The Artful Lifestyle: Shopping for Paris

Postcards from Paris

With its new kitchen finally delivered and installed, the Paris apartment was begging to be furnished. What better place to shop than the local antique fairs in Paris? (And who better to go with than Huffington pros, Linda Mohan and Sam Jones? Talk about a collective “great eye”!)

Linda and I were pinching ourselves, wandering up the aisles of the fabulous Chatou market, held twice a year on the outskirts of Paris. The first big purchase was the piece de resistance, the gorgeous gilded mirror, for the mantel in the kitchen.

Here I am proudly posing with it before and after its delivery … before I realized that it didn’t fit!

But luckily, we found another spot for it, which worked even better: Over the living room sofa.

Then Linda and I spotted this table that had beautiful Louis XV lines and a wonderfully worn French walnut finish. Of course Linda had to test it, to make sure that we could fit our American legs under it, because a low apron is a typical problem with a lot of antique French tables.

But this one passed the test and fit beautifully in the kitchen, just as planned.

I’ve always loved fabric with birds and this little scrap of fabric, in one of the antique stalls, just jumped out at me:

There wasn’t enough to do much, so I walked away from it. And when I felt the pull to go back and get it, someone else had picked it up. That’s when I knew I had to have it! Luckily, my competition was as fickle as I was, and before she even walked away and without knowing what I could use it for, I grabbed it. How fortunate, because it is the perfect show curtain!

It was love at first site when I saw this beautiful and ornate Napoleon III mirror in the Regence style (note that a real “Regence” Mirror would have been four times the price), and thinking that it would work beautifully in the bathroom, I bought it.

But in the game of musical mirrors that I’ve already mentioned a few times, this elegant beauty ended up in the front hall, and looks even better on the wallpaper (which was hand-carried in my suitcase from Atlanta, by the way!).

And speaking of musical mirrors, this one that Sam Jones (see her little reflection in it?) and I found at l’Isle sur la Sorgue in the South of France a few weeks later, that was originally planned for the one of the bedrooms …

… worked perfectly in the kitchen!

Sam and I fell madly in love with these Louis XVI style chairs that we found in the South of France.

But then we found that they looked so beautiful in the South of France (this will be in another blog, our renovation of Les Murets), that we decided they had to stay there.

So we robbed Paris to feed Provence, and found some other Louis chairs for Paris … whose backsides we just had to cover in pink and white silk taffeta … a move that Meg immediately coined as “Sassy” – which was just the look we were looking for!

One of these chandeliers would have been good enough, but when I found two identical ones … I couldn’t resist!

And a matching pair of sconces to boot? After months on the hunt, I had found just the right ones.

But when I first hung them, I was worried that my little apartment would look like the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles …

But Sam assured me that with a little artwork and a few accessories, it would go from bling to bling to the perfect zing!

Linda and I found this sweet little chandelier at Chatou.

I didn’t realize until it was hung, just how pretty it was. I just love the Swedish lines and how elegant it looks in our little checked bedroom (there’s a story behind the check that will make it to another blog – check that out!).

When Sam and I found the perfect side tables at the Paris flea market, it never occurred to us they would have to join us at lunch, while we waited for a taxi!

And it never occurred to our unsuspecting taxi driver that this merchandise would pop out from behind the bushes and need to be squeezed in to the cab!