Share ideas from the French interiors and open a window to Paris
We always like to consider photos of French interiors: chic, stylish, modern, airy. Take a look at these decorating techniques and find a golden mean between the atmosphere of Parisian chic and coziness in your own home.
1. Combine vintage and modern interior design
French chic in the modern environment is formed when it is possible to combine something ancient with everything new. The secret is in the right combination: choose vintage restored objects and pair them with modern ones, which look the best new. For example, you can buy a modern table and mix it with old restored chairs.
2. Transform everyday things into chic
The dining table can look easy and minimalistic during the day, but when guests arrive, it can be transformed into a chic interior with textiles, candles and candlesticks, vases and porcelain dishes. More often than not, think of a simple framework that you can transform with chic elements.
3. Play with the details
Two different interior styles, which seem to have nothing in common, can look stunning in one room if combined with taste. It's all about the harmony of colors, lines, and proportions. Combine velvet curtains with mosaic floors, Scandinavian furniture with vintage objects, classics with elements of Provence.
4. Choose the first one between restoring the old one and buying a new one
If you have managed to find vintage furniture that can potentially be restored, use this feature, even if the cost of restoration is the same as buying a new thing. Tying an interesting expensive cloth and polishing the wood creates wonders, and the old chair in your new life can become the centerpiece of your new French interior.
5. Feel free to mix styles
The Paris apartments look extraordinary because the furnishings are not tied to the same style and harmoniously coexist together. Think about what style of interior you are closest to, and what you like no less. Scandinavian style and boho, classic interior with modern elements, minimalism with country notes — the French secret in combination and the right proportions. Place a bright armchair in a white Scandinavian interior, hang up reproductions of expressionists, put old books on a pile of untreated wood. Do you feel how stylish and extraordinary your interior has become?
6. Choose the central item in the room
And build a composition around it. Study interior design magazines and focus on one thing you like so much that you can't get out of your mind. Make this discovery the centerpiece of your composition (you don't have to put it in the middle literally!). Select items to your liking based on the compositional rule set by the central item. And you will not miss!
7. Do not neglect furniture with abrasions
Parisians' apartments have a relaxed atmosphere that is different from what we usually see in interior magazines. The difference is that the French don't neglect the abrasions and flaws of wooden furniture. The imperfections are unique, they have something very personal and valuable.
Scuffs on Grandma's buffet have remained since the PRE — revolutionary times, and the shcherbinka on the wooden table makes it clear that some history is connected with it: you didn't buy a new one, but left this one, so the room becomes warmer with it. So instead of throwing out your grandfather's rocking chair, think about how you could transform it.
8. Do not limit yourself to one color
The monochrome interior, made in the same style, is not in the character of the French. Add a bright detail, play on the contrasts of textures, color accents, prints — and your home will settle in Paris.