Anne-Hélène @ Du Sel au Plafond's Profile

Funny, this article explains exactly why I stay at the back of the house with my two children, although I live in a nice neighborhood and am reasonably social.

I found out that when you try getting too nice with people, two things happen. First, they chat without any consideration of the time: come on, I have two toddlers and I'd like to put things in my fridge as soon as possible ! I don't mind listening to my old neighbor explaining his many illnesses at all, but 30 minutes at 12:30 with the two kids asking when we get to eat is really annoying. I guess it's because I take my time whenever I can, but sometimes, I'm off to get my boy at school and I can't be late.

The second annoying thing is that once you start to help, some people can't help but exaggerate. I know I shouldn't be a snotty neighbor just because of that, but that's the way it ended. I once helped an old neighbor who was coming back from the market. It was totally natural to me to help her carry her things. Was it that natural to have her actually knocking at my door to get help two days later and the week after ? I don't think so. She tried to invite herself at my home, but I'm sorry, that's a no. My home is not a psychiatrist's office and I won't take responsibility for the entire street just because they live beside us.

I ended up being a kind of polite but distant neighbor. I have a lot on my hands with the kids and heavy house renovations, we make as little noise as is humanly possible, and I still chat with my neighbors and help whenever I have the opportunity. But I cut short any attempt to chat whenever I don't have the time and refuse to get out of my way to help beyond what feels natural to me. I will sort out a problem with a new fridge that won't work by calling the hotline, but I won't call children to improve family relationships. Community is what happens outside our private lives, and I protect mine and our family.

Felling much better now, thank you :-)

(PS: sorry about my English, it's not my native language but I do my best)

I sure hope it can be learned, because I'm starting a vegetable garden this year, and have never, ever done this before. I kno it'll take a few years for me to learn...

The most wonderful place has always been the one I lived in. I loved my room as a child, I loved my university room, loved beyond expression my first-apartment ever in Paris (hello 55 square meter in Paris' 6th), loved my weird two stories apartment without any door but the one in the bathroom, but most of all, I love the house we bought two years ago.

I guess I just think that I'm lucky to have a house for our family, with the stuff we love, and enough room to have the people we love over every now and then. It's a tiny, very, very narrow house, the garden is a mess and the renovations are taking forever (bye bye savings accounts), but it's my home. I guess I'd be in love somehow with any place I could call that.

Still, a huge farm with a freestanding barn and a greenhouse would be the stuff of my dreams...

I totally get the weird religious vibe you were trying to set. I love your collection !

But it's still far to cluttered for me. Everywhere you turn, every surface is covered, every space occupied. If I were you, I'd open the space by removing the wall on the side of the bed, and do some serious editing. Then again, I'm not you and I would probably end up taking away the awesomeness of that room.

If anything, maybe just take away the books at the foot of the bed, if you have a library: that would open the view a bit. Personally, I'd also remove the tchotchkes on the windowsills, but again, that's me.

katalyst: I second your comment. My husband does sit at his desk (some of us don't have laptops yet), but he only need a fourth of the available desk surface, so the rest becomes a "dumping area" where both of just leave things we don't want on clean surfaces.

Our home office is still undergoing renovations, I'm hoping to solve this problem with at least some storage (no library, no storage... yes, that's my office right now).

Number 3 has been on top on my inspirational file for a very, very, very long time.

I never had any pink tiles in my bathrooms, but I once had amazing 1960's Courrèges blue tiles in a rental apartment. They were sort of imitating the sky and clouds, but in a very stylized way. The bathroom itself was tiny and all white, unfortunately not in a modern way, but more in a cheap Ikea way. Still, I never ever spent more time in a bathtub than when I was living in that apartment.

When me moved out, the owner sold the place; I kept telling each potential buyer that I'd come and take the tiles off the walls myself if he didn't like them, but the guys who bought the apartment never called me back. I guess they thought I was joking. I wasn't.

Mint green and black bathrooms are great !

@Fluffy Bee: It's from an old collection by Olivier Desforges (http://www.olivierdesforges.fr). I grabbed him like a crazy woman when I found it on sale a year ago !

Hi Thorndale,

I'm in the middle of a major renovation of our row house in the North of France (hence the weird English, sorry about that, I do my best). Half the house is facing south, half is facing north, and some rooms don't have direct light coming into them. I gotta say, I had a lot of trouble with the floorplan at first (still have some issues).

We already redid the kids bedrooms in a baby blue that goes surprisingly well in both the north and south facing rooms. In our room, we chose a very dark chocolate brown. The kitchen is a light green (doesn't get any direct sunlight, so we kept it light). Home office is white with light grey stripes. The veranda is going to be a plain white, but with a lot of textures and a single wall of patterned wallpaper.

In all of those rooms, we chose white trims everywhere, for windows, doors, etc. Very, very white. Everybody told me it would narrow the rooms, especially the brown bedroom, but now that we did it, nobody makes that critic anymore. Maybe they are just being polite, but I love, love it. I feel it's a belt on a beautiful designer's dress: you don't notice it, but it makes the rooms grown-up, calm, and most of all, elegant.

If you want to see what we did, here's our bedroom :
http://www.duselauplafond.com/files/56bd10b084de177916caf874449fbae1-68.html

And my son's room:
http://www.duselauplafond.com/files/55e94c39ed3cc5ea3f46ec047b23d241-52.html

It's very hard to photograph small rooms, but you'll get an idea. I'd love to peek at your house, whatever solution you choose !