At Home with Madame Chic

Becoming a Connoisseur of Daily Life

Jennifer L. Scott

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781476770345
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Personal Success

Approach life at home the Madame Chic way: a beautiful, illustrated toolbox of tips and ideas for organizing, entertaining, and savoring a stylish life. When she arrived at Madame Chic's Parisian apartment as a foreign exchange student, Jennifer Scott was a casual California girl who thought sweatpants were appropriate street attire. Madame Chic took Jennifer under her wing and tutored her in the secrets of how the French elevate the little things in life to the art of living.Years later, Jennifer was back in California with a husband, two young daughters, a dog, and her first home. Every day she confronted mundane duties like folding laundry and unloading the dishwasher, and she began to think about Madame Chic's home—how the breakfast table was set beautifully the night before, the music that always played in the background, the calm of Madame and Monsieur Chic's ritual cocktail hour together. Jennifer wanted that life. She decided to see what would happen if she didn't perform her chores impatiently or mindlessly, if, instead, she could live like Madame Chic. At Home with Madame Chic reveals the secrets to having a happy, fulfilling, and passionate life at home. Jennifer explains the morning send-off need not be chaotic, it's possible to look stylish with minimal time and effort, a little forethought makes it possible to serve a home-cooked dinner every night, and details like music and scented candles can set the tone for the whole family's evening. Organized by the pleasures that can be found throughout the day, this charming, helpful book is full of ideas, playlists, recipes, beauty routines, and advice that can turn an irritating day into an enjoyable experience.

Chapter 1

THE FRENCH CONNECTION

Famille Chic’s traditional Sixteenth Arrondissement apartment in Paris was a tidy, clutter-free, and refreshingly formal home. I say “refreshingly” because up until then, I had been so used to casual living. They had grand floor-to-ceiling windows, botanical-print draperies, upholstered armchairs (no sofa), an antique record player, and a formal dining table where they enjoyed dinner every evening. During my stay with them, I soon came to realize that one of the reasons they were able to live so well was because everything ran smoothly at home. Their home life was meticulously organized right down to the very last domestic detail. Now that I am running my home with two children of my own, I appreciate more than ever how well organized the Chics were.

But is it just Famille Chic who runs an efficient home? Or is it a French thing in general? I believe many French people take both pride and pleasure in making a home. For them, homemaking is just one of the many joys in life. A well-run home is a necessity. They are in on the secret that a passionately pleasant home life sets you up for a very happy life in the outside world.

My next-door neighbors in Santa Monica rented out their apartment for an entire year to a French family. The husband in the French family was a university professor who was teaching at a nearby college in his sabbatical year. I quickly befriended his wife, the lovely Emmanuelle. She perfectly embodied all I had come to know and love about the French women I observed in France. Chic Parisian bob? Check. Fabulous skin? Check. No-makeup look? Check. But I don’t want to make her sound like a walking cliché. She was a marvelously talented woman—a mother of two teenage boys who had a banking career back in France. Yes, she had a high-profile career, but she took her role in looking after her home just as seriously and relished the art of homemaking.

Soon after they arrived, Emmanuelle invited me over to her place for lunch. But not only did she invite me for lunch, she invited me to cook with her. We made a delightful feast together—salad, leek tart, and pear custard. Her house was neat and presentable. We had many more lunches together during the year she was in Santa Monica. Once she even hosted a large luncheon for all of her new American girlfriends.

There was no clutter in her temporary home. And, yes, clutter would be quite easy to acquire during one year. The vacuum cleaner routinely hummed. Delicious smells regularly wafted from her air vents to mine. Emmanuelle enjoyed homemaking. Sure, she was taking the year off from her banking job, but I got the feeling she ran an equally tight ship back in Paris.

My other Parisian-cum-Californian friends are just as domestically inclined. We became friends with one young couple when she and I gave birth to our first daughters on the same day. Again, she and her husband love to entertain, and the wife is a fabulous cook—she makes homemade cakes and crepes for mere playdates (much to my husband’s delight). Their house has not an ounce of clutter, and is, quite frankly, a minimalist masterpiece. And both husband and wife have very demanding careers.

The most important thing I’ve learned from my French friends is that they regard domestic matters with a positive attitude. They derive pleasure from even the most mundane tasks. They don’t look at housework as a degrading thing that’s not worthy of their time, but rather as a necessity that helps life run smoothly and pleasantly—especially if they have meaningful careers and a life outside of the home. So chic.

The French value an orderly home life, even in times of upheaval. In the opening sequence of my favorite film, Amélie, an elderly gentleman returns home from his best friend’s funeral still dressed for the funeral service; shedding a few tears and clearly distraught, he opens his address book and erases his deceased friend’s contact information. I believe this sequence is a tongue-in-cheek comment on French people’s domestic eccentricities. It was a touching moment, and yet, rather telling. That man’s address book would be organized and up-to-date, even in a time of deep mourning.

Later in the film, Amélie is distraught when she has missed an opportunity to confess her love to Nino Quincampoix. She does not to wallow on her bed, wearing sweatpants while watching bad made-for-TV movies, but, rather, she turns to her kitchen to make her favorite plum cake—her tears of sorrow artistically wiped away by her floured hands.

So on the regular days, and the extraordinary days, take inspiration from the French and look at homemaking as a pleasurable pursuit. This attitude can turn you from a clueless homemaker to a domestic goddess in no time.

Chapter 2

FALL IN LOVE WITH YOUR HOME AGAIN

In her book Parisian Chic, Inès de la Fressange says a “Parisian’s apartment is her château.” I love this saying. It implies that we do not need to own a château to feel like we live in one. We can live well no matter where we dwell.

You might already love your home and know the value of appreciating it, but most people, at some point in their lives, go through a period of feeling dissatisfied with where they live. This is perfectly normal. It is human nature to want to upgrade. You might want to move to a safer neighborhood or to a home with a big backyard so you can fulfill your dream of growing vegetables. We must hold on to these dreams, but in the meantime we must not wish away the life we currently have.

The key is to appreciate where you live now and learn how to thrive there. It may not be easy. I say this from experience. My husband and I have gone through the whole spectrum of emotions about where we live.

We live in a Mediterranean-style town home in Santa Monica, California. It has three levels, each with a beautiful view of a silk floss tree that is awash with enchanting pink blooms every fall. (For this view we are lucky. It is rare to have a view of anything but your neighboring building in Santa Monica apartments.) We lived there happily for four years before we had our children . . . and then things changed.

After we had our two daughters, we started to obsess over moving into a larger house. We told ourselves we had “outgrown” our apartment. Toys were everywhere. The double stroller had to be parked by the front door, crowding the entryway. There were so many stairs to lug groceries up and down. There was clutter everywhere. We wanted more space. We wanted a garden. We wanted out!

During one of our moan sessions (because that is what we were doing, moaning), I paused for a moment and realized I felt bitter and small. It is good to ask yourself if what you are doing feels contractive or expansive—in essence, to follow your gut. And all of the complaining I was doing about my own home felt very contractive.

When we were newlyweds and first came upon our future home, my husband and I were enchanted. The town home was lovely and in a desirable location in Santa Monica. When it was on the market, there were multiple offers on the property. We put in an offer, and we got it! We beat the other offers. We were ecstatic. It would be our first home as a married couple.

Every night for the next month, while the place was in escrow, we would walk past our soon-to-be new home and observe it from the street. On these walks we’d often spot the family we’d bought it from. We saw them having family dinners by the open windows, the branches of the grand silk floss tree reaching into the house. Whenever the family looked out to the street below we would quickly carry on walking so as not to appear creepy. (We later became friends with the family we bought the house from. They are lovely people.)

When we finally moved, it was a pivotal moment in my life. I was the lady of the house, in my own home . . . that I owned. Life could not get better. The first morning I woke up early and made coffee in the kitchen. I opened the kitchen window as I had seen our predecessors do and let the branches of the enchanting silk floss tree reach inside. Then the most curious thing happened. A squirrel, who my daughters and I later dubbed Mr. Squirrel, hopped up to the iron window box and sat on the sill. It was a magical moment. I wondered if he was going to come inside. I was so giddy, I felt like offering him a cup of tea! It was the perfect omen, a lovely welcome to the neighborhood.

We spent the next few years decorating our house, renovating the bathroom and the closets and updating bits and pieces in the kitchen. Everyone who came to visit told us our home had so much light—that it was a great space. We listened to music often. We opened the windows to let the Santa Monica sea air purify our living room. We frequently held dinner parties.

So how did our magical Shangri-la become a dumping ground we had outgrown? How had our domestic paradise turned into a place we couldn’t even stand? The only thing that had changed, other than having two children, was our attitude. It stank!

After this very important gut check I changed my perspective. I needed to find a way to love our home again. Our chief complaint was that apartment living was inconvenient when you had two kids and a dog. We wanted more space and a backyard for the kids to run around in. Okay, fair enough. But I decided to look at things differently. I pointed out to my husband that our town home was very spacious, as town homes go. If we were in New York, Paris, or his native London, our town home would be a hot property, coveted by millionaires. (That’s being a bit dramatic, but I was trying to make the point to my husband.) When I lived in Paris with an aristocratic family in the Sixteenth Arrondissement, they seemed to make apartment living work for them, and they had five children! If they could do it and thrive, why couldn’t we?

Once we shifted our attitude, we decided to see what we could change to fix the “problems” we thought our home had. The double stroller that was crowding the entryway was moved to the second stair landing in our hallway. This was out of the way yet still accessible if we needed to pull it out, and it freed up all of that blocked space in the entryway of our home.

We didn’t have a garden, but I decided to take care of the neglected plants on my patio and get the girls involved. After a few fun trips to the garden center, we donned our gardening gloves and hats and pruned, watered, and fertilized. We even brought some ladybugs home from the garden center to spread through our container garden to act as a natural pesticide. (That’s what I call getting into it!) Our patio plants started to thrive, as did the geraniums on our balcony and in the window box. The herbs in our kitchen window box provided beautiful fragrance when we opened the window and were handy to snip off and use while cooking. In short, we could enjoy growing flowers and herbs even though we didn’t have an outdoor garden space to call our own. We might even ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Dedication
• Introduction
• Part 1: Chez Vous
• Part 2: Les Routines de la Journée
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Copyright