best home furniture design: Studio Descartes

Its been a couple of years since my last trip to Paris and whenever I return to see my friends and family in England I always try to sneak in a quick trip.

I love Paris... I love people watching from your street side cafe, the beautiful historic buildings, those back street food markets, strolling around art studios and the courtyards restaurant in the Marais district and spending a day relaxing with a deep tissue massage at the Hammam (Arabic steam baths) and refreshing in the tea rooms at the French Mosque (Mosquee de Paris) afterwards.

So you can image my delight when a friend of mine in Australia decided to purchase a loft studio slap bang in the heart of Rue Mouffetard in the Paris Arrondissement 5. The studio is just in front of the Patheon and a stones throw from my favourite Hammam.

The studio has been recently refurbished with a mix of natural finishes and typical Parisian features.

The tiles for the kitchen and bathroom are small "tomettes" (terra cotta tiles). Most often hexagonal in shape and red in hue. The tomette is a symbol of old Paris and la Provence, of antique and traditional houses. Antique tile sellers clean and scrape antique tomette tiles to make them ready for laying again.

The floor is a timber parquet. Being a 17th century house with a 12th century paris city wall going through it (erected by the Philippe August in 1200), it would have required some skill to lay this parquet on such an old uneven floor base.

Finally all the new painting was with Low "VOC" paint products. Just to note, normal VOC paints and oil paint products are now banned in the UK, France and the Europe.