Stories Collected While Living in France

French la Vie

An Apartment in Arles

My husband found Sacha’s apartment in Arles. It is in an old building, not unusual in a town that dates further back then the Romans.

The school is ten minutes away by foot. There is a baker, a grocer, but not a candlestick maker around the corner, and a little restaurant that serves soup for three Euros downstairs.

The apartment has a little kitchen, a shower that is not as tall as Sacha, and one room that will be a dining-bed-living-closet-desk-room. His bed will eat the room, and dishes and books will be his pillows.

All is good… Except the color, which French Husband is not sensitive to, but Sacha and I are, silly and not important, but it bugs us nevertheless. Red, yellow, lime green, orange, aqua blue, burnt orange and beige. The doors are yellow, the curtain orange, the table green, the floors are burgundy.

“It is coloful, a tropical theme in Provence.” French Husband offers cheerfully.

Sacha says, “I prefer a London theme.”

They look at me for my response…. “It is a student’s apartment with a beautiful window.”

What was your first apartment like?

An Apartment in Arles

An Apartment in Arles

An Apartment in Arles

An Apartment in Arles

An Apartment in Arles

Comments

58 responses to “An Apartment in Arles”

  1. Kit

    Looks like a palace to me – beautiful old house, beautiful window – kitchen and bathroom to himself!
    I went through: small room in student residence, attic room in shared student house (one bathroom between six of us), grotty bedsit in London and various other rented rooms before I got my first apartment, shared with just one friend, a few years after graduation. Then I got to choose my own paint colour at last!
    Hope Sacha enjoys his first ever living solo experience!

    Reply
  2. Marie-Noëlle

    I bet Sacha will get used to it and make it homely !

    Reply
  3. Gina

    My first room away from home was a room on the 13th floor of the nurses home in St Vincents hospital in Dublin. The bed took up 25% of the floor space. There was a wardrobe, desk and tiny basin hanging on to the wall. The window was old and seized but had a view over the city. A view that at night could be magical or immensely lonely depending on the day that had been. There was a shelf that ran along the length of the bed and on it sat a tin of Earl grey tea leaves and a cup. It was a drab room reminicent of a nuns quarters. Not surprising as it was a convent based hospital. I was young and naive. I was happy there forging friendships with other girls who had been chosen from the large numbers who applied for each years intake. It was an honor to be accepted. It was the beginning of my adult life. The start of an adventure I am still living and loving.

    Reply
  4. carol

    It was in an old house on the second floor. A kitchen, bath, and bedroom. The kitchen had two walls full of windows. I painted it yellow and the sun streamed in like butterscotch and the pigeons cooed on the windowsill.I made whole wheat bread in the tiny kitchen and we ate it with lots of butter and honey. My parents thought it was shabby, but I still dream about it.

    Reply
  5. Karen@PasGrande-Chose

    Haha – Sacha has clearly inherited his mother’s good eye! But you are right about the window – with that view one can forgive anything else. And the café table and chairs are cute. What fun to be a student in his own apartment in a gorgeous town – I’d trade places with Sacha any day!

    Reply
  6. jackie

    My very first apartment was one room in an old office building-could have been a bank, I can’t remember. It was a huge room with high, high ceilings and it overlooked a garden. Perfect.

    Reply
  7. Irina

    Good luck to Sasha!!
    When I was in college I lived in a dorm, there were 3 of us in one small room, three beds, ONE table and ONE wardrobe, it’s hard to imagine now how we managed to live there for 5 years! But we’re still BFF after 25 years since our college graduation.
    Love Sasha’s apartment window and the view!

    Reply
  8. Bev

    After college, I lived in a remodeled garage that was all one room except for the bathroom. It got very cold in the winter but as a youth director I had the best place to pile a bunch of kids to watch movies or spend the night!

    Reply
  9. Kiki

    made me laugh out loud…. really!
    i love FH’s comment; it’s TRUE…. Boy will get used to it even if it IS a bit heavy on the colour palette!
    BUT he’s got a pad and a cushion to put his school-stuff-filled head! oN sUNDAY, WE found an ad in an ‘immobilier’ in Paris for – hold on to your chair, because you’ll need it: €550.-/month for 10m2 in a fancy area of Paris!!!! Yes, ten square meters… yes €550.- / I took a bunch of pictures because nobody is going to believe that. The ‘flat’ (studio) is described as follows: bon état, séjour avec coin cuisine, with ‘couchage’ on a mezzanine… a shower cabin and WC…. 🙂 hurrah!
    and yeah, on the 3rd floor, with no ascenseur (lift)… free as per 3rd September….
    puts things like colours in perspective, doesn’t it?!
    and what do you mean with ‘there is no candlemaker’… is that a Corey joke or a phrase I should know about?! 🙂
    Good luck to your Sacha and happy life ever after for the madly-in-love parents!
    big hug, Kiki
    PS: My first ‘abode’ was a rented room in an old house, only 15′ on foot from my parents but ‘my own’… I had to share kitchen and toilet and bath with 8 other parties, and THAT was the hardest bit! I thought it was hilarious because the room was so tiny that I could reach everything from my bed – but I was happy to be my own boss….. It lasted until I got married and I shudder when I think about it now!

    Reply
  10. Rhonda P.

    Brand new, gorgeous, shared it with my best friend Nancy.
    A two story, very colonial style building with pillars in the front.
    Oh the memories of that apartment. We were in our early 20’s and life was ahead of us.

    Reply
  11. Candace

    My first apartment was above a Pizza Restaurant on State Street in Madison, WI. When I stepped out the door, the state capitol was to the right and the University was to the left. What freedom from dorm life.

    Reply
  12. somepinkflowers

    oh!
    if he does not want this apartment…
    i will take it for one month
    next summer…
    seriously.

    Reply
  13. Ardi

    First apartment was upstairs in an old house – outside entrance hallway. It had a murphy bed, a kitchen under the eaves so you had to duck your head to cook and wash up after, and there was no insulation so it was hot as a pizza oven in the summer and freezing cold in winter. The fridge was tiny. There was a Kitchen Queen (large piece of furnature with flour sifter and counter space built in along with the standard cabinets) where I learned to cook and which I loved. I painted the living/bedroom and made curtains so it was homey. I think it cost $55/month – that tells you how looooong ago it was.

    Reply
  14. Chris Tyle

    My first apartment was a 1930s-style two bedroom bunagalow style in Portland, Oregon.
    My favorite apartment, however, was the three-story slave quarter I had in the French Quarter in New Orleans. Two balconies, shuttered doors – kitchen on the main floor, living room on the second, bedroom and bath on the top. I stayed there until the place was almost completely destroyed by termites, and the ceiling actually caved in during a heavy rainstorm! Since then it has been completely gutted and rebuilt.

    Reply
  15. Brenda L. from TN.

    Our first apt after marriage was 3 rooms in an old house on the second floor with other apts. Our bedroom with bath was at the front door. The living room was next and then the small kitchen with a back door out to a hallway leading down steps to driveway. It was great!
    Sacha will LOVE this apt and time at school! I think FH did a great job in finding this place! It looks fantastic! You are right about the window and view tho!! Wonderful!

    Reply
  16. Debra

    C, my first apt was in Bethesda, Md outside DC. Fresh out of college, I had to work two jobs to afford it. Although it was quite nice, white walls with a tiny kitchen, I loved being close to the city . . .no guts, all dreams of an apt. in Paris. All my best to Sacha!

    Reply
  17. meredith

    After dorm rooms, my first apartment came complete with little cockroaches in Lincoln, NE. After college, I rented a converted horse shed turned into apartment on the wet side of the Big Island of Hawaii and the cockroaches got much bigger and they could fly 🙂
    I much prefer the little lizards in my house here in Provence!

    Reply
  18. Brother Mathew

    My (our-had a roommate) first place was a studio in Phoenix. One window. Ran the A/C year round. Good times.

    Reply
  19. Ellen at American Homestead

    My first “grown-up” apartment was on 57th Street in New York City. We moved in the day after our college graduation. We had no jobs but big dreams. The “apartment” was a tiny room with a 3 foot alcove that was the kitchen and a bathroom. It had a huge window that was 10 floors above a Burger King so if we opened the window we always smelled hamburgers. I shared this with my college roommate, cramped yes, but we were in New York!

    Reply
  20. Diane

    When I moved out from my mom’s home, it was to a townhouse in Palo Alto. I shared it with three other girls, and it felt big, white and modern. Our mismatching furniture gave the place a “unique” feel…as did the fact that we couldn’t afford to heat much in the winter and you could see your breath during the coldest months. In other words, once you crossed the threshold, it was hard to tell you were in Palo Alto.
    But it was a house with an open door, and I remember a constant stream of people sharing meals, on every inch of floor space on Thanksgiving, being welcomed with open arms. They felt very loved (as long as they didn’t mind wearing their coat in winter.)
    Diane

    Reply
  21. veronique savoye

    Hey, I like Sacha’s kitchen. Love the floor and that cute bistro table. Sacha, I, too, went to college in France. Unlike you, I still lived at my parents’ (like a lot of other students) because Paris was too expensive for me to have my own place. I would have given anything then to have a place like yours. Instead I had to wait a few years. Enjoy your new “home” Sacha and if you really, really don’t like the colors, I suppose your talented parents could help you fix up the place with a few cans of fresh paint. Bonne chance à l’université. Veronique (French Girl in Seattle)

    Reply
  22. Ann

    Oh what memories. My first apt was a one bedroom, kitchen, dining, LR with a big window overlooking the pool. We had a gazebo outside where others would congregate each evening to view the sunset – drinking wine, eating popcorn, laughing, sharing. Fun! Then I moved very close to U of A (Tucson, AZ), got a full apt in a victorian home. Upstairs – own entrance – big LR (had my first Christmas tree) great big closets on either side of the BR. Loved it – so charming.

    Reply
  23. everton terrace

    I prefer a London theme made me laugh out loud! Love a dry wit:) My first time living away from home was in a college dorm. One small room I had to share with another girl I didn’t know. First day she announced she had just married her boyfriend and he was going to live in a camper in the parking lot of the university but she couldn’t tell her parents because they didn’t like him – he had just gotten out of jail and was 30 years old. She was 18 (I was only 17). I moved into a different room 3 days later 🙂

    Reply
  24. Mary

    My first college home was the dining room of a former convent. It had been turned into student housing a year before I moved in, and the resident before me had painted it a pale violet and made curtains from floral sheets for the enormous windows. I had the original chandelier, with loads of crystals, and when I put down my 9 x 12 foot rug and arranged all my furniture, I still had the entire rug space open! I “built” a bookcase of cinderblock and wood planks to fill in the kitchen door, and had the most beautiful room in the house!
    Bonne chance to Sasha in college!

    Reply
  25. kim

    When I was a student I lived in such weird places but it never bothered me a bit. I lived in NY and had small, one-room apartments but because they were in Manhattan I thought they were wonderful. And they were.
    He’ll grow to love it — his little home.

    Reply
  26. Kathie B

    Farmboy Husband lived in several apartments as an undergraduate, but my first apartment was a furnished one with him in Berkeley when we got married — a studio apartment just half a block from the building on campus where his department was, although at the diagonally opposite end of campus from my classes, so I got lots of exercise that term!
    Later, finances forced us to move to a much cheaper unfurnished apartment (albeit 1-bedroom) in Oakland, only $80/month. The ad specified “senior citizens only” — perfectly legal to do back in those days, as obviously they were going for quiet, non-destructive tenants — but as Corey and Yann can imagine, Farmboy Husband, with his boyish good looks and courteous manners, was easily able to charm the elderly realtor-lady into renting to us young grad students. It was just a four-plex, so we got to know the tenants of the other three apartments over the course of our two years there.
    In those days one could buy used college-student furniture cheap, from other students who were moving away. The living room walls were painted medium pink, but unfortunately the only couch set we could afford was a bright orange(!) love-seat that had a small gash in the seat and its matching chair ($10 for the set). We also borrowed an old easy chair from my parents that my mother had re-upholstered in pale-green tweed, and a multi-colored old Florentine area-rug in mainly black, blue and red. Our bookshelves were the de rigueur student cinder-blocks and stained boards (Guess what? We still use these for some of our books!). Believe me, our décor would have made even Yann’s eyes bleed!!!
    We didn’t care, however, and this turned out to be the homiest apartment we ever lived in, with a back-door leading to a large paved patio in back with clotheslines, space to sit outside and suntan oneself (before the era of skin cancer warnings), to barbecue on a grill, and grow some Swiss chard plants in containers.
    I was sad when the time came to leave that apartment and our good neighbors, even though it was in order to move East to further our educations and follow our dreams. We wound up in a very nice modern, but oh-so-sterile, faceless 6-story high-rise that I hated so much that a few years we later bought a 4-room starter house with room for a vegetable garden.

    Reply
  27. Amy Kortuem

    You’re right – a window like that (with those SHUTTERS!) makes it all worthwhile.
    My first apartment was (I’m not kidding) in a convent. I rented a room in the women’s residence to clear my mind, focus on studies, and yes to pray.
    Then I decided I wasn’t going to be a nun after all…
    …so I rented an adorable little apartment on the lower floor of an old house. Wood floors, big windows, nooks and crannies and a wonderful bench over the old radiator that I sat on all winter long studying. I lived there for more than 5 years, until I bought the house I live in now. I still dream about this apartment, I loved it so much.

    Reply
  28. Marilyn

    Sacha will learn to love color. It looks rather nice for a college student. I remember living for a few months with two other women in a studio apartment with a small kitchen like that. I don’t remember the color, but I remember the sounds. It was right over the freeway in downtown LA. Oh was it noisy, but I could go up on the roof and sit watching the traffic and imagine where they all were going. I could walk the sky from there and dream.

    Reply
  29. pam

    My first apartment was in an old county hospital turned apartment building within walking distance to the University. One side of the building put the apartment on the ground floor and it had a separate direct entrance, which is why my roommate and I teased that it was formerly the morgue. (It quite possible could have been). We were happy to be living there though because of the high ceilings and tall windows in the living room and bedroom that provided amazing views of the beautiful Bellingham Bay. It was a gorgeous view and a great distraction when I needed a break from my studies.
    I think FH did an amazing job of finding the apartment for Sasha. It looks exactly how I picture a small place in the south of France looking. And the window does look totally worth it! Will you be helping Sasha make it more England?

    Reply
  30. Victoria Ramos

    Tell Sacha it is way bigger than any dorm room here in California that most Freshman University students live in….and has more character, even if it has a lot of ‘color’!…..and he doesn’t have to share a teeny tiny space with one, two or three other freshman…..
    Enjoy Sacha!

    Reply
  31. Kathie B

    Would a female classmate of Sacha’s call her new apartment, “L’Arlesienne Suite”?
    Stop me before I pun again 😉

    Reply
  32. Cheryl ~ Casual Cottage Chic

    His own kitchen, bathroom and washing machine…that’s a plus! Love the little green table and chairs 😉 And the smell of fresh soup drifting upstairs…yummy when winter arrives. Hopefully the soup is fit for a vegan then he won’t have to cook 😉 First apartments are always fun…he’ll have the walls covered with posters soon (do the kids do that in France/Europe)!

    Reply
  33. Patti

    My first apartment was in Seattle in a new circular building on the ground floor. Since it was across the street from my college, I could get out of bed at 7:45, climb out the window at 7:55 and be in my first class at 8:00 am. It was six stores with an open atrium in the center. The previous renter left a hungry batch of fleas for me. The apartment had to be fumigated and I started my first day of college with huge flea bites all over my legs! I grew to appreciate old and crumbly as I move 7 times in three years to older and older buildings. My favorite has on the top floor of an old building with a view of the mountains from my bed. The bed was in the closet, taking up the whole space. I had to crawl in over the end and make it on the way as I crawled out. There was a tiny window in the closet that also served as a night stand. The place that used to house a murphy bed became the closet. The elevator was open with a cage type door. I loved that place! My dad wasn’t too fond of it. He tied a rope around the old steam heater so I could through it out the window and climb out if there was a fire! Good memories!

    Reply
  34. isabel

    my first apartment, in San Francisco, was postage stamp sized. the ceiling was painted deep blue and covered in gold star stickers. the walls were covered in daisy stickers of various day-glo hues: pink, yellow and orange being predominant. even the tiny fridge was covered in them. the year was 1970.

    Reply
  35. Beverly

    It looks marvelous! I am sure he will get used to the colours and be quite happy and snug in his first home alone.I have seen worse student digs in my time, believe me..Good luck Sacha!

    Reply
  36. Tongue in Cheek

    Hi I,
    Now, that was COLORFUL!!
    C

    Reply
  37. Stacey

    I would gladly trade with Sascha in a heartbeat! My first apartment was a converted pool house. It was 7×10 feet. I had a bed, small bathroom, hot plate and little tiny fridge. I had a window the size of a postage stamp. And to make it more dreary it was all covered in 1970’s knotty pine panelling. It was outside of the pool, which I was not allowed to use if the owners of the house were in, which would sometimes be at one in the morning, an usually not for a quiet evening dip! I would take his technicolor place in France right now!! I love your blog, by the way! It is beautiful and your family is just lovely!

    Reply
  38. Sara

    The first apartment I ever lived in, I shared with my husband. It was unremarkable, except for two things. The downstairs neighbors (very old) smoked like chimneys, so we got one of those plug in air fresheners. It didn’t really work–just made our place smell like cigarette smoke AND chemical flowers. The other thing: The same neighbors kept their flammables (paint thinner, etc.) in the same closet as their gas water heater. So, I was always afraid we would get blown to bits.
    I think Sacha’s place looks nice–but I’m romantic about Europe that way!! I like the answer you gave about the place! Good luck, Sacha!!

    Reply
  39. ragazza

    Not my first apartment, but my apartment when I lived in Rome for a year–the landlord filled it with furniture in primary colors–red, yellow, blue. Not my preference! It was also much less charming than Sacha’s, from your photos. He’ll learn to make it his!

    Reply
  40. Tongue in Cheek

    Hi SPF
    Seriously, I’ll rent it to you. June, July, August it will be empty (no Sacha. but colorful interior and bed.)
    c

    Reply
  41. pattyg

    1st apt. was in honolulu, entered through the carport, basically like a basement apartment, w/ a thumbnail kitchen. shared it with my best friend!

    Reply
  42. Jillayne

    My first place was a tiny, two bedroom, post-war house. It had hardwood floors, an ironing board in the kitchen wall, original doors and door knobs and was three blocks from the dance bar, two doors down from a lounge.
    I painted it inside, laid carpet over the very scratched up living room floors, hung lace curtains and pronounced it home. When my dad came to visit me he told me he had been to many parties there as a child!

    Reply
  43. momof5

    I’ll sublet some time too please????

    Reply
  44. Irina

    now you got me thinking too 😉

    Reply
  45. momof5

    I love the checkerboard floor and the iron scrolling on the window. I think he will be very happy here.
    My first apartment was the top floor of a Beacon Hill walk up brownstone in Boston. It smelled of stinky cat when it rained and came with cockroaches. We kept large mayonnaise jars filled with water in the shower as frequently we would have no water pressure on the 5th floor while in the middle of a shower. But it was a great location and I still think of it fondly. I even remember the poem I learned that helped me tolerate (barely)the roaches.
    Scuttle, scuttle little roach
    How you run when I approach
    Up above the pantry shelf,
    Hastening to secrete yourself.
    Most adventurous of vermin,
    How I wish I could determine
    How you spend your hours of ease,
    Perhaps reclining on the cheese?
    There are 5 more stanza’s but you get the idea.
    Hopefully his new apt. will be vermin free.

    Reply
  46. Claudia

    The window on your photograph is really beautiful…
    When I started studying, the main little room in my apartment had a faux brick wall paper that made it look like a dungeon, although it was under the roof (I was not allowed to change anything, yikes!. The shower curtain was attached with thumbtacks because of the slanted ceiling, and you had to shower in a slanted position, too. You had to cross the stairwell to go from one room to the other. And in winter, you could admire tracery on the frosted window although the radiator was scorching hot on the opposite wall…

    Reply
  47. Joan Thodas

    1750 Fell St., San Francisco, 1968. You can take it from there.

    Reply
  48. Laurie in SF

    Bedroom in Arles, Vincent Van Gogh- ‘I have painted the walls pale violet. The ground with checked material. The wooden bed and the chairs, yellow like fresh butter; the sheet and the pillows, lemon light green. The bedspread, scarlet coloured. The window, green. The washbasin, orangey; the tank, blue. The doors, lilac.’

    Reply
  49. Merisi in Vienna

    Have you ever visited the NYU dorm on Washington Square? Compared to that, Sacha’s student apartment is a grand place. I really like the idea of having a real kitchen! The window is really beautiful and the checkerboard floor has charm.
    Are we going to see how it looks after a Sacha-Corey makeover? 😉
    Good luck to Sacha with his studies, great beginnings!

    Reply
  50. Lynn in Oakland, CA

    I love Arles (being a Francophile who is also a Roman ruins freak). Bonne Chance a Sasha! (And for you, Corey, at least he won’t be far from home 😉

    Reply
  51. Lynn in Oakland, CA

    oh – and paint is cheap – you guys will have that to Sasha’s liking in no time!

    Reply
  52. Tongue in Cheek

    Hi Lyn,
    You are right Arles is about two hours away. Though the owner does not want us to re paint.
    C

    Reply
  53. somepinkflowers

    i cannot confirm so far ahead
    for next summer
    but i had a dream of Nice next May.
    by June air*fare almost doubles
    but in May there is also That Film Festival
    with which 2 deal.
    🙂
    a Van Gogh location
    in June might B just the thing.
    {{ i will check back
    with you
    in the new year
    to see what you have planned }}

    Reply
  54. Kathie B

    Alas, during our recent sojourn in Paris and Provence, we didn’t encounter a single shower curtain — in FOUR different hotels! Despite my greatest precautions with the nozzle-on-a-hose (I’m accustomed to these, because we’ve had them at home for decades), I managed to turn the first couple of bathrooms into water theme-parks that had to be sopped up afterwards with all our towels!
    At our next hotel, I took a sit-down shower using the nozzle-on-a-hose, and got washed/showered with minimal splash on the bathroom floor. However, the tub was so deep (and lacked a no-slip mat) that I had to call Farmboy Husband in from the other room in order to help me get out of the tub — which involved sliding the cloth bath-mat under my derrière for traction. It didn’t help matters any either that Parisian water seems hard, so left a very slippery and slightly soapy film on the tub.
    Next time I go to France I may pack my Rubbermaid bath-mat, a shower curtain and some thumb-tacks — or at least be sure to bring Farmboy Husband along again to rescue me!

    Reply
  55. Kathie B

    Could you hang some large fabric wall-hangings to cover the offending paint?
    Nothing fancy, just regular fabric from a store, perhaps stitched together? Or nice sheets? In the multi-colored apartment I described below, we used burlap in select places on the walls.

    Reply
  56. Paula

    The first flat I lived in (not owned), was in London, just off the Kings Road in the swinging 60’s. It was on the 2nd floor of a beautiful olf building. Tiny living room cum kitchen, the bedroom was the original living room, huge with 3 large floor to ceiling windows. The bathroom was on a half landing and tiny. My first flat that I own, after living most of my life in houses, is the one I have now. It’s an old victorian building, just four flats, 2 on each floor. Mine is full of light, lots of big windows, a lovely big bay one in the living room plus another. Huge ceilings, even on a tall ladder I can’t reach ceilings, which can be a pain when trying to change a light bulb! There are 3 big bedrooms, a large kitchen and dining room, a 27ft hall and a brand spaking new bathroom. Oh and down 2 flights of stairs I have a lovely garden.

    Reply
  57. Di

    Mine was a room in a flat with a friend – the kitchen was in my room – got used to the hum of the fridge! It was upstairs from pub also 10 minutes from the university – and after it I swore I’d never live near a pub again.
    I will be in an apartment in Arles soon too – but just for a week…..looking forward to it!

    Reply
  58. Brenda, Walker, LA, USA

    A New Orleans style apt with window seat long 12 pane windows, upstairs, big bedroom, tiny tiny Kitchen! I decorated exactly the way I wanted it. I wished I had kept it a little longer before venturing out buying real estate, but no regrets, thanks for the memories! BB

    Reply

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