Home Sweet Maison the French Art of Making a Home
Always wonder what makes a French house a home? Danielle Postel-Vinay shares what she'southward learned almost the French art of making a habitation in Home Sugariness Maison, a practical guide to creating a living space that is at once comfortable and organized, welcoming and personal. Vinay leans on her insights of being married to a Parisian, as well equally a transformative friendship with a Frenchwoman who mentored her in all things la belle vie.
Information technology happened in the middle of a French antiquarian store called La Maison Supreme in Hudson, New York. A woman I had never met before stood next to me amid hundreds of precious objects—Murano glass chandeliers, Baccarat Champagne flutes, Sèvres dishes, 18th century mirrors glimmering in gilded frames, a paradise of pure maximalist fantasy—and had a moment of regret.
"My mother had then many of these kinds of things," the woman said, a wistful wait in her optics as she touched a cut-crystal wine glass. "She inherited them from my grandmother. But after my mother died, I threw information technology all out. I didn't desire to clutter up my business firm. Now, my grandmother's cathay is gone. Sometimes I regret minimalism."
Regret. Remorse. Nostalgia for what has been tossed out. I felt sad for her. These pieces of her family history were gone and she would never become them back.
This sort of thing wouldn't happen in my dwelling house. I empathize the need to organize one's living infinite, and hate clutter and disorder every bit much as anyone, but I believe in the ability of certain things—items chosen to reflect our taste and personal history--to make us experience happier in our homes. I am a maximalist, influenced by the French tradition of dwelling design, the kind of person who likes to ain things. I have saved the former dishes inherited from my uncle and the bluish glass dial bowl that once belonged to my grandmother. I collect cute objects and integrate them in my living spaces because I knew that without them, I would feel ungrounded, without a connexion to my past, all the things that define who I am.
I aspect this tendency to my love of the French home. The French own stuff, and very often, a lot of it. They do non aspire to live in a minimalist environment with no possessions. Theirs is an heirloom civilization, ane that values beautiful, precious objects and—fifty-fifty more important—holds onto these objects for the next generation. In a French home, throwing out grandma's china is not an pick. And I believe that, in the current era of decluttering to the betoken of emptiness, there is a lot to learn from the French nearly how to live with our possessions.
You lot don't take to exist French, or live in France, to accept a French home. In fact, the first time I encountered a French home was in the United States.
I'd been invited to dinner past a adult female named Jacqueline Manon, the owner of an antiquarian shop on the master street of my Midwestern hometown. I was 17, a inferior in high school, and had applied for a part-time job at her store, Manon's, hoping to brand some money and so I could move into my commencement apartment. I was taking my first steps toward living on my own, and fate brought me to Jacqueline.
She didn't rent me, but she didn't plough me away, either. I spent many afternoons in her antique store, where we saturday in overstuffed chairs talking, drinking coffee, and smoking cigarettes. During those afternoons at Manon'southward, Jacqueline taught me about her business organization—the buying and selling of precious objects—too as about her life. I learned about antiquarian article of furniture and old jewelry and vintage clothes. I learned how ane could feel the past through a beloved of collecting, just also how objects had the ability to atomic number 82 one to the future.
Jacqueline and I slowly created an unlikely friendship: I was a bookish girl in need of guidance. She was 54 years old, the girl of a French woman and a German man, an ex-model-turned-hippie who was fierce in her tastes and protective of her privacy. She had immigrated to the United States 35 years before, in the 1960s, moving first to New York City, then San Francisco, and somewhen settling in the Midwest. It was here, in the middle of America, that she became my showtime mentor in the art of living.
I arrived for dinner one April evening, climbed the steps and rang the bell. It had taken months earlier Jacqueline had invited me to her home, a large Victorian painted lady overlooking a park. For her, home was a sanctuary, a place she went to escape the rest of the world. Her two Yorkshire terriers Coco and Chantilly were barking similar crazy, their voices high and abrupt over the sound of Edith Piaf playing on a stereo. The door opened, and there stood Jacqueline, wearing a patterned scarf tied over her grayness hair, long silverish earrings, and a manus-knit sweater.
"Come in," she said, belongings the dogs back. "Don't mind my girls, they're very protective of me. Come in, come in, brand yourself at habitation."
Nosotros walked through the entryway and into a firm different annihilation I had ever seen. Every room—from the entryway to the salon to the reading nook to the dining room—felt foreign yet intimate. It was filled with article of furniture and objects, plants and books and statues, and still information technology felt spacious and elegant. At that place was nothing minimal or severe about Jacqueline'due south house. In fact, the very idea of minimalism—that heartless discarding of the by—was the very reverse of what I found there. The rooms were formal yet bohemian, orderly all the same casual, with oil paintings on the walls and Joni Mitchell albums stacked on the couch. The air smelled clean, fresh, and yet there was dust on her one-time books and the silk of a spider spider web in the corner of a window. Her house, it seemed to me, was non just a place to eat and slumber, just a vessel for her vision of life. And that vision of life included possessions.
Some years later, after a long and close friendship, Jacqueline passed away. She left me many of her favorite possessions—a set of English os mainland china with paw-painted roses, a pair of Dansk enameled pots, a instance of jewelry and boxes of cookbooks, amid other things. Over the years, I carried these objects with me when I moved, calculation them to a growing drove of possessions that, when put together in my living space, defined me and my past, my gustatory modality and my way of viewing the world. I kept every single beautiful thing she gave me. And I have no regrets.
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In the entrée (entrance or anteroom) of your home, cull a case, bookshelf, or cabinet to brandish your ain retentiveness theater. This will showcase your personal treasures, objects that reflect your history and give your guests a glimpse of the microcosm of your life.
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In the salle à manger (dining room) try a vaisselier, hutch, or cabinet: This furniture serves two purposes—it not just makes your finest dishes and prettiest tableware visible, just likewise holds the silverware, tablecloths, napkins, place mats, napkin rings, flower vases, candleholders, and other items you will use on your table. It makes setting the table easy and allows you to shop multiple sets of dishes.
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Brand a bibliothèque or home library in your dwelling. Make information technology public, then that guests tin can see and hash out your books with yous. The bigger the improve. You lot can never ain enough books!
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Consider creating a boudoir, a private space for you to spend fourth dimension alone with your favorite things. Fill it with your well-nigh treasured belongings—photos, diaries, jewelry, and so on. This is your place to think and relax, so have fun with it. Fill it with mirrors or your favorite artwork. Anything that expresses the essence of you.
How practice you display your prized heirlooms in the habitation? Share your preferred decorating style with usa below!
Source: https://food52.com/blog/22033-home-sweet-maison-french-decorating-lifestyle-danielle-postel-vinay
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