Our US furniture was unworthy of being shipped to Paris. I had to start over. For the first time, I was able to shop slowly and chose things I liked instead of deciding which Ikea sofa went with our garage-sale end tables. I scoured flea markets and furniture stores. I consulted Parisians and expats. Our shipment of American household goods (books, pictures, one piano, one armchair, and one coffee table) arrived months after we got the apartment. Therefore, I didn’t feel truly at home for a long time. I still felt like we were in an Airbnb and somebody was going to tell us to get out. Now it’s just about finished, and feeling more like home. |
Here is the living room. I got the sofa at Habitat and the chairs and buffet from a Scandanavian antique shop called Scandishop. I am especially proud of the curtains because they were a good deal and I love the pattern. The guardien (kind of a super who is in charge of the building and everything that goes on in it, but in a good way) installed the curtains and wall sconces. I agonized over the wall sconces, wanting something as beautiful as the apartment itself to cover the light bulbs sticking out of the walls, but I finally gave up and went to Castorama, which is the French Home Depot. Sigh.
The world’s longest hallway is a much pleasanter hike now that it has some nice pictures. My friend Kay helped me hang these pictures because I was too scared to put a hole in these beautiful walls. She helped me quiz the guardien on picture-hanging techniques in old walls, then she just took a hammer and did it. We all need friends like that. Extra credit--comment if you see any of your original artwork here. |
Before I took these pictures, I stuffed the gym bags, coats, coffee table junk, and video game controllers behind the sofa. I moved the plastic bags of vegetables, shoes, laundry, and leftover Christmas decor into the hall and then put them back after the photos.
There are no pictures of the bathrooms because they are dirty and I would rather write a blog post than clean the bathrooms.
There is no picture of Kid 3’s room because it just looks like a teenagers bedroom (rumpled bed, books and clothes on floor, assorted dishes with crusty stuff, crooked curtains). It does have high ceilings, but that doesn’t overcome the mess. Stil, if a messy room is your only complaint about your teenager, you’re doing good.
I’m trying to create a feeling of leisure and elegance here and that was just not going to be possible if I took truthful pictures.
That’s also why there are no pictures of the dysfunctional exercise equipment and cat litter box in the piano room.
Or the closets.
I found a spoon under the couch this morning.
I re-took the dining room pictures to cut out the wifi setup.
That cute coffee cup on my desk has dried gunk in the bottom.
Now that I’m done taking pictures, we can go back to our normal, slightly disorganized life. We may have high ceilings and parquet floors and crown molding with little animals in it, but it’s still just us.
I think I’ll order a pizza for dinner.