Expert Advice: How to Decorate Like a Frenchwoman - Remodelista
That enviable mix of elegance and insouciance ageless beauty and off the cuff ease how do the French do... Photography by Matthew Williams for Remodelista, except where noted. ...it Corinne Gilbert a Paris born Sorbonne educated artist interior designer based in Brooklyn offers lessons in bohemian style Gilbert in the dining room of her rental apartment in a former boardinghouse in Fort Greene Brooklyn She started her career... ...as a fashion designer later became a decorative finishes painter for a Park Avenue clientele and began doing interiors by demand 1. Mix up styles and stories. Furnish your rooms with pieces from different family members and eras: heirloom country furniture and sixties plastic designs, Asian antiques and abstract paintings. Cutlery-filled vintage hotel silver shares shelf space with Chinese lacquerware and a midcentury painting in Gilbert’s galley kitchen. 2. Use chairs as sculpture. It’s nice to plant a graceful or unexpected chair somewhere on its own. Photograph by Corinne Gilbert. A flea market chair that looks like it might talk stands alone on Gilbert’s second-floor landing. 3. Alternate clusters of objects with empty spaces. Group plants, art (expensive and cheap), and books to create still lives, but give them room to breathe. A mantel still life with ceramic planter and metal vases by Bruno Jaharra. Photograph by Corinne Gilbert. Instead of spotlights on the ceiling—something rarely seen in French interiors—use a combination of lighting appropriate for different needs: table lamps, standing lamps, and sconces; new and old, Noguchi and Louis XIV. 4. Layer your lighting (and always use dimmers). Use a lot of candles, too, and light them every evening, sometimes even at breakfast in winter. A range of lighting sources—natural light included—in Gilbert’s dining room. 5. Hang mirrors to add light and depth. Wall mirrors act as additional windows. Color-edged oval mirrors by MC & Co.—the Brooklyn design shop Gilbert formerly ran with artist Dan McCarthy—hang in her work studio. The 2009 designs (“they look like small puddles,” says Gilbert) helped spark the current irregular-shaped mirrors trend. 6. Swap in new accessories every season. Change the feel of the house with the weather Introduce wool blankets on the sofa plaid curtains in a window and paper whites on... ...the table in winter fresh flowers and Liberty pillowcases in spring succulents and gauze curtains in summer foliage and wool carpets in the fall A Butterfly Chair accessorized with a summery mix stands in a corner of Gilbert’s bedroom. Photograph by Corinne Gilbert. Living room stools dressed for winter. 7. Create vagabond chic by sewing patches. Instead of reupholstering or slipcovering furniture or replacing worn throw pillows, get out a needle and thread and apply a few artful appliqués. Patch-embellished pillows by Gilbert on her living room futon sofa (which doubles as a guest bed). Photograph by Corinne Gilbert. A patched beanbag chair and throw pillow. Your grandmother’s linens, flea market bedding, a souvenir sari—these all make great DIY window coverings. 8. Make curtains from sheets and tablecloths. A linen tablecloth curtain in Gilbert’s living room. Go to Corinne Gilbert to see more of her work, and take a full tour of her apartment in the Remodelista book.