Skip to content
Natalie - Blog Header

EPISODE #122

NATALIE PAPIER

Why Every Room Starts with a Piece of Art

Back to The Market Makers

Listen on Spotify
Listen on Youtube
Listen on Apple Podcasts
Listen on Amazon Music

"Agreeable gray just wasn't agreeing with me."

 

That line says everything about Natalie Papier’s signature design style. She's the author of Start with the Art, and star of Magnolia Network's Artfully Designed, who built a career not by following the rules of design but by ignoring the ones that never made sense to her in the first place.

 

In this episode of The Market Makers, Papier sits down with Jon Pertchik to talk about her success and creative process. It all started with her dad, an artist turned contractor who renovated her childhood home — a crumbling Victorian — that inspired her initial passion for art and creativity. Years later, that early inspiration, combined with following her own instincts, quietly built something much bigger than she planned.

 

Papier grew up watching her father do two things: make art and transform spaces. He saw the potential of every space and understood what it could become. "The bones are there," she said. "It's just what you put in it that makes it feel like you."

 

Years later, she found herself in her own Victorian in Oak Park, Illinois, and was struggling to love the very neutral and palatable color of agreeable gray. Rather than leave the walls as they were, she did what her dad would have done. While her kids napped, she grabbed a paint can and got to work. In addition to painting the home, room by room, Saturday mornings became her time to score furniture at estate sales. There she secured an oil painting — a scene in Italy, all blues and boats — and it sparked a thought: wouldn't that blue look beautiful on the ceiling? Turns out, it did. Every client she's worked with ends up with a painted ceiling, and selecting art first became a signature part of her design approach.

 

The business grew the way the best ones do — organically, through community. Instagram connected her with other designers, artists, and eventually clients. Before she had a name for what she was building, she was already building it. A production company noticed she kept bringing artists into her projects and told her, "That's your show. You're always bringing in these artists." Her response: "Oh, huh, I do do that."

 

When her husband's job moved the family to Charlotte two weeks before COVID hit, Natalie did what she does best, taking that new space and making it her personal canvas. The new house needed work, the kids needed settling, and somehow in the middle of all of it, she found her design community. Since then, she’s scored a book deal, a Magnolia show, and a lighting collection.

 

Now she's working on a number of different projects spanning different destinations and unconventional projects, including renovating vintage Airstreams, designing a colorful guest house, and working on a flat in Lisbon. She said yes without hesitation, always pushing herself to learn more and take on new challenges. Throughout it all, she’s never wavered from making home a place her clients love.

 

"Home is a really meaningful thing. It's our safe space. But you can really get fun with it, too.”

Papier - Grid

Want more conversations like this?

More amazing guests are on deck. Subscribe
to stay in the loop.