Name: Julie Arrue, Elli, her 3-year-old daughter, and Celeste the cat.
Location: Canal Saint Martin, Paris, France
Size: 525 square feet, 2 bedrooms
Years lived in:1.5, rented
Look how the light falls from the gray Paris sky onto Julie's beautiful spring table. If Vermeer was around today I'm sure the Dutch master would set up his easel and start painting. High above the quiet courtyard of a Haussmann building on the Canal Saint Martin, Julie, a French filmmaker, has created a home full of beautiful scenes.
Pretty much everything in the little apartment she lives in with her three-year-old daughter Elli was either inherited from family, found on the street, or bought for a bargain at a flea market. Pieces like the industrial metal dining chairs, cushiony bent steel lounge chairs, rustic wooden cabinet, and Asian-style side tables-turned-coffee table go together like a furniture collage of different styles and eras.
An intriguing assemblage of framed butterflies, Elli's finger paintings, and an old black and white portrait of an unknown family hangs behind Julie's desk, offering an interesting story, full of history and emotion, to her workspace. Throughout the apartment, little odds and ends are found here and there, like the Asian rice farmer's hat hanging from a doorknob in Julie's bedroom, and a stack of black and white tiles from one of Elli's games in the living room.
The marble mantle holds a collection of mirrored votives, mismatched candle holders, and found bits of crystal chandelier. It's like a shabby-chic shrine to the confectionery soirees of dusty aristocrats. Julie says these messy vignettes are reflections of who she is. She has, after all, been known to fill her bathtub with bottles of bubbly.
Apartment Therapy Survey:
My Style: Homey. I want everyone who comes into my house to feel at ease.
Inspiration: Other people's places; brocantes (French flea markets); movies — Bergman's movies inspire me tons, but that doesn't mean I love every object in the film, it's more about the color and the light and the overall feel. Even when I go to the flea market, I'm more inspired by the way things are put together than the individual objects.
Favorite Element: My fireplace. It's at the core of the apartment — this big marble piece. I think it's awesome that it's still sitting there. It's really hard to dress. We had a giant mirror there, one night it fell — there was glass everywhere. It just exploded.
Biggest Challenge: Organizing the main room, because you have to walk through it to get to the other rooms. And the alcove is difficult — I keep trying out different things but it always feels odd.
What Friends Say: They say it's comfortable. Some people say it's cute. It is pretty rare in Paris to have space and lots of light.
Proudest DIY: The counter in the kitchen.
Biggest Indulgence: Beds, because they have to be comfortable.
Best Advice: Your apartment should reflect your personality, and everyone should have a space of their own.
Dream Sources: Caravan, ABC Carpet, Bo Concept, the Vanves flea market.
Resources of Note:
LIVING ROOM
- • Dining room table - base fond on street, attached top.
• Stool - A Chinese store in the neighborhood.
• Cabinet - found on street in two parts separately. They fit together perfectly.
• Tables - inherited from family.
• Cushiony chairs with steel frames - they were throwing them out at the office.
• Couch - Ikea covered in white coverlet.
• Antique arm chairs - inherited.
• Painting above sofa found on street
• "Melting Pony" - pink paint on plexiglass, found on street
KITCHEN
- • Painted the tile in the kitchen - they were old, disgusting.
BEDROOM
- • My bed is from Ikea. It's great actually. Everyone has the same bed but I don't care, it's comfortable.
• Painting in my bedroom is by my friend Pino.
• Elli's bed - Ikea
• Elli's desk - Uncle Balthazar built it around a drawer that holds extra-large paper.
Thanks, Julie & Elli!
(Images: Celeste Sunderland)
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Love the light and how lived in, as opposed to staged, it looks!
yes this is a 'feel good home'
I like that this home is genuine. I look at beautifully staged spaces and sometimes think, these people spend so much time, effort and money on their "things". It's a skilled art form, no doubt, to pick and place objects together for a "look". However, to see a sincerely lived in collection of things a creative person found fascinating is very welcoming and more intriguing for the experience of aquiring them. Plus, the light is perfection. :)
@sarahsilvas: Oui, tout à fait. Couldn't have said it better myself...
Really lovely, inviting and charming.
Amazing how much more appealing a home can be when you know it's a Paris apartment rather than one in, say, Omaha. (No offense, Omaha! Just sayin...) Really charming spaces.
How is it even possible to have 2 bedrooms in 525 square feet?
this place is so elegant and not over done and pretty. really lovely.
I like the house tour but I don't really see this as Vermeer inspired, other than the hat. When I think of Vermeer, I think of very elaborate rugs and tapestry.
I agree with you, Rita!
Um MJL86 that was about the light. Like it says in the second sentence in the post?
So refreshing to see a real home! People are trying too hard these days to look like professional decorators did their space. Professional decorators make homes horribly overdone 95% of the time, and now people are doing it themselves. Ugh.
This seems lovingly lived in. And yes Vermeer would weep at the light.
The Vermeer reference is a stretch at best, but it's a cute apt. nonetheless.
I really enjoyed this tour. As promised, the light is just exquisite. Mostly, I love how the decor is so very personal- and decidedly un-MCM, which I have had enough of! Thank you for sharing this.
Slow news day?
What a nice and comfortable home...I LOVE the fact that it looks comfortably lived in, yet clean and inspiring. I love that I can see you have "things"...KUDOS!!
It's very good to see a place that has grown naturally with love and beauty.
Does your 3-year-old daughter sleep in a separate bedroom? Mine is still in the crib.
Beautiful! Great source of inspiration.
Totoro! Glad you like it! :-)
Lovely. I stayed for awhile in a teeny apartment across from the canal and while it wasn't nearly as pretty as this one, the tour still brought back good memories : )
THIS is the home of an artiste. TWO artists.
And I'm stealing that blue chair.
LOVED this home.
@seawhitney : I agree. It doesn't seem possible. I actually think AT converted this incorrectly from square meters. There is no way this is only 525 sq ft.
I really love this home-- so warm, and refreshingly unstaged. My favorite idea is putting a child's finger painting inside a vintage gilt frame-- so clever!
This is SO lovely, and I totally get the Vermeer, especially from the first photo. The lovely window beside the blank wall, the low table with the pitcher and fruit--absolutely reminiscent of that corner Vermeer preferred so much, and of the objects he included in his paintings (with hints of the widening world in every one!). It would be a wonderful apartment either way, but the fact that it calls attention to Vermeer makes me love it even more. The pops of blue are fantastic.
Are those dishes in the sink? If so then it just makes it more appealing to me, lol, I would rather look at lived in homes more than staged mansions. To see a lovely home like Julie's makes me feel I can have a comfortable home like hers....I know I will never have a mansion nor do I want one.
Lovely apartment but I don't get the Vermeer comparison at all. His paintings are suffused with light, but it's a warm, golden light. His paintings bear no resemblance to the cool whites and light grays of her rooms.
Would love to see a large, tall painting over the darker fireplace(perhaps the big pink artwork on the floor next to the fireplace might work?) to add height and create more of a focal point. Gorgeous fireplaces!
Homey and attainable... I feel like real people live here. So nice to see different types of furniture arranged simply and creatively. Adorable cat :)
Totally charming and made me long to revisit Paris. A lot of inspiration here for me.
*sigh*. it's beautiful.
"I want everyone who comes into my house to feel at ease" is such a rich and generous statement.
You found that painting over the couch on the street??? Darn, Paris has the most fabulous garbage! :) Everything is so very lovely, homey yet not too done. Wonderful!
Love the cat, nothing else!!
Lovely, genuine and creative. No wonder your friends find it comfortable. The light is terrific, and I can just imagine what morning coffee must be like. Terrific use of the 500+ square feet. I seriously like the fact that the kitchen shows its lack of space. So refreshing from the usual AT tours. I wish the 3 of you happy living in this place.
This is a lovely home. I can imagine the feeling they get as they walk in the door and --- sigh.
Another reason to hate the French. They can take thrift store and make it look catalog worthy. This apartment is as pretty as any of the staged scenes in Anthropologie. 525ft in the U.S. is a studio, but in Paris it's a cozy 2 bedroom. It's not the space, but what you do with it. Europeans and Asians get that, but in the United States anything less than 1000ft is deemed a cardboard box.
lovely! unlike many AT tours, it looked like an actual home!
Lovely spaces:) Adorable kitty! Thanks for sharing:)
I know some of you think the 525sq ft is a misprint but small apartments are the norm all over Europe. 525 sq meters is a castle!! 1000-1200 sq ft houses are normal for a family, but if you want to live in the city, you're talking less than 800 sq ft, and thats for two bedrooms or more.