As the Varner–Hogg restoration wound to a halt, Hogg refocused her attention on her Houston home, Bayou Bend, which housed some of her personal collection of antiques and artwork. "The New York Times" described her "superb Early American furniture" collection in 1953, and she had a large collection of Americana and colonial Mexican decorative arts, some of which are still in the house. In the late 1950s she said: "I had been collecting American furniture. I collected, and collected, and collected, until I had so much of it I didn't know what to do with it. I decided to give it to a museum." She collaborated with the original architect John Staub on structural changes that would prepare the home to be a museum. She denuded the home of personal items and items that did not meet her concept; the only piece of non-American furniture in the home was her English dining table, which had too many memories for her to remove it.