Required Reading: Petite Apartment Inspiration from French Interior Designer Marianne Evennou
Interior designer Marianne Evennou, our French doyenne of color, composition, and small-space living, has just published her first book.
Un Intérieur à Soi (loose translation: “A Place of One’s Own”) is a compendium of her signature moves—interior windows, exposed beams, duo-toned walls, bonbon box-sized kitchens, and black Bakelite light switches—that dazzle us over and over.
Marianne may have go-to design tricks but she applies them with a freshness and excitement every time. Today, we’re spotlighting a favorite Paris apartment for a client named Sabine, an artist and businesswoman in her forties who Marianne describes as having “une idée à la minute.” At each of their preliminary meetings, Sabine arrived with macarons from Ladurée and their “soft but not cutesy colors: pale pink, almond green, and pastel blue” became the starting point for the makeover: “luxurious and carefree,” it’s also a pocket apartment that, as Marianne puts it, “has all the big stuff.” Join us for a tour.
Photography by Grégory Timsit, courtesy of Éditions de La Martinière.

The entry, shown here, has a wainscot patterned with Antoinette Poisson Buisson de Roses wallpaper and a bleached parquet floor with radiant heat. Marianne puts tight quarters to work: the pink tiled floor defines the kitchen, and the bedroom is on the other side of the glazed wall. Scroll to the end for the updated floor plan.
