Thursday, April 1, 2010

a helping hand

A friend of ours has recently bought a beautiful property near here.  He is in the ideal position of being able to restyle, rewire, redecorate ... before moving in , and best of all, he has asked me to give him a hand with ideas.





So I wondered, if it were you, what would you suggest?  Here are the facts,  the house is similar in style to ours, what they call "une maison de maitre" here.  Ceiling height about 2.7m, 8 foot.  Wooden flooring throughout except for the dining and kitchen area which have traditional black and white tiles.   Nice wide staircase.

The friend, a chic 40ish year old Frenchman, lives alone, but entertains often, both professionaly and socially. He's coming from a smaller property, bringing some lovely furniture with him , mixture of modern and antique, and will be buying more to furnish this bigger living area.

He wants it to look chic yet comfortable, masculine but not forbidding.  The other and very important element to bear in mind is his huge art collection, some sculptures, mostly paintings alot of which are quite modern and some fairly bright in colour.  Also don't forget that we have a very mixed climate here, cold grey winters (have I already mentioned that?...) and pleasant light summers.

So here's what I'm thinking, but I'd love to know what you would do.  Do leave me some ideas please.

To leave him the visual space for his art I wanted to suggest a black and white palette, with touches of bright colour here and there.





I've always thought that dark dining rooms feel luxurious and elegant, in his case the room is north facing, I like this idea.








He's not afraid of rich fabric, or fancy finishings.
















He's lucky to already have the space for a huge en suite bathroom, just needs to redo the plumbing

 



It's fun to have several bedrooms to furnish, I'd happily be invited as a house guest to either of these!




So tell me, do you think I'm totally on the wrong track?


photos 1,2,3,4,6  david duncan livingstone,  5,10 ralph lauren, 7,8,9,13 designers guild, 11 hgtv



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