that keep you energized and inspired?
EH: Lattes for Ally and matchas for Morgan—daily indulgences, and sometimes afternoon pick-me-ups. We both love a good playlist in the background while we work, and we always keep some olives and chips around to pretend we’re in Italy. Sometimes those little escapes are exactly what keep the creativity flowing.
Heading into fall, what’s your must-have fashion piece, and is there a beauty product you’ve recently fallen for?
EH: We’re both very into chocolate brown suede, whether that’s a handbag or a pair of flats. Brown is the IT color for fall and pairs beautifully with just about anything in your closet. As for beauty, we both love Westman Atelier and use nearly everything from the line.