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A French-Inspired Garden and Home by Judith Stringham

French Design on Friday 26

Friday, October 6, 2017


 French Bleu 

Shades of Bleu in French Design 


What color is French bleu exactly? Who defines which bleu is the real French bleu? Paint companies? Pantone color of the year? Paris designers? Van Gogh? Monet? Chartres Bleu in the Chartres Cathedral stained glass windows? 

French bleu is more than one true blue. Several bleu shades abound across France, and you get to choose which bleu is the French Bleu for you. Take a look at options shown in photographs taken in France. 




medieval-french-house-blue-shutters-beynac-france


Bleu green shutters on a medieval house in Beynac, France are a soft pastel shade. Certainly not the original paint when the house was built because paint fades and is worn away after a number of years.  Is it the original color of the shutters? 

Regardless, the soft bleu green is a color that goes with current French country decorating trends.




medieval-blue-stained-glass-windows-beynac-castle-france
Medium bleu stained glass diamonds are in windows in a round stairwell of Château de Beynac, the fortress of Richard I, the Lion King of France. 

This color bleu is the closest to my favored shade of French bleu




blue-shadows-medieval-spiral-steps
Sunlight through the windows casts blue shadows on the stone steps. 




french-design-blue-green-stained-glass-windows-dordogne-france
Multiple shades of bleu and green diamond stained glass windows are in an old stone house in a small town in the Dordogne Valley, France. 




french-design-blue-accents-paris-apartment-building-spiral-staircaseAqua bleu accents a spiral staircase in a 19th century apartment building in Paris where we stayed in the Fall of 2006. The paint on the steps is almost completely worn away. 




french-design-gothic-door-dordogne-france
Bright bleu paint draws attention to the Gothic door at the end of a pea gravel pathway. 




french-country-design-kitchen-blue-countertop
French bleu for me is a soft pastel blue on the island countertop and the bead board walls around the kitchen sink. This blue lies closer to red than to green on the color wheel. 

A blue I have loved over thirty years...  I think it is here to stay. 

What shade of bleu is your true French bleu

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Thanks for coming to read another French Design on Friday. Seeing Katie @ Let's Add Sprinkles's photographs from her trip to France brings back great memories of France. Who is up for a girl trip? 

See the following for more stories and photographs of bleu. 




Pinterest Board - French Bleu