How To Create an Extra Bedroom
The finished verrière separating my client’s living room and bedroom (before styling!), photo curtesy of 15 Dixième
If you had been following my own apartment renovation and move before the summer, I can confirm that I have moved in and am very happy with my new home! People keep asking me if it’s finished. And I could simply say ‘yes’, as the actual building work has been finished for months. The furniture has all been installed. And Hocine the builder put up the last lights a week ago - I’m so pleased with the delightful glass bubble light I found for the dining room! Overall, I’m really pleased with how it’s looking.
But it’s not finished, not yet. Not all the pictures are up, as the walls are concrete and I need a specific drill (a ‘marteau perforateur’ in French, a hammer drill (apparently!) in English) to be able to put them up. A kind friend has now lent me one, so I can get on with it. And there are no curtains yet. Nor any rugs. And I haven’t chosen cushions.
You may think I’m mad, let’s call it professional bias, but these final touches actually make all the difference. They really ‘dress’ a room, soften it, and often pull the color scheme together. I remember the day when I put up very simple white linen drapes in my coworking space, The Hub. It’s an office, and a very nice one, if I do say so myself! It even has a Living Room - named after a line in a Serge Gainsbourg song, when he growls ‘leeevinnngggg rrrrrrrrooomm’ in that wonderful French accent! So there are sofas, a rug, a coffee table and lots of plants. We needed the curtains as the room is south facing and it gets very hot when it’s sunny. So I got some standard Ikea, white linen effect, sheer drapes. And they actually made such a huge difference when I put them up. The room just felt finished.
So, no, my home isn’t yet finished. I have my eye on some colorful Ruggable rugs (this was a recent discovery for me - but some very blasé friends of mine have had them for years… who knows what you don’t know?!). And I’ll obviously need some curtains. I also need to get my Grandfather’s chaise longue reupholstered - I’m eyeing up some pale peachy colored velvet which will set the color scheme for the library…
When it’s really finished, which will probably take a few months, as it has fallen down the priority list, I’ll get photos taken and will let you know here!
Today, instead, I’m going to tell you about a client of mine who needed to create an extra bedroom in an apartment she bought in the 16th arrondissement. It’s a beautiful space, Haussmannian, very high ceilings, two floor to ceiling windows, herringbone parquet, cornicing, ceiling roses, the works. The apartment has two existing bedrooms for my client’s children, and she wanted to create a third bedroom for herself.
The living room is ‘double’, meaning that it has two parts, which could be a dining area and a sitting space with a window in each. Actually, by today’s Parisian standards, the living space is very generous. So we decided to separate off about two-fifths for a bedroom and the rest would remain a living/ dining room.
It would have been a travesty to just put up a wall. The volumes, the perspectives and the light from both windows couldn’t be just brutally separated like that! The client had thought of a ‘verrière’ , a glass internal wall, traditionally used in industrial buildings to separate spaces. Now, verrières, or atelier windows, have been very popular in Paris homes since the early noughties, so much so that standard-sized, black-framed versions are readily available here in DIY stores like Leroy Merlin and Castorama.
But the space called for a more elevated version, literally, as the ceiling height is 3.5 meters (11’6”), and also in terms of style. It was important to get the proportions of the glass panels right and to choose a metal finish sympathetic to the style of the room. I also didn’t want anything heavy looking as it would have spoiled the whole effect.
So, naturally, I called Valérie and David of 15 Dixième, as I had worked with them on the atelier window for the Henri Martin project. This time around it was a much bigger verrière with two sliding doors. We chose the same aged bronze finish and bigger panes of glass for this project to compliment the proportions of the room.
It was installed at the end of August. The metal divisions are very fine, with a beautiful hand-finish on the bronze colored laminated steel, which makes it look old. And, as usual with David, the installation is very precise. Both the client and I are delighted with the result, and her cat also approves!
If you’d like some help rethinking your home in Paris, I’d love to help, give me a call!
Verrière on George Sand project, starring le chat, photo curtesy of Atelier 15 Dixième (before styling!)