When Debra first saw her apartment, it had been on the market for a year. The 99-year-old woman who had lived in the 45m2 space since 1946 had never had a bathroom, though she installed a toilet in the 1960s. There were five generations of wallpaper on the walls. The floor in the living room was blackened with smoke from the fireplace, the only source of heat. It was sad and depressing and nobody had the vision to make an offer...
“It was an opportunity to bring something back to its original beauty,” Debra said of the space, with its original moldings, two period fireplaces, large windows, and wood floors. “It’s harder and harder to find something that hasn’t been redone -- we’re in this era where we’re buying other people’s renovations, and then you really can’t make it your own."
She hired a team to strip the walls, clean the floors, rewire the electricity, install heating (including old-style radiators from the BHV that fit the 1905 sensibility of the building), add a wall of storage in the bedroom, and build a bathroom and a handsome modern kitchen from scratch by fitting IKEA cabinets to the uneven walls of the apartment. "It was never supposed to look like this,” Debra says of the kitchen, adding that it took three weeks of crying and ripping her hair out before she and her contractors figured out how to fit the pieces of the puzzle together. “You always have an idea that will probably never see the light -- but I'm very happy with the final result."
She removed interior doors to give the apartment an airier feel, and has furnished it with an old butcher’s block table found in the South of France that functions as a kitchen island, a mirrored 1930s dresser she found at a second-hand shop in Paris, her own photographs of waiters at her favorite café, Au Petit Fer à Cheval on the rue Vieille du Temple, and odds and ends picked up at the flea market at Vanves, Paris neighborhood brocantes, and travels. “Almost everything in this apartment I bought for less than 100 euros at some dumpy flea market," she says.
- Kristin Hohenadel blogging from rue Vieille du Temple, Paris, France. If you have an idea for a European house tour, please write kristinh @ apartmenttherapy . com
© 2009 Apartment Therapy
Wow!
I appreciate the sleek and smart space-saving design.
view art's profile
What a nice place. I love the kitchen. Are those really Ikea cabinets? Is Ikea holding out the best for their Paris stores or something?
view SFGail's profile
My thought exactly -- THOSE are IKEA cupboards??
Love the butcher block, and so much about this place...
view mschatelaine's profile
So beautiful...
view Lesley - London's profile
j'aime beacoup! j'ai besoin some curtains, la blanche wardrobe, et un mirrored dresser just comme toi.
view SD913's profile
Ooh la la! C'est fantastique!
view Lisa Hunter's profile
It's a lovely restoration, and maybe I've gone around the twist, but the "before" pictures show such aged charms that I'd have been tempted--for a while, at least--to super clean the place, refinish the floors, add a bathroom (l'idee lumineuse), and at that point go sparse and spare with white-painted furniture, white linens, and white sheers at the windows. . . .
view Aulaire's profile
Stunning. Wish I lived there. And bless her Parisian heart for having not much more than a few condiments and a bottle of Champagne in her fridge.
view Sisero's profile
I LOVE this space. LOVE LOVE LOVE. And I love the Lucky Horseshoe -- especially the house salad.
view ajavonfleurenberg's profile
The woman who died is at peace knowing someone is taking good care of her apartment.
It is called karma.
view cityofparis's profile
An amazing space. I do not "log in" much but this place brought me out of hiding. Although admittedly the location has a little to do with my envy
view mposter's profile
amazing! so cozy.
view superrenee's profile
That kitchen is the essence of chic. I also like some of her ideas, like using an old fireplace as a headboard for the bed, the restrained stenciling on the closet doors, and the photos of her favourite waiters (a wonderfully random concept for most of us).
The photos would be interesting to do, but I suspect that while a woman having photos of her favourite waiters is fun and stylish, a man having photos of his favourite waitresses would just be creepy. Gender politics are so unfair.
view Blandwagon's profile
WOW!
view Sol's profile
The before photos made me think 'Triplets of Belleville'. What a beautiful little space - and I also cannot believe those are Ikea cabinets!
view mattplantguy's profile
i love this home. i don't, however, love the bed in front of the mantle. i always find that to look akward.
view erinorea's profile
Gorgeous. I would not change a single thing.
view Gustaf's profile