By combining warm colours and reclaimed materials, a Parisian workshop is now a contemporary home
The interior designer Dorothée Delaye spent two years searching for what she calls “a village life in Paris”. She and her family – husband François and children Faustine, 11, and Jules, nine – had outgrown their apartment in the central Marais district. “I really wanted to have a garden – that was my priority,” says Delaye. “A place where my children could have their friends over to play. I also wanted a large entertaining space where my husband and I could gather with friends.”
For Delaye, a chance for “village life” showed up a few kilometres east in the 12th arrondissement, at the back of a courtyard that once housed a mirror factory. “I immediately fell in love with its volume and its factory elements,” says Delaye of the cavernous, open-plan workshop. “It was such an unusual space – the perfect challenge for a designer.”
