For all those who've ever dreamed of packing up and escaping the everyday, the Langevins are your role models—successful and happy, in 2005 they nevertheless moved from their home in a village near Paris to Knowlton, Quebec, with three children, a cat and a huge container holding their worldly possessions in tow. For Caroline and Johan, the decision was simple: they spoke the language, and they already felt a kinship with this town in the Eastern Townships, with its bakeries and tiny boutiques reminiscent of home. They scarcely needed the additional incentive of a contract job that Johan, a web designer, had already lined up over here.
“We wanted an adventure,” says Caroline. “We thought it would be wonderful to live in Canada.” But there's where the nomadic tendencies ended, because the nesting instinct took over as soon as the family arrived. Caroline, who worked as an amateur decorator in France, an apprentice to designer Chris Madden in New York, and has now begun a decorating business in Knowlton with well-known resident Jodi Mallinson, immediately began to unpack, using the three-storey home as an opportunity to indulge in her chic, but cozy, style. It wasn't difficult to envision this house as a home—its beadboard walls and wooden-planked floors invited the white and deep grey palette that Caroline settled upon. Meanwhile, the furniture the family had brought from France gave the perfect Old World air needed to contrast those high ceilings and display favourite family items, such as a fitting collection of globes.
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