A "Triple"

French apartments come unfurnished. And by 'unfurnished' I mean there is NOTHING there, I think that even the door knobs are optional. We used to wonder why all the apartment listings had photos of the toilet. Now we know - that is, sadly, an optional feature! Our current apartment has no lights, and certainly no appliances (but it does have a toilet). 

I have gotten a fridge, and a washing machine, but we're still living without a stove or oven. That's ok, it's summer, right? Time to eat lots of salads.... It's amazing how often one actually uses the stove.

So I'm shopping for stoves and discovered this crazy contraption - a stove, oven, and dishwasher all-in-one. They are never cheap, even second-hand, so I don't think I'm going to live my new dream of washing my dishes in the compartment underneath my oven, but I do think that would be a crazy-Euro brand of awesome.

A "Decent" Dwelling

I'm not sure what it says about the French real estate market that they had to recently pass a law to establish what the smallest dwelling entails that can reasonably be considered 'decent' and legal.

They break it out for you in one line "Decent housing = not less than 9m ²". (This is less than 100 square feet).


But wait, you can get around that:

"However, the decree allows the rental of a dwelling under 9m² if its volume is at least 20m3. The volume calculation is done by multiplying the area by the ceiling height. For example, if you have a ceiling height of 3m for an area of ​​8m ², the housing has a volume of 24 m3. It is decent and can be rented."

This sounds ok, if you're a giraffe!