A born-and-raised New Yorker, Alex Papachristidis grew up on the Upper East Side, influenced by his mother’s approach to living. “We’re the fanciest casual people you’ll ever meet. We are super down-to-earth. We’re super family- and kid-oriented. We use our formal living room. We use our formal dishes. We use our formal silverware. But you know what? We might all be in our pajamas,” he tells host Dennis Scully on the latest episode of The Business of Home Podcast. “We live in our homes and have fun with them. My mother was that way. We were allowed to play in the living room, even though everything was white. If I did something stupid and I spilled … all over the furniture, it got reupholstered. She wasn’t happy about it, but it was like, ‘OK, stuff happens. That’s life.’”

He was originally positioned to follow his family’s footsteps into the shipping business, but did not find his passion there. One day, after visiting his apartment, a friend told him he should be a decorator. “A lightning bolt hit me. It nearly knocked me off my socks,” says Papachristidis. “I was like, ‘Whoa! Why didn’t I think of that?’” Following a brief stint at Parsons, when he was in his mid-20s, he ended up finding a business partner to help him launch Papachristidis Interiors. Now, he continues to run that firm as well as a popular Instagram account and his own tabletop line, Everyday Elegance.

Over the course of his storied career, he worked with two different business partners at his design firm, but after the second one left, Papachristidis had to learn to take on both roles. “I’m super involved in everything,” he says. “An invoice doesn’t go out without me seeing it. A trim isn’t chosen without me approving it. I left a lot of the business side of things to my business partners, who were very, very business-oriented. And now, I had to become more of a businessman. Necessity is the mother of invention. The most important thing, and this is our motto in the office, is that we all have to work together. We all have to help each other. There’s no such thing as ‘It’s not my job.’ There’s no such thing as a dumb question, and there’s no such thing as a mistake that we don’t all stand behind and deal with.”

Elsewhere in the episode, Papachristidis discusses the process of renovating his own apartment, his advice for the next generation of designers, and why you need strong relationships to make it in the business.

Crucial insight: Papachristidis has never been one to gatekeep his vendors. “In my first book, I give away all my sources—my upholsterer, my curtain maker, my decorative painter. It’s good for them. It’s good for me. And if somebody wants to do what I do, let them,” he says. “Everybody needs to make money and work, and if we don’t all support these people, they’re not going to stay in business. … We all have our own take, and there’s so many people who aren’t going to copy, and if they do copy, well, there’s nothing you can do about that.”

Key quote: “The thing that I would say to young people: Decorating is a lot of work. It’s a big job, very expensive. It’s a lot of responsibility, and it’s not something to be taken lightly. Don’t think that a decorating career is any kind of easy, fun way out. It’s not. It’s a huge commitment, and it’s something that you need to be passionate about and pay a lot of attention to. If you want to be a good decorator, you really have to pay attention because there are so many things that can go wrong, and you need to be very buttoned up, and you need to be a real problem-solver and a good troubleshooter.”

This episode is sponsored by Loloi and Maiden Home. Listen to the show below. If you like what you hear, subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

The Thursday Show

Host Dennis Scully and BOH executive editor Fred Nicolaus discuss the biggest news in the design world, including the latest earnings from 1stDibs and Arhaus, corporate drama at Ethan Allen, and whether influencers are ruining estate sales. Later, designer Christine Gachot of New York–based Gachot Studios joins the show to discuss her upcoming book, The Thought That Counts: A Guide to Gifting for Every Occasion.

This episode is sponsored by Joon Loloi and Lutron. Listen to the show below. If you like what you hear, subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.