Text by Elizabeth Czapski
After living in a tiny apartment in New York City, followed by a small condo after he returned to his native home of New Orleans, interior designer Chad Graci found the perfect place in Mid-City to put down roots for both himself and the carefully curated pieces and passed-down sundries he’d amassed over time without the space to display them. In the last six years, he’s settled into the 1916 double-shotgun house that he converted to a single, creating a richly layered, refined but approachable aesthetic—which extends to his natural, heirloom-inspired Christmas inclusions.
“I had a lot of this furniture already—I’m a designer, so we have lots of stuff,” Chad says with a laugh. “This project was a chance for me to expand and grow my collections and showcase things I’d had in storage that I loved and hadn’t had a spot for before.”
The first order of business was the renovation, but from there, Chad took his time with the interiors, wanting to put his own distinguishing mark on the locally prevalent architectural design. “It’s not a typical way of furnishing a New Orleans shotgun,” he says. “I wanted the house to unfold as you progress through the rooms. I worked hard to make it an experience to get from the front to the back with different rooms and seating arrangements that make each space feel [distinct] but united by the décor and colors.”
As a part of this progression, it was key for Chad to have a variety of areas for different types of entertaining, especially around the holidays, as he hosts gatherings spanning a fundraiser for the Ogden Museum of Southern Art and small annual get-togethers with family and friends, like dessert on Christmas Eve and lunch on Christmas Day. “I wanted it to feel intimate if I had three people over for dinner and appropriate for a big party of 50 or 60 people,” Chad explains.
This took shape in a formal look in the front of the house, beginning with a sophisticated study that holds a showstopping flocked tree that puts the spotlight on a unique color palette of green, purple, and bronze embellishments, and a more relaxed ambience in the back family room, where a natural tree displays childhood ornaments. “It was important for this room to feel a little more casual, but it still needed to feel on the same level as the rest of the house because it’s all so connected,” Chad says.
While Chad’s two traditional trees follow suit with their respective ends of the home’s spectrum, no matter the tree style or year’s theme, he incorporates his grandmother’s antique ornaments, and the collection of vintage nutcrackers his mom and aunt started for him always pops up around the abode. “They make me think of Christmas growing up, and it’s important to have that connectivity,” he says. Beyond meaningful family pieces, Chad keeps the rest of his holiday adornment simple. “I like minimal and natural—fresh greenery and classic red accents,” he says.
For year-round décor, Chad took a similar approach. Coming from a condo that he describes as “decorated to the max and saturated in color,” he aimed for something different here. “I wanted this house to feel a little lighter, more breathable—to give the pieces a little space around them,” he notes. He selected a color scheme that progresses in tandem with the foundational design to help achieve its flow. “I knew I wanted all the rooms that were connected to be shades of warm whites. I added color in rooms that felt more off the path,” Chad says of the deep moody tones used in the powder room and primary bedroom.
Overall, the result is a collected, eclectic feel that unites diverse elements with cohesive harmony—from a mix of traditional fixtures and modern furnishings to antique and abstract contemporary accents and artwork. Chad skillfully blends the old and new in a way that blurs their differences. “The blend just happens with what I’m drawn to,” he says. “It’s a tenuous balance of hard with soft and brown wood with something contemporary. If you have strong, clean upholstered pieces, you can mix eras of furnishings around there. A lot is about the lines. I have antiques, but they’re simplified. I keep art in a mix of periods.”
And bringing all of this together is what ultimately makes the home shine with warmth and personality. “The house is so personal to me because, finally, everything I own is all under one roof,” Chad says. “I get joy out of seeing all of these things I’ve collected over the years living together, and I really worked hard to create special backdrops for them.”
