An Irish interior designer has transformed this compact Paris apartment into a luxurious space
Although Jeff Aird has created a classic French style in this Parisian apartment, it’s full of Irish touches.
When Irish interior designer Jeff Aird was tasked with transforming this Parisian apartment, there was very little in the existing space. “There was a square archway (it used to be a door),” Jeff explains, “and there was no wall where the kitchen now is. There was a small bathroom, a kitchenette, and a WC séparés where the hallway and bathrooms now are. It had passed through the books of two architects, and the client got in touch with me to try to figure out the layout.”
The clients had a specific list of features that they wanted to include in the home, while the style was to be in the style of the 1800s, but be fully modern and ergonomic. This list included a 300 litre water heater, a challenge because of its height and weight, a deep bathtub, spacious walk-in shower, separate WC cabin within the bathroom, and a double vanity. A generous kitchen, large bed, and a laundry room, plus AC throughout.
The design involved reorganising the layout. The bedroom and living room walls are original; but the the rest are new additions. “We had to retain all the old wooden beams as well, which is fine as they are lovely,” Jeff says. “There were two perpendicular steel and concrete beams in the bedroom which we had to assimilate into the design.” This was done by cleverly concealing them with precision-cut oak cappings, cut into slices and kiln-dried in Ireland. These casings encase the concrete and steel, matching the original joists.
As well as the beams, Irish-made details in the home include joinery that conceals radiators and AC outlets, made by Ian McDermott, while the copper range hood is a Jeff Aird piece that is made in Belfast – the brand sells them on 1stDibs.
“Ideally, the beams should have been taken out and replaced with wooden ones, but we weren’t allowed due to the risks of subsidence,” Jeff explains. “It’s on the fifth floor of a centuries-old building in the 6th Arrondissement, where each of the six étages are entirely made of wood and are all bowing in the middle, so you can’t mess with the structure; it’s too delicate. I was grinning when I asked Ian if he could create false oak beams to cap around them, expecting it to be a no, he was immediately up for it and suggested doing it in slices. Ian found the right piece of oak and kiln-dried it. They look like they’ve been there for centuries.”
A challenge in this project is that the apartment is only 80 square metres, so it took good design to fit in all the requirements. “Classic design typically needs more space as well, which makes it harder again,” Jeff points out. “It’s literally like a puzzle.”
Another key aspect was achieving the client’s desired style. “The client is pretty obsessed with old wood and French antiques, so I had a seriously old-school Belgian outfit make raw, small-sized French oak Versailles floor panels. Versailles are never small like that, and the parqueteurs weren’t impressed with the demand,” Jeff explains. :In fairness to the client, he insisted he wanted Versailles and was happy with small – they actually work very well.”
Paint colours and fabrics were decided during the works, by working with lots of samples “We spend time doing style boards at the start, but in the end, a lot of that goes out the window. Clients want to be able to feel the space and stand in it during daylight and evening light and base their decisions on that. We painted the library bright green for fun, took a gamble while the client was abroad. The clients weren’t sure they liked it, but they held off on changing it for a few weeks and then decided they actually wanted to keep it. They love it now. The Marie Antionette blue dining table and chairs were beaten with chains to make them look old.”
The most successful aspect of this project, Jeff believes, is how they managed to make use of all the limited space available. “We maximised the use of the space to within millimetres. The clients were very helpful and obliging when it came to decisions on quality and taste.”
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