Haussmann apartment renovation & design
You have just bought a Haussmann apartment, or you have lived in yours for years — and you dream of the day it finally fits your life. You are probably asking yourself the same questions as everyone who loves these apartments: where to start, what can be changed without damaging it, whom to trust.
We love those questions. A Haussmann apartment was drawn by craftsmen who wanted to make something beautiful — and bringing it into your life without betraying any of it is precisely our craft. Here is what we keep, what we redraw, and what you receive at the end.
Your apartment, as it is
A Haussmann apartment was designed for the life of another era. On the street side, the fine rooms follow one another, opening onto each other — this is where one entertained. On the courtyard side, the bedrooms and a service kitchen, small and far from everything — this is where people lived and worked. In between, a long, dark corridor. That layout made sense at the end of the 19th century. It is no longer the shape of your life.
You have probably already noticed it at home: there is almost no storage — in those days, people lived with wardrobes — and nothing is perfectly straight. A wall drifts by a few centimetres, an angle is never quite 90 degrees. These are not flaws. They are the hand of those who built it — and they are exactly why a project in a Haussmann apartment is designed to measure, centimetre by centimetre.
What stays, what changes
The mouldings, the parquet floors, the fireplaces: should everything stay? It depends — on their condition, on your taste, on your project. Our conviction fits in one sentence: look at what has value, keep it when you love it, and design the rest around it. Out of respect for those who made these apartments. And you choose, always.
What changes is the floor plan — the way the rooms serve your life. Perhaps you dream of a kitchen at the heart of family life, or on the contrary of a properly separate one. Of a living room running from light to light, of one more bedroom, of a corner to work in. Every family has its habits, and it is your way of living that draws the project. One thing, however, comes back in almost every one: storage, absent from the beginning, finally appears — drawn into the thickness of the walls, under the windows, around the doors.
In practice, it starts with two drawings: the plan of your apartment as it is, and the plan as it could be. That is often the moment the project becomes real — you see, in black and white, what the same walls have to offer. Then come the perspectives, faithful to materials and light, so everything is validated before a single hammer is lifted.
Respecting does not mean changing nothing.
The file your contractor receives
At the end of our work, you receive a complete file: the precise measurements of every room, the plan of every fitting, the drawing of every piece of furniture, face by face, the list of materials and colours. A document made for the person who will build: your contractor knows exactly what to do, with nothing left to guess.
It is a way of working that leaves you free. You hand the file to your contractor if you have one; if you do not, we can help find the right one. You know exactly what you are having done. And the project remains yours, from the first day to the last.
The furniture these apartments never had
Under more than three metres of ceiling, no store-bought furniture reaches the top of the wall. In a corner that is not square, no ready-made bookcase sits true. That is why the furniture of these apartments can be designed to measure — and it is the other half of our craft.
There is the fitted work, first: a bookcase rising to the ceiling, a wardrobe in the recess of a bedroom, a low cabinet running under the windows, following the moulding. And then there is furniture in the full sense: a table, a desk, a headboard — one-of-a-kind pieces, designed for your home and built by the right craftsmen. Both are drawn to the millimetre, for your walls, your light, your life.
The right measure
A beautiful project is not a question of budget. Everything can be done, at every budget: what you transform, what you keep, what is designed to measure and what you pick elsewhere — every project has its right measure. The most beautiful projects are not always the most expensive.
Your questions
Do you need an interior architect to renovate a Haussmann apartment?
As soon as the floor plan moves — a kitchen changing place, storage to be drawn, a piece made to measure —, every decision brings ten more. An interior architect takes them in the right order, and gives you the essential: a project entirely thought through, drawn and validated before the first hammer blow. You receive a precise file, ready for your contractor — and if you do not have one, we can look for the right one for you.
In what order does a project unfold?
Four steps, always the same. Listening first: your habits, your wishes, the way you live. Then the sketch: your apartment, drawn differently — and redrawn as many times as it takes for it to be truly yours. Then the full project: the materials, and faithful images of your finished rooms. Finally the file, ready for the works. The full sequence is described, step by step, in our method.
Can you modernise without losing the mouldings and the parquet?
Yes — keeping the mouldings and the parquet in no way prevents modernising: the plan, the light, the kitchen, the storage and the furniture provide the modernity. They can even be reworked, mouldings and parquet alike: restored, completed, redrawn where they are missing.
What exactly does the file contain?
The plans of the apartment as it is and as it will be, room by room. The drawings of every fitting and every piece of furniture, face by face, with their dimensions. The materials, finishes and colours, referenced one by one. And the perspectives showing the expected result. Everything is decided, everything is drawn: all that remains is to build.
