Cottage in New Orleans

After Hurricane Katrina, former interior designer (she is a lighting and product designer now) Karyl Pierce Paxton renovated her Queen Anne cottage in New Orleans completely. French and eclectic, she used a soft palette throughout the house and decorated it with African and New Guinean pieces and her collection of Catholic works of art and religious icons.

The Queen Anne cottage has cut-out wooden trim, turned columns, a quirky horizontal balustrade, and fish-scale shingles on the second floor.


Paxton transformed a diminutive backyard into a brick courtyard.


In her dining room, a French neoclassical-style dining table, circa 1800, wears its original paint. Louis XVI-style chairs and orange embroidered Indian silk curtains complete the look.


An Italian console holds a silver tea set from Paxton's grandmother, sculptures from New Guinea and Africa and lamps she designed herself. Behind them is a dramatic painting by David Harouni. an artist who fled from Iran and moved to New Orleans.


In the front parlor, a circa 1800 French mirror reflects a Rococo-style chandelier.


In the second parlor, a pair of Louis XVI fauteuils with their faded needlepoint seats and backs made from antique Aubusson tapestries.

French parlor suite. The twig and leaves floor lamp was made by Paul Gruer. He hand-sculpted each individual part in clay, fired it, and painted it.


A crusty Empire mirror from a flea market leans on a demi-lune table.


The side hall distinguishes this type of New Orleans house.


An Italian painted desk makes the side hall into a usable room rather than a pass-through space.


A 19th-century Louisiana wood table takes center stage in a kitchen painted Benjamin Moore's Cloud White. Even in the kitchen there is a touch of drama with full length draperies.


Paxton decorated her ultra-feminine guest room to feel like a bed-and-breakfast in the south of France. To keep a rustic feeling, Paxton used salvaged cypress floorboards from a barn and left quarter-inch gaps between boards.


Double French doors in the master bathroom open to the courtyard, screened by a ten-foot cedar fence. The sink base is an 18th-century French buffet.


The master bathroom's French doors open onto a tiny courtyard. Paxton added the wraparound back porch in typical Victorian style.


The master bedroom's walls are Benjamin Moore's Pittsfield Buff. A drawing by Mario Villa hangs between sconces made especially for that spot by Paul Gruer.

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