i find these pictures intriguing...the buildings and surroundings are definitely european, which i love, and the water feature is so clean and modern. this combination of old-world and modern is one of my favorites.

{by architect phillippe allaeys}

{from hoping for happy accidents}

i'm obsessed with anything french. OBSESSED! and so, upon finding marie claire maison and marie claire idees, i entered a whole new realm of obsession. {hint...unless you speak french, if you google these, it gives you the option to "translate"...the translation certainly isn't perfect, but at least most of it is recognizable.}

these french homes make me hurt with the kind of desire that buddhists urge us to deny...the type of desire that leads to suffering! i can't help it. from the white on white interiors with white washed wood floors to the moroccan influenced beds and colors to the marie antoinette chairs (sometimes all together!!)....it's all just so good.

so...from the marie claire maison website, some of my very favorite photos (it was too hard to choose).

love, love, LOVE the white on white on white...especially the floors.

this flies in the face of all the clean, mid-century modern lines that i'm also enamored with. and yet, i think it could all live in harmony, too. there's such a sense of history and time in these lovely french homes.

i love the dewey-decimal system for the kitchen! {just think of all the lentils and rice i could stash in there.}

i don't think i'd ever leave the tub if it looked like this!

i'm not sure about that shiny floor {hmmm??}, but that tub! my goodness. and i love the cacti...and the color scheme. and...and...and...

color, color, color....this, THIS is why i love this magazine and all the lovely french design. it's french. it's bohemian. it's a little bit of everything.

yes. please!

i think i'm going to have to paint a dresser silver.

it seems that the american design magazines are so calculated. nothing ever looks like a human being lives in them...they're either so lavish that they border on absurd, or they're so modern and clean that they border on, well, absurd...almost prison-like. either way, they lack personality. everything in the marie claire magazines look lived in. and loved. and certainly has personality.

much like my own home {even without a louis XIV chair or saarinen table}.