How the Other Half Lives

Or once lived. Wandered through the mirrored rooms of the Musée Carnavalet today, which chronicles the history of Paris from muddy swamp to City of Lights. All the info was in French, though, so I didn't learn much.

I did, however, pick up a few design tips.

Is your room missing that little something that turns a house into a home? Throw some babies on the wall. Everyone loves babies. Even if keeping candlesticks in an upright position for all of eternity technically constitutes child labor.

Make sure the gold-embroidered chaise is made of tough, resilient fabric. You know, to withstand the claws of all your forest friends.

Because a dog is just too bourgeois.

And if you think it's all just a tad too much, it's not. It's just enough.

Subtlety is for suckers.

After a day filled with all that's glitzy, gilded, and gold, I find it nice to come back to my own understated, yet elegant, residence.

Exposed pipes are all the rage right now.

There are many stereotypes of Parisian lifestyles, and I've just opted for the "starving artist" one. Which, in a way, is kind of romantic. I'm living like a heroine in one of those beloved French classics; like Claude Lantier in fact. I can just hear him saying, "Who needs anything ever owned by any of the Louises, when we've got central heating and leaky faucets to lull us to sleep?" Both of which I have, if "central heating" is euphemistic for a lack of air conditioning. But everyone knows that from destitution comes inspiration.

I think I'll go write a poem about that leaky faucet right now.