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RESIDENTIAL · Boulogne-Billancourt · 2026 · 300 m² · Renovation of a millstone-grit house

A late nineteenth-century millstone-grit house in Boulogne-Billancourt, three hundred square metres. Unlike cramped apartments, the plan of a house rarely needs redrawing: the point was not to optimise space but to go straight into the detail, room after room. The owners wanted to bring nature into a setting that had stayed rather statuary. The answer held in a single word, wood, in several forms.

The living room, the main space of the house, is entirely wrapped in birch panelling. It took a great many tests, samples, finishes and veneers to arrive at this pale wood, close to parchment. The room extends into a conservatory added by the previous owners, fully glazed and far brighter, whose square shape did not lend itself to furnishing. A wall was brought forward to take a fireplace, a concealed bar and two lacquered niches.

The furniture comes from the studio, but redrawn for the house: Le Soufflé modular sofa in a different wood tone, the Loulou coffee table surfaced in lino rather than lacquer, which stands up better to a large family, Le Fontainebleau floor lamp resized to the height of the panelling, and the Gioiello wall lights. On the top floor, the main bedroom has something of a hotel suite about it: the bed set in the middle of the room to keep the sense of space, a lacquered cherry headboard hiding storage behind it. The bathroom takes up vibrated stainless steel, echoing the kitchen on the ground floor.