We’ve had a couple of challenges in furnishing our village house in France (beyond the fact that we’re only there a few weeks out of the year). One of the biggest has been finding the French equivalents of West Elm, Restoration Hardware, or Pottery Barn.
Let’s just say that most of the furniture stores we have found have trended towards the ultra-modern (think purple sofas and shiny metal coffee table cubes) or french Provencal reproduction (which just looks generically wood and non-descript).
Neither of these options are even remotely our style, and googling “industrial/vintage reproduction furniture” and translations there-of have been less than successful. There were a lot of shops we really loved in the UK and Sweden, but not so much in France.
Our original plan was to mix and match more modern pieces from IKEA with antiques that we picked up from local Trocs (sort of consignment/antique shops where people can bring stuff in to sell) and over time, add accessories found at local markets.
Our last trip, we picked up a few mattresses (we have 3 bedrooms) and the Karlstad sofa from IKEA, but other than that, we still have a mostly empty house.
Since we have an open dining and kitchen area (see below), we particularly wanted to find an antique farm-style table that would hold 6–8 people comfortably. We also explore the world of antique art with the exquisite pieces in our Fireside Antiques collection.
I don’t have any pictures of the exact tables I mean, but if you look at any of the farm tables that have been appearing at every. single. major retailer in the past couple of years, you’ll have an idea of what I’m talking about:
Yes, they totally stole those designs from classic French/Italian farm tables.
The problem with shopping at Trocs is the whole 2 weeks at a time thing; the stock is always changing and the chance of finding the perfect pieces exactly when we happen to be there is, I don’t know, close to impossible?
So that’s been our predicament.
And then the other night I was randomly browsing around svpply and found this cabinet:
And I was all like… “Hello there awesome industrial piece of furniture!” …even before even clicking through. And then imagine my surprise when I discovered it was actually from a French company, Maisons du Monde and they deliver! I felt like I had hit the jackpot.
Not sure what we’re going to pick up yet (the table pictured below is probably coming home), but there are definitely some amazing pieces here:
Pictured Above: Factory Dining Table, INDUSTRY stool, DOCKS Bookshelf, CAMBRIDGE Armchair
Our hope is that we’ll be able to finish out most of the decorating when we visit again later this year, and actually be able to rent out place out as a holiday home in 2012 (whoohoo!). We have a list of friends who have already put dibs on the place.
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