Parisian Apartment. Part Huit. L'appartement: La Cheminée.

If your Parisian apartment doesn’t have a fireplace, you should move, stupid. Sorry, but I’m a little grumpy today. All of my caregivers are driving me crazy. First, I asked one caregiver to trim the ends of my beautiful pink peony flowers and add new water. Do you know what she did? She cut the tops off and just left these stems in the water. What? I asked the other caregiver to blow dry my hair and he said he couldn’t because he didn’t know “how to use a blow dryer.” The other caregiver dropped me off the toilet and then spilled an entire class of toothpaste water on my cute outfit right before I was going out the door. All of my caregivers are from Africa and Nepal , and they’ve never heard of a peanut butter jelly sandwich, a quesadilla, they put guacamole in the freezer and two of them pray in the toilet twice a day to Allah.  I love all of them, and respect their differences, but today I just wanted a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for God’s sake. So, anyway, back to Parisian fireplaces…

The fireplace is the pièce de résistance of the apartment. It’s your focal point. It’s where your candelabras go. It’s where your orchids go. It’s where all your fabulous vignettes go. It’s where all your best Christmas decorations go. Oh my God! Get a fireplace!

The good news is that most Parisian apartments have fireplaces, sometimes two, sometimes three or more. Most of the fireplaces are silky marble and even better news is that most of these fireplaces have big beautiful gilt mirrors over them.

Oh, there is a hint of bad news. Most of these fireplaces…no longer work. And, if they do work, you’re not allowed to use them. If your fireplace works in Paris, you’re a billionaire.

So that’s it today on fireplaces and gilt mirrors. I am going to try to be in a better mood later today, unless one of my caregivers decides to part my hair in the middle again. Stay tuned for Parisian apartment. Part Neuf. L’appartement: Le Balcon.