Any over-the-top adjective plus an exclamation mark!

Via here

If you can't have your own...

Apartment in Paris, then Perspective G Haussmann by Christophe Koziel might be a good substitute (until your ship comes in) - a 'trompe-photo' parallel universe affixed to one wall, inviting the Marais (or another arrondissement equally as sublime) right into your living room...

Via here

Socialist Chic

How is this for off-the-charts cool? Rick Owens' Parisian apartment was once the headquarters of the Parti Socialiste and in particular the office of President François Mitterrand. Notwithstanding the slightly austere nature of the rest of the apartment, this room (photographed below) is a perfect example of contemporary style that retains the elaborate detail in the embellished walls and cornice. And, of course, what's not to love about the cheeky taxidermy monkey thrown in as an amuse-bouche...

See more of the apartment here. Photography by François Halard

Workshop Veilhan

The old and the new...

Via here

Juxtaposition

Hotel La Maison (Martin Margiela) on the Champs Elysées via here

"Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon"

A ghostly, milky white, lit as if only by moonlight, casts it's hue upon this Parisian apartment belonging to designers Gilles & Boissier...

Via Afflante (Quote from Shakespeare's Hamlet)

Looking up

The Musée des Arts et Métiers (housed in a deconsecrated priory in the 3rd arrondissement) hosts a vast collection of scientific objects and inventions. Among them is this bat-shaped flying machine built in the 1890s by Clément Ader. Via here

Ark du Maison Deyrolle

And, while on the subject of Where the Wild Things Are (see previous posting)... the chapel of the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris played host to Chinese artist Huang Yong Ping's Ark 2010 - an impressive installation. The animals courtesy of Deyrolle...

Via here

Composition

An extraordinary detail from the Louvre...

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LSD

I adore absolutely everything about the Parisian apartment of Lauren Santo Domingo. Ultra chic - just like the owner...

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God is in the Details

In the neighbourhood of Porte Saint-Denis (10th arrondissement of Paris), an exquisitely appointed loft space - every last detail carefully chosen, collected and curated - becomes a beautiful reflection of owner, Anouk Dossin. (Serious swooning over bathroom tile)...

Via here

Sunday...

Hope everyone is having a wonderfully lazy and relaxing one...

The Hôtel des Ambassadeurs de Hollande in the Marais, Paris via here

Appartement Haussmannien

Remember this jaw-dropping apartment? Here is another heavenly room complete with mirrors, deepening the dimensional feel of the space...

Via here

MaÏssa Toulet

The amazing miniature museums of Parisian artist, MaÏssa Toulet...

(Workshop - by appointment - 89 Rue de Charonne, 77011 PARIS) Via here

Christian Liaigre

Furniture designer, Christian Liaigre has set a new bar for minimal chic. This is his home in the Rue de Verneuil on the Left Bank in Paris. The soaring duplex is in an 18th-century hôtel particulier, or city mansion, originally built by the Marquis d'Aubigné, who came from the same village in the Vendée as Liaigre — Les Herbiers — and who was guillotined during the French Revolution. One has to love a house with provenance...

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Crated

Sorry to be so monosyllabic at the start of this week... a rather 'cray-cray' weekend of packing, sorting, crying and 'well-I-never-ing'. Promise to be a little more verbose in posts to come, once those moving vans have left...

Via here 

1. Paris, France: Statue of Liberty in Paris crated for shipment to the United States. 1887.

2. The Colossal Head of Bavaria in the Nave of the Crystal Palace by Philip Henry Delamotte. 1854

Up to the rafters

The Abbey Bookshop in Paris - I could so easily lose myself in here for a day...

Via here

Workshop Convert

Too fabulous. This is the Paris apartment belonging to Isabelle Puech and Benoit Jamin – a converted carousel workshop in the 9th Arrondissement, where merry-go-round horses were once repaired...

Photographs by Christophe Dugied
Read and see more here

Coming up for Air (Let the Room Breathe)...

I must admit that most of my cuckoo-ness (this past weekend) was self-induced. After offloading the burden of superfluous furniture, there were several 'holes' left in the decor (and dusty reminders of where each piece had once stood). So scramble did I, to rearrange. Oh, and also scrubbed my fingers to a nub. Carol Burnett-style. Now, the house looks so entirely different... the drawing room has nothing in it, besides one settee. But I am taking my cue from this particular Appartement Haussmannien in Paris... if the house has spectacular bones, one needs very little else. Less is so much more.

Via Loft Connexion