Well Designed Family Friendly Stay in Paris

I have always valued teaching children about good design from a young age and that definitely applies to the places we stay when we travel. The trouble comes when trying to find a well designed family friendly stay in Paris. If you have a huge budget then there are plenty of beautiful and indulgent hotels that are still family friendly but if you want something a little bit more affordable and so child friendly that your kids don’t want to leave (a great excuse for bringing a nanny along!) then I suggest checking out Kid & Coe. Every one of their properties are geared towards families and your entire family gets to live like locals since the majority of the properties are families who are opening their homes to visitors… because who doesn’t dream of living like a Parisian… even if it is only for a few days?

Plus, I really believe that, just short of knocking on a stranger’s door and asking to stay with them, this is the most authentic way to expose kids to the ways that Parisian kids really live. I chose this home in particular because the homeowner, Marie, opened one of Europe’s top online kid’s shop, Little Fashion Gallery back in 2006, and has since been appointed VP Digital for one of the leading kids fashion group, so I knew she would know a thing or two about creating a special place for kids to live. Every little nook and cranny of this home screams, “We am amazing and French, but we don’t take ourselves too seriously.” Which, of course, is generally how the French are about design and style, so I felt it was a perfect choice. And since I am rarely wrong, I am happy to report that my instinct was right.

The flat is located in a super charming neighborhood with lots of local restaurants and bakeries and it is within 20 minutes walk to Sacre Couer or The Louvre, so we hardly even used the metro while we there. {heaven}

The kids enjoyed playing with French toys and flipping through French books while we were in the flat and I spent the evenings leafing through years and years of back issues of Elle Decoration. (I found my soul sister!) At first I found the shock of blue in the kids’ rooms to be, well, shocking, but a second glance convinced me that it was brilliant. It literally feels like the ocean (a far cry from the typical under the sea themes many of us are used to seeing) and I love that Marie took the color from the ceiling to the floorboards. Balls to the wall or don’t do it all! Oh, and the kids’ playroom right off the kitchen is the perfect way for kids to feel like they are part of the action without having to be directly underfoot.

I felt absolutely inspired by the done but “undone” feel… effortlessly chic is what they call it, I think. It made me realize that sometimes I try too hard to make my home feel perfect, which I think is very American, just like the way we curl our hair while a Parisian woman wouldn’t dare even own a hairdryer. I loved it and I think you will, too…