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Designer Janice Hall Nuckolls’ holiday color palette is a confection of pinks, orange, lavender and gold.
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The Nuckolls re-created the staircase from the original blueprints; it had been removed when the property was used as a doctor’s office.
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The vintage French rococo-style fireside chair, Chinoiserie and Chinese Chippendale-style fretwork panels, and the clock and oversized Gothic iron sconce were all auction finds.
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A collection of antique stringed instruments owned by the designer’s husband, songwriter Steve Nuckolls, adorns the walls of the music room.
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Nuckolls found the storybook-style cottage on Richmond Highway, painted it her preferred colors and now uses it to store garden tools.
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A lavish holiday display in jewel tones accentuates the fireplace. Nuckolls says the painted pedestal table is a favorite auction find — there are no legs to get in the way.
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Nuckolls found the shades for the vintage sconce in a little shop in Venice. The wallpaper is Designers Guild’s “Giardino Segreto” mural.
Interior designer Janice Hall Nuckolls has always loved color.
After graduating from college, she stapled “crazy Moroccan paisley sheets” to her first apartment’s walls. Later, upon moving to Richmond, she painted another apartment’s living room walls pink, then repainted them white when she exited. “I imagined the property manager gazing at my pristine walls,” she says, laughing.
In the Monument Avenue home she now shares with her husband of 37 years, which they purchased nearly three decades ago, Nuckolls continues to express her joy-filled approach to decorating.
“I like to encourage my design clients to embrace having fun with their home,” she says. “I’m surprised when people tell me about their home renovations and how they were thinking of resale when they chose particular styles or finishes. It makes me sad to think about people choosing things for people of the future who don’t even exist yet.”
I didn’t start out with all this stuff. It truly has been a lifelong pursuit of collecting things that I love.
—Janice Hall Nuckolls
While Nuckolls enjoys helping others discover their own style, she finds great satisfaction in making choices for her own house, even if they sometimes might not make obvious sense.
“I’ve bought stuff where I’ve thought, ‘I have absolutely nowhere to put this, but it’s coming home with me,’ ” she says, adding that her “indulgent” husband, musician Steve Nuckolls, is always helpful when it comes to unloading after one of her solo shopping trips. “I don’t think he’s ever even rolled his eyes at me — he’s the most patient, kind man.”
Even with impulse purchases, there’s harmony in the whole. “This house has evolved over the years,” she says. “I didn’t start out with all this stuff. It truly has been a lifelong pursuit of collecting things that I love. I think that’s what makes a home charming … homes that look like they have evolved over time make for the most interesting interiors.”
When it comes to decorating for the holidays, Nuckolls embraces the philosophy of “more is more, and less is a bore” — widely attributed to fashion tastemaker Iris Apfel — by creating eye-catching outdoor displays that erupt in color and texture. She decorates the door and front porch of her own 1906 house, as well as the entryways for many of her neighbors on the historic avenue. One year, she says, a happy onlooker slipped construction-paper thank-you notes in mail slots. Hers read, “It looks like a party on your house.”
Inside, every surface is fair game for a seasonal treatment: mantels, console and side tables, the dining room table and buffet, a kitchen island, the tops of cabinets and mirrors, and even light fixtures. “There can’t be too much joy, love and happiness [during the holidays],” she says. “I pack away a lot of my accessories and try to have a little Christmas in every room.”
