Architectural Digest | Oct 2016
Written by Jennifer Fernandez | Photography by Hunter Holder
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A New Orleans Small-Space Apartment That’s Big on Style
One might expect an 1870 schoolhouse in New Orleans’s Lower Garden District to be flush with character and charm, but a 2005 residential condominium conversion left the building bereft of anything that might be even loosely construed as romantic atmosphere. “The original space was a very basic checklist of condo amenities: stainless appliances, wood cabinetry, granite counters, with walls the color of wet oatmeal and bright-white trim,” recalls Graci Interiors founder Chad Graci of his 650-square-foot, one-bedroom apartment in the structure, where he resides with his black-and-tan pomeranian, Baron. “It's amazing what a good paint job, along with a thought-out color story, can do to a place.”
Graci quickly set to work reimagining the space, adding depth by painting the walls with a striae finish in Farrow and Ball’s flattering Mahogany hue—but maintaining several panels of brick from the original design—replacing the existing lighting with more stylish fixtures, and inserting accessories and objets collected over a lifetime of treasure hunting at antique stores and flea-markets. Many of them, including paintings, books, and busts, are displayed salon-style along the walls and in an installation of built-in bookcases that dominates the living room. “The challenge was to make a very small apartment feel elegant and grand without feeling packed and overly accessorized,” the designer says. “The architecture was on my side in this case—tall, tall ceilings and good detailing.”
The other key in transforming the apartment: a brand-new kitchen primed for entertaining. Graci replaced the granite countertops with Crema Marfil marble, a stone that has what he calls a “leathered or tumbled texture, instead of polished, to give the counters an old, worn feel.” Graci also lacquered the cabinetry in Pratt and Lambert’s Peat and added a smoked-mirror backsplash “to make the room seem larger and dressier than what it was; it also elongates the space and gives a visual connection to what's going on in the living area, adding an air of 1970s glam.” The result is a small-space apartment that’s big on glamour, grandeur, and, most importantly, personality.
