Our Favourite ‘Gilmore Girls’ Decorating Moments

Tour some of your favourite Stars Hollow spaces as we revisit three generations of Gilmores, just in time for Christmas

Becky Harris 18 December 2016

Houzz Contributor. Hi there! I live in a 1940s cottage in Atlanta that I'll describe as "collected." I got into design via Landscape Architecture, which I studied at the University of Virginia.

I smell snow! Which means that after waiting almost a decade, we have returned to Stars Hollow, where kooky locals await. The new Netflix mini-series Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life centres around three generations of Gilmore girls – Lorelai Gilmore, who ran away from home in the ’80s as a single teenage mom; her daughter, Rory Gilmore, who now is all grown up; and Lorelai’s mother, Emily Gilmore, who is now a widow. A huge cast of quirky characters is back for the series revival, and many of the fans’ favourite locales haven’t changed a bit. Here are some of the design moments we enjoyed the most.

The inviting Connecticut farmhouse where Lorelai raised Rory and that she now shares with her partner, local diner owner Luke Danes, and her dog, Paul Anka, remained frozen in time with all the cosy clutter intact. In its first appearance in the mini-series, it is bedecked for the holidays.

Yes, you can go home again – a childhood bedroom frozen in time is always a treat. “Wow, it’s like a time machine!” Luke’s annoying daughter, April, left, says of 32-year-old Rory’s childhood bedroom. In the latest episodes, Rory, right, has hit a bump in her career path and moves back home.

Lorelai’s kitchen is the spot where many a mother-daughter heart-to-heart has taken place. This go-round, Rory finds that its yellow-and-white checkerboard linoleum floor is the perfect surface for late-night stress-relief tap-dancing. Like the rest of Lorelai’s house, the kitchen is full of quirky and charming clutter. She has very specific tastes.

Don’t let their slender bodies fool you – these two put away an inhuman amount of food. In this kitchen, Tater Tots go great with tacos and Tater Tots go great in tacos. And these Tot tacos are the perfect appetiser to nosh on while waiting for Luke to finish making two main courses for dinner.

The eldest Gilmore girl, Lorelai’s mother, Emily, misjudged the scale of this portrait of her late husband, Richard, when she commissioned it from the artist. Edward Herrmann, the actor who played Lorelai’s father, Richard Gilmore, passed away in 2014, but his spirit and very large image are present in this new season, in part due to this portrait. It can be seen clearly from two rooms away in the dining room scenes so that Richard still has a seat at the table.

In this town, Black White & Read Books serves as the movie theatre at night. The love couch is the best seat in the house for Luke and Lorelai while viewing A Second Film by Kirk, followed by Eraserhead, and eating snacks that are not so discreetly smuggled in.

Emily Gilmore’s stone-walled patio is a perfect place for cocktails, awkward post-funeral storytelling and snarky Daughters of the American Revolution meetings. But it’s really not right for any man besides Richard to mix a drink on the patio bar cart, even though it’s just an auxiliary bar cart. Here, Emily’s new man friend, Jack Smith, has dared to do it.

Although Emily raves about the scent of her therapist’s candle, the relaxing fragrance is no match for her troubled history with her daughter.

The new mini-series also visits the New York City townhouse of Rory’s ferociously ambitious overachieving friend, Paris Geller. Paris’ stair troubles are especially funny. Her five flights have cost her much frustration and the loss of a nanny. Also, bonus points that a woman named Paris has a big Eiffel Tower painting in her parlour.

“I can’t take these stairs… This place is a vertical Armageddon,” Paris shrieks. “Five stories. And Doyle wouldn’t put in an elevator because it would ruin the architectural integrity of the building.”

Years ago, Lorelai and her best friend, accident-prone chef Sookie St. James, opened the Dragonfly Inn in Stars Hollow. No one can replace Sookie, who returns to the new series only briefly from her never-ending sabbatical (she’s portrayed by Melissa McCarthy, who has a very busy schedule). But every chef who tries to step in raves about how perfectly Sookie has set it up.

Famous real-life chefs including Roy Choi and Rachael Ray try to fill Sookie’s shoes, but Lorelai is quick to fire them all. Choi makes the fatal error of putting away the coffee machine, and not even Ray’s great sammies could save her from Lorelai’s axe.

You can never have too many plates on the wall. The final nail in Choi’s coffin was when he dared to ask if he could make the dining room “less granny.” As she did with Ina Garten, Anthony Bourdain and Alice Waters before him, Lorelai canned him faster than you can say ‘abalone’.

Here we see Rory’s childhood best friend, Lane Kim, outside Lane’s mother’s shop, Kim’s Antiques. It is still the best place in town to get your granny style on. But remember Mrs. Kim’s rule: “You break, you buy.”

The biggest lesson from the show: don’t put Marie Kondo’s philosophies into practice when you’re grieving. In my favourite scene, grieving widow Emily decides to toss everything that doesn’t spark joy and gets rid of all her clothes. Before she realises it, she winds up wearing Lorelai’s old jeans with a Billy Squier patch on the butt and a Candie’s T-shirt.

Info: The original Gilmore Girls series aired from 2000 to 2007. The revival, Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, was released November 25, 2016, and is divided into four 90-minute episodes that are really more like movies: ‘Winter’, ‘Spring’, ‘Summer’ and ‘Fall’. The original series and the revival are available for streaming on Netflix.

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