Chai Style Home: The Art of the Mix

Brooke and Matt Polacheck sought the creative eye of Liz Rosenzweig, Grant Drive Design, to combine their L.A. furnishings, new pieces, and inherited family art into their Sandy Springs home where comfy is the buzz word.

Brooke explained, “We love the way Liz styled with different textures – boucle chairs, marble tables, velvet sofa, burl wood coffee tables, Tibetan wool pillows. She also pulled together the accessories in the bookcases and coffee tables using an eclectic mix of marble bowls, glass terrariums, books, iron busts.” Matt, a psychotherapist, echoed, “I’m particularly happy with our living room. There is no other that looks like ours.”

Tour the Polacheck’s well collaborated palimpsestic family home.

Marcia: What did you see as the design mission?
Liz: Brooke and Matt had a clear sense of their “look” – warm neutrals layered with a few bold moments. My role was to pull everything together, so the home felt cohesive and complete. We mixed rich browns, creams, and black with touches of color, like the bright dining chairs and playful accents adding personality without overwhelming the spaces. I layered the living room adjacent to the welcoming foyer.

Marcia: What’s the house’s history?  
Matt: We moved to Atlanta from Los Angeles in 2023. The house was originally built in 2005 and was in great condition. The previous owners had redone the kitchen and the primary bathroom. We painted the whole interior of the house white (from grey) to give it an airy feeling. We built out a portion of the basement as a space for our daughter to hang out in. We renovated all of the other bathrooms to make them more contemporary.

Marcia: The design flow timeline? 
Brooke: We had our initial meeting in December of 2023. Liz was booked until mid-February. In the months between, I sent over links of furniture, rugs, lighting that I liked. When we met again, she already had ideas in mind and where things could go. We did the bulk order in April 2024 and were pretty much finished by August.

Marcia: Explain how you got your parents’ stored artwork integrated into this modern setting.
Brooke: They had a bunch of artwork in storage that they were not using. Matt and I went through it and picked what we thought would mix well. The art is definitely on the more traditional side, but we liked it blended into our contemporary style. We didn’t want the house to look like everything came from one style aesthetic or time period. We wanted the interior to look timeless.

Marcia: What other artwork do you treasure?
Brooke: One of our favorite pieces is the traditional dog painting in the foyer. Also, the two large paintings in the living room. They were from storage and looked like they were custom made to go with the room and fit the mood so perfectly. The new art we bought were the two canvases of the meadows in the primary bedroom. I love how soft and hazy they are. We were thrilled to be able to use some pieces by family members – two of the paintings in the downstairs guest room were done by my grandmother and Matt’s grandfather’s needlepoint in our sitting room.

Marcia: The furnishings?
Brooke: We brought the glass top dining table and the two camel sofas in our primary bedroom sitting room from L.A. We painted the table base to go with the lighter kitchen colors. We mainly used a brown, tan, and cream color palette throughout the house, and added color through accessories like marigold tiger print pillows and chair in the downstairs guest room, green velvet chairs in the dining room. We added a lot of patterns with rugs – I love the checkerboard rug in the living room and the tonal polka dot rug in the downstairs guest room.

Marcia: Your lighting is dramatic.
Brooke: I never knew I could get so excited about a chandelier! I drove Liz crazy with the chandelier in the foyer. I wanted it desperately though we had planned to use something else. We thought it would be too big for the foyer. After much deliberation, we decided to go for it, and I couldn’t be happier. A lot of the lighting came from Lulu and Georgia and Visual Comfort.

Marcia: Anything special going on in the bathrooms?
Brooke: We worked with our first designer on the bathroom renovations. We just wanted to give all of them a fresh update. We love the way the powder room turned out. I wanted that one space to be dark and moody, so we went with a mural landscape wallpaper and then a custom made marble slab sink and counter.

Marcia: Describe how your “salmon wow!” primary bedroom came together.
Brooke: The primary bedroom was challenging because there is a small set of steps between the sitting room and the actual bedroom. We started the bedroom part with the first designer, and Liz came in and finished it off along with the sitting room. However, the idea of the primary bedroom actually started with the camel velvet sofas. I wanted to use them in the sitting room portion of the bedroom. I wanted the bedroom to be soft; and I love pinks, so we went with the browns, creams and a matching camel velvet bed frame and added a pop of pink/salmon on the back wall, pillows and artwork.

Marcia: Last word …
Matt: We forgot to mention that Oscar, our 4-year-old Yorkie, uses my office sofa as the lookout point to monitor the neighborhood. And yes, they tricked me into having a pink bedroom by calling it “salmon.” Ultimately, it really does suit the room and our taste.