A House Renovated by its Owners and Fitted out Using as Much Second-hand Material and Furniture as Possible

I’m 33 years old, and I’m an interior designer and decorator. I work mainly in Bordeaux, the Arcachon basin and Paris. I like renovating old properties, keeping the original features of a house or an apartment and mixing them with more contemporary elements. I love walls that aren’t straight and rooms that are crooked. I like the unusual! I work with passionate craftspeople who enjoy using antique and salvaged materials in a project as much as I do, with all the complexity that this entails. My spouse has just joined me in the adventure, much to my delight!

I’m also 33, and I trained as an engineer. Margot and I have lived in Paris for seven years. Then in 2013, we took the plunge and moved to Bordeaux. I wanted some space, a garden. I’d dreamed of buying my first property and renovating it myself. We quickly found our first apartment, and in 2019 we fell in love with a typical local house and renovated it ourselves. We have always shared a passion for renovation work. We like to imagine ourselves in a property and bring out all its potential. We also dreamed of working together, and that is now the reality!

I don’t have a conventional background. As a teenager, I liked to go along with my father, who was renovating properties, to advise his clients on the possible layout of rooms. Out of a passion for the subject, I followed a course of study in art history and interior design in parallel with my studies to become an early childhood educator. I wasn’t thinking of making a career out of it; I just wanted to learn more about it and deepen my knowledge. After seven years in early childhood education in a facility for multi-handicapped children in palliative care, I became a mum myself and decided to change my career path and make my passion my profession. I went back to get some training to bring myself up to speed, and I went for it!

At school, I quickly chose the scientific stream. That was where my interests lay. I then followed an engineering course, Civil Engineering, then, after five years study, I obtained my engineering degree in structural and fluid mechanics in collaboration with the Arts et Métiers school in Paris. After 10 years of experience in engineering, I wanted to take on a new challenge and apply what was at the heart of my university studies to the field of renovation.

I grew up just outside Paris in a house with my parents, my older sister, my older brother and my dogs. We’ve always travelled during the summer holidays. My parents brought back treasures from every trip. As for me, I was fascinated by the colours in the streets and the design of the guest houses or hotels where we stayed. Throughout the year, the Sunday ritual was a trip to the flea market and to garage sales. I grew up with the idea that we should repair instead of throwing away; that if we no longer like the original design of a piece of furniture, we can paint it and reintegrate it into a room. As a teenager, I also helped to renovate my brother and sister’s apartments, and I enjoyed that very much!

I grew up in the south of Paris in a house with my parents, my older brother and my younger sister. My parents renovated the house by themselves. When I think of my childhood, I hear the sounds of work; I see my father and mother with drills, sanders and brushes in their hands. In my family, it’s a passion that has been passed on from generation to generation. My grandfather graduated from the Ecole Boulle. My mother worked at Mode et Travaux as a Graphic Designer. As for my father, he followed a career in engineering, but at the same time he renovated a large part of their house and their second home in the mountains, too. He passed on to me his passion for woodworking, the need to be patient, and for work well done. To find the rare gem to renovate, the antique door that will make all the difference in a room. So when I told them I was going to quit my job and start a renovation company with Margot, it made sense to the whole family!

The current standards outline the main lines of all projects: a kitchen open to the dining room, a maximum of openness, so the light can flood in, and storage. My job is to indicate all the possibilities that a house offers by specifying the modifications that this will entail, such as opening up load-bearing walls, changes to services, and reorganising spaces. I’m there to find aesthetically pleasing solutions to the problems caused by these modifications and to bring my special touch to the whole: how to make the link between two floors when opening up walls, how to keep the mouldings when moving partitions, how to make the most the defects of a room such as the absence of a window, or unusual dimensions. I like to bring a fresh eye to the room, to suggest an unexpected design, a detail that can only be found here. This is one of my favourite stages in a project.

Even though I love incorporating antique furniture, I try not to fall into the “I live in a junk shop” or “I live with grandma” trap! Romain acts as a bit of a safety net for me in this respect! I have a real attachment to sanded, sandblasted, raw wood, but also to wood with a patina that has survived the ages. I find it brings a real depth to an interior, a warmth that cannot be beaten. Hunting for antique and second-hand furniture also makes it possible to mix eras without too much difficulty, while keeping the vintage aspect as a common thread. For decorative objects, I like to use old pottery in places where it is less expected: in the kitchen to store utensils, in the bathroom to store reusable cotton wool, in a child’s bedroom to store little games that can get lost. But I especially like to create a surprise by placing these objects or pieces of antique furniture right next to a very modern lamp that will give the whole thing a boost. I’ve got a bit of an addiction to very sleek designer lights. I often choose authentic materials like porcelain, metal or recycled fibres. Sometimes it doesn’t take much to make a piece stand out. Some wooden furniture, beautiful materials and a more elaborate pendant light in the centre. There’s nothing else to add!

It goes back to my childhood! I’ve always enjoyed painting and making pottery myself. As a teenager, I used to go to Emmaus with my mother, and I would reupholster bits of furniture and change the handles and the colour to put them in my room. I miss manual activity in my job, which is more about design than implementation. At weekends, I like to get together with my daughter to work with clay or papier-mâché to produce something, to see it evolve as it dries, and to be able to paint it or sculpt it. I also like do-it-yourself, and I’m used to handling tools and materials (we renovated the whole house ourselves). I’m not afraid to start making a chandelier or a mural for my children’s room. The walls I painted in Mathilda’s and Joseph’s rooms are my favourite works. I find it brings a poetic touch to their worlds; it makes their cocoon softer, more personal, like a childhood bubble. And then doing things yourself really allows you to recharge your batteries and break away from the pace of everyday life. For me, it gives me energy and creativity too. And this is very beneficial for my client projects!