My Favorite Room

Fashion journalist Kristie Ramirez mixes chic with sentimental in her inspiredhome office

Kristie Ramirez's favorite room is her home office.
Photo by Jerry McClure
Next to a bouquet of hydrangeas on her desk, Ramirez keeps her favoritephotograph by Laura Wilson (with a personal note written on the back).
Photo by Jerry McClure
A cherished card from her SMU students sits atop a stack of magazines.
Photo by Jerry McClure
Assorted blue ceramic dogs come from Avant Garden and Pearl River in New YorkCity.
Photo by Jerry McClure
Beneath a clear console from CB2 sit two baskets topped with Ramirez's favoritecoffee table books.
Photo by Jerry McClure
The flower bowl and Lacroix book were gifts; she filled the bowl with CocoChanel pins she got in a press release.
Photo by Jerry McClure
A painting of her beloved cat Chicken, who passed away a few years ago, sitsnext to a chair draped with an Ikea fur rug. The bright pink catalog fromphotographer David LaChapelle came with a piece of art.
Photo by Jerry McClure

Kristie Ramirez lives and breathes good taste. She works as a columnist for Texas Monthly, a freelancer for FD Luxe and teaches a fashion journalism class at SMU. She also has a blog called Texas Style and Substance. Ramirez and husband Tom Hoitsma, executive producer of Texas Music Scene, have two kids, Cruz and Pilar.

Her eclectic 1950s ranch-style abode — which welcomes guests with white-washed brick, paddle cactus plants and large stone slabs that serve as a walkway — gives just a hint of Ramirez's effortlessly chic style. That and her "uniform" — a tee, pants and a blazer with heels— which seems anything but ordinary on her svelte frame.

But her favorite room in the whole house? "My office — where I spend a whole lot of time," she says.

The space is filled with surprising touches — like the Derek Lam skateboards from Neiman Marcus + Target that hang behind her desk like artwork.

The most unexpected part about the small and light space is that it's filled with surprisingly inexpensive items — like the homemade curtains, sheepskin Ikea rug and the Derek Lam skateboards from Neiman Marcus + Target that hang behind her desk. Only Ramirez would think to use them as art.

"I just liked the graphic nature of them," she says.

Aside from the Moleskine notebooks and 10-year old lattice-design desk, Ramirez has incorporated many cherished, sentimental pieces into the space. Next to her bouquet of hydrangeas, she keeps her favorite photograph by Laura Wilson (with a personal note written on the back).

She points to an open card — covered in notes and signatures — on the side table behind her desk. "This is from my SMU students," she says. "It's cool because that was a year ago — and half of them now have amazing jobs."

In the corner of the room, Ikea fur drapes a metal chair and frames a bright pink catalog from photographer David LaChapelle, which came with a piece of art. Underneath rests a square basket of Texas Monthly magazines; beside it is a homemade painting of her favorite cat, Chicken, who passed away a few years back.

Beneath a clear table from CB2 are two baskets topped with Hoitsma's favorite coffee table books, including The Beatles Anthology and Manolo Blahnik. On the table, under an Aztec-y mirror, there's an assortment of blue dogs from Avant Garden and Pearl River in New York City — and more books. "My friend, Jackie Bolin, bought the Lacroix book for me on one of her trips to Paris," she says.

A flower-shaped bowl, which friend Niven Morgan gave her, rests on the Lacroix. It's filled with Chanel pins.

"Did you get that press release about a year ago with all of these Coco Chanel pins?" she asks.

Um, no. Even if we did, we doubt that we would have figured out such an inspired way to display them.

unspecified

Floral studio in booming Celina blossoms with plans for full flower shop

Photo by Karen Chaney

Greenologie Flower Shop floral designers Julie Holland (left) and Rebecca Calvert have big plans for the future.

Tucked behind the sprawling grounds of Shades of Green, a 10-acre garden center in Celina, sits a house where Rebecca Calvert and Julie Holland often work into the wee hours creating floral arrangements for their Greenologie Flower Shop.

Open since June 2025, Greenologie is a boutique floral design studio that offers handcrafted floral arrangements, flower delivery or pick-up, floral design workshops, and wedding and event floral design services. For the last year, Calvert and Holland have been operating from Shades of Green, by appointment only.

But the floral business is booming in Celina - one of the fastest-growing cities in the country - and the duo has ambitious plans to transform the floral business into a traditional flower shop. They're used to putting in the long hours it will take to make it grow.

“We flower-design a lot at nighttime,” Calvert says. “We always joke — because the lighting isn't great — that we're kind of designing in the dark. The next day we get over there, and we're like, oh, it's really, really beautiful.”

In addition to making custom floral arrangements, Greenologie also offers flower arranging classes for the public, including the upcoming Sips & Stems: Wine Glass Flower Arranging Night, on July 15 at Valley Vines in Celina.

Last fall, the company launched a porch decorating service called Pumpkin Porch Party, which featured multi-colored pumpkins, gourds and seasonal flowers. It was a hit, and they plan to offer the service again this year.

“People pay you to zhuzh up their porch,” Calvert says. “We launched it last minute, and it went really well. We did about 30 porches over North Texas and it was super fun.”

Greenologie will offer Pumpkin Porch Party in the fall.Photo courtesy of Greenologie

Calvert co-owns Greenologie and Shades of Green Nursery + Landscape with her husband, Jarratt Calvert. Flowers are a family business.

Rebecca Calvert’s father, Jeff McCauley, opened Shades of Green in 1977 with a childhood friend while they were students at Texas A&M University. The first Shades of Green garden center opened in McKinney in 1988 before relocating to Frisco in 1994. In 2022, a second location opened in Celina, which is now the company’s sole Shades of Green garden center.

Calvert and Holland have to be nocturnal florists because of their day jobs at Shades of Green.

After graduating from Texas A&M University with a degree in communications, Calvert, a longtime Celina resident, spent nearly a decade working in corporate human resources. Following the birth of her first child, she decided to leave the corporate world and found a new way to use her HR experience through her work at Shades of Green.

“I would say [Shades of Green] is the job I have to do, and Greenologie is the job I get to do,” Calvert says.

Holland, the garden center manager and a Celina resident, earned a degree in agricultural services and development with a focus on horticulture at Tarleton State University. Prior to beginning her career at Shades of Green four years ago, she taught floral and horticulture classes and ran a flower shop from her classroom. Holland traces her botany bond back to her grandmother, whose flower shop she loved visiting as a young girl.

Flowers used in Greenologie arrangements are sourced from Trader Joe’s and from Rebecca Calvert’s Celina home garden.Photo by Karen Chaney

Calvert says she and Holland share responsibilities as well as a similar design aesthetic.

“We are more on the contemporary side — whimsical is a good word,” Calvert says. “We've done a few events and weddings where it was kind of copy and paste, and that's great too. But we both have the most fun whenever we can design without any constraints.”

The owners' goal is to open their own brick-and-mortar shop in the next five years. For now, orders placed online for Greenologie can be delivered or picked up at Shades of Green, 1213 E. Sunset Blvd., Celina.

“Greenologie will have its actual own little flower shop next to the Shades of Green storefront,” Calvert says. “It will be a traditional flower shop with gifts and a flower bar to pick your flowers from.”

celina celina growth flower shop floral design