10 Reasons to Love Our Jaunts to Paris

Twice a year, we pack our little bags, hop on Air France (or Delta) and zoom over to Paris for the mother of all retailing events in Europe: the famed Maison et Objet exposition.  It's a veritable feast for the eyes and senses and it's a great place to track emerging trends in design, furniture, accessories and gifts.  Along the way, we treat ourselves to a couple yummy meals, glimpses of La Tour Eiffel and a croissant or two...
This month was no different.  Paris was, as always, superb.  And we found ourselves easily counting the reasons why we love, love, love the City of Light so very much:

No. 1: Gorgeous blooms everywhere you look.

No. 2: Sampling croissants every morning and then insisting you have found the very best boulangerie in Paris.

No. 3: glimpses of the Eiffel Tower when you least expect them...

No. 4: trend-spotting at M & O. Drooling over Tina Frey's lucious resin plates, glasses and serving pieces.

No. 5: Time for lunch at M & O. So delicous.

No. 6:  more trend-spotting at M & O: antique cloches and verterbrae were everywhere.

No. 7: even more trend-spotting: adorable little soaps inspired by Laduree macaroons. Couldn't resist.

No. 8: Dessert at M & O! (We really do work hard, we promise!)

No.. 9: more trend-spotting: cool, metal-wrapped baubles that we had to have.

No. 10: Lucky Meg. (She's not embarrassed to say she pushed Ann out of the way to get this shot - and can you blame her?) The adorable guys from See Ups (super cute little magnifying glasses) are always charming and fun to see.

Paris is so magical that even when we're working hard, it's still a joy to be there. We're already looking at flights for January when we can go back for our next fix....and speaking of, if our jaunts look appealing, keep in mind we're planning a couple shopping trips next year.  Click here for all the juicy details and in the meantime, think about this:

Treasures from Les Puces

Or this...

A heavenly sunset on the Seine.

And, at the end of a long day of shopping, buying and dining, you can relax here...

Imagine this as your Paris home base...

We can't think of anything more fun than a shopping trip to Paris:  days filled with cafe cremes and croissants; aisle after aisle filled with antiques and goodies; restorative sips of chilled wine and cozy delicious dinners under the light of the Eiffel Tower.  We'll hit all the highlights plus a couple little secrets spots we have up our sleeves...

Sounds magical to us.

Ta ta.

We love a good story

We love a good story, and with every piece of merchandise that we buy from our store, we love to dig for the story behind it.  Well, hold on to your seats:  This is a big dig!

It all started about a year ago with a visit to an apartment in Paris.  We were contacted by the owners, who had seen and admired our Beaumes de Venise apartment, particularly for its kitchen, and had asked us to consult with the layout and design of their new apartment, which was being completely renovated.

Before - The living room, in progress

We’re used to renovations, so we were not surprised by the debris or scared off by the condition.  Instead, we completely flipped over the location, the bones, the wrap around terrace and THE VIEW from this phenomenal, one of a kind, apartment.

View from the terrace - spectacular!

We did some consulting back and forth, and tweaked the layout, moving  the master bedroom and the kitchen so that they could both benefit from the spectacular, unobstructed view of the most iconic and beautiful monument on earth.  We made a few other changes so to benefit from the private wrap around terrace of this 7^th floor jewel.  But mostly, we just basked in the joy of working on such a fun job.

Before - Bedroom, the big windows let in wonderful light!

Before - Bedroom, saying a final goodbye the old windows.

In return for our hard work, we negotiated for the spectacular windows that we discovered were being removed from the building. After all, these windows had reflected one of the most beautiful views on earth for close to a century.  They needed a second life!  And oh look at the hardware … The original panes!  The 3 paneled glass!  We couldn’t contain ourselves.

A close up of the windows with the original hardware.

A close-up of the hardware. Such a treasure!

We happily brought the windows back to Atlanta and because they’re so heavy and unwieldy, stored all but one in our warehouse, keeping their existence a quiet secret until we found the right client.  So when Bill Edwards, one of our favorite architects in Atlanta, happened to wander in to the store a few weeks ago, and we whispered that we had brought back all the windows from a spectacular, old apartment in the heart of Paris, his eyes immediately lit up.  He just happened to have a client and a fabulous designer, Ann Dupree, who shared a vision for historic treasures and an appreciation for crusty cremones  … and needed four sets of French doors!

Off we went to the warehouse and when this team of visionaries met our French doors for the first time, it was love at first sight!  Trying to piece the hardware together proved to be as challenging as an archeological dig, matching the heavy brass knobs and cremones with their original windows.  But like all things that involve a hunt, it made the reward that much more fun and exciting.

The hardware puzzle

The team trying to put the puzzle back together.

It was quite the team effort getting the hardware back on the windows.

Ann is available for hire if anyone needs help with their hardware (Just kidding!)

These French doors have reflected a gorgeous view of the Eiffel tower for close to a century.  Now they will take their place in history in a beautiful renovation of a 1930’s house in the heart of historic Buckhead.  We couldn’t be happier and we can’t wait to show you their evolution …

But meanwhile, to complete the story, here is a glimpse of the finished apartment rental in Paris with its new windows.

Beautiful new windows in the kitchen open up to a truly special view.

A sweeping view of the lovely new living space.

The dining area with its beautiful new windows. Natural light is something to be appreciated in Paris, and this apartment has it in spades.

One of the updated bedrooms

Breakfast in bed, anyone?

The evening view from the second bedroom. Can you believe it??

The view from the terrace is unchanged and still jaw dropping. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner al fresco, oui?

If you're interested in renting this gorgeous Margaux apartment, click here for more information.
to further whet your appetite, guess who will be staying in this apartment in September 2013?  Any one of you lucky women who joins us for our Paris and Provence trip, from September 20th to 28th.
Didn’t we tell you this would be a fun story?

Ta ta …

Paris Apartment: La Vie en Rose

… and the pursuit of the perfect pink.

We were surprised and delighted that our favorite blog, Cote de Texas, featured the Paris Apartment Kitchen in a recent series on kitchen redos. And we were tickled pink with how many people commented on the pink chairs! Sure enough, that touch of pink is our favorite little exclamation point in the apartment. But it came about in a somewhat circuitous manner, with the help of many of our gallerinas. Here’s the story of pink:

As art gallery owners, it’s perhaps not unexpected that many of our interior decorating decisions first start with the art. It so happens that back in October, Linda and I, having one of the most fun flea marketing days of our lives (and no, this one didn’t involve bumping in to Catherine Deneuve …), found some paintings that we fell in love with and each had to have. The one I selected, whose provenance is unknown, jumped out at me so fast that I knew it belonged in the Paris apartment, and I knew it would have a significant role. I had it framed by our favorite Atlanta framer and for six months, it sat in a plastic bag in the bottom of a closet while I waited for the apartment to be finished, for the dust to settle and for its final destiny to be revealed.

Meanwhile, on another wonderful flea market excursion, this time in the South of France, I found six exquisite chairs that I just had to have. I loved the simple Louis XVI lines, the sturdiness of the frame, the patina of the wood and especially, the nubbly linen upholstery. They were a little pricey but worth it, and I decided to plan the Paris apartment around them.

I was very excited about the purchase and couldn’t wait to show them to Sam when she accompanied me on a trip to Les Murets, where I had decided to store the chairs until the apartment was ready.

And then the inevitable happened. We fell in love with the chairs all over again, but this time decided they had to stay at Les Murets, instead of Paris. We divided them up and spread them around the house, and no matter where we put them, they looked perfect:

Either as a desk chair in the office …

As an occasional chair in a bedroom:

As a pair, flanking a console or in a corner of the living room.

Who knew I needed so many chairs? (I didn’t!) But that left me scrambling to find some similar chairs for Paris, with the knowledge that, having already scoured all the antique markets, I’d have very little choice. In a leap of faith, I decided to order six chairs sight unseen, off of a prominent French website. I crossed my fingers and hoped they would be decent, especially since returning furniture in France is no easy feat.

When the chairs finally arrived, I was surprisingly pleased with the shape and structure and the pretty muted color, called “marron glace,” which means iced chestnut.

But when I grouped them around the kitchen table, and filled in around them with furniture and accessories in my favorite shades of grey, gold, taupe and beige, the room went flat. I knew that a pop of color was missing, but I couldn’t figure out which color. And of course, that is when art (and Sam!) came to the rescue.

The answer jumped out at me right from the canvas of that magical painting: it had to be pink! I went to bed that night dreaming of pink and woke up early to visit every flea market and fabric store I could find, for the right shade of pink. Have you ever tried to buy pink? It is a very tough color! I spent two days desperately scouring the French countryside only to come up with fuchsia, raspberry, melon, cranberry, and just about every fruit color on the planet but no perfect peony pink. I even called a Parisian antique store where I’d remembered seeing a gorgeous swath of antique pink silk fabric draped over a curtain rod in the back room, to ask if it was still available, to which the woman replied, “Of course not! It’s not for sale. It’s an original Louis XVI fabric.” My bad. It’s just that I thought if it was in a store, it might actually be for sale …

And then Sam came to the rescue. Three thousand miles away, she knew exactly what I was looking for, and found it buried in the sale rack of the silk remnants in a fancy Atlanta fabric store. When she sent me the picture of the pink and cream checked silk taffeta, I started jumping up and down. Although she apologized for the quality of the picture, I instantly remembered this fabric from having seen it years ago and wishing at the time that I had a room for it. It was 2 a.m. her time, but I frantically starting texting her: This is it! Buy it! Go get it! Break in! I’ll bail you out of jail!! Please don’t come without it!!

As luck would have it, she returned to the fabric store in the morning (having slept very little, since I’d kept her up with my frantic texting) and wouldn’t you know that out of the thousands of one-of-a-kind remnants in the store, a very pregnant woman was holding that particular swath, probably trying to figure out if it was enough to do her nursery. Sam kept her cool, walked around a little, and when the woman put the fabric down (probably just for a second to go get a measuring tape), Sam grabbed it and ran upstairs to pay for it. She didn’t check her bag on the plane and arrived safely, with fabric, the very next day in Paris. And that’s when our fun really began!

With the help of a thin backed spoon, Sam carefully lined the backs of the chairs in the silk taffeta and we’ve been holding our breaths ever since to make sure that it stays. (If not, there is a very nice upholsterer down the street in Paris, who assures me that for $400 per chair, he will back it properly! Ouch.)

With just a little touch of it, only on the backs of chairs (oh, and with a few peonies thrown in too), the pink has made all the difference in the kitchen, which instantly went from blah to ta dah! Just to add another touch of it in the living room we found a little lumbar pillow for the sofa.

We bought it in Paris but brought it back to Atlanta for the monogram, whose initials will be explained in the next (and final) blog on the Paris apartment.

And then of course the final piece de resistance, is the touch of pink in the geraniums on the window boxes!

This blog is dedicated to Linda, who helped me find the fabulous first painting that set the tone for the pink; to Sam, who knew how to make it all come together, and who climbed mountains and crossed oceans to deliver the perfect pink; and to Meg, whose unerring support through this whole process has been so generous and fun, and who coined the perfect phrase for the pink chairs when she responded to my fit of insecurity and wrote, “… Love em! They’re so sassy!”

Merci mesdames. Ma vie est en rose, thanks to you.

Ta ta,

AH

PS We’ll be issuing the final before-and-after blog on the Paris apartment next week, and with that, a little news of our own. Don’t go away!