Custom cushions for French apartments, terraces and country houses

Four French skies, and what each one does to a cushion

Paris is gray more often than gold. Météo-France's normals for Parc Montsouris give 25 in (634.3 mm) of rain spread over 108.9 wet days and 1,717 hours of sunshine, only 37 percent of what the sky could deliver. Mean humidity sits around 76 percent. Indoors that means soft light and slow fading. Outdoors it means a balcony pad that stays damp if it spends the night outside.

Brittany is wetter still. Brest averages 48 in (1,229.8 mm) of rain over 159.5 wet days, so a Breton cushion lives between showers. It needs outdoor fabric and a dry place to wait, and a soaked one should be dry within 24 to 48 hours, the EPA's window for stopping mold.

Provence is the opposite problem. Marseille logs 2,897.6 hours of sun a year, the most of any French city, on 21 in (532.3 mm) of rain. The mistral sweeps the sky clean: it averages about 50 km/h (30 mph), gusts to 100 km/h (60 mph), blows mostly in winter and spring, and sometimes lasts more than a week.

The Alps bring real winters. Temperature drops quickly with altitude, and the WHO notes that UV rises about 10 percent with every 3,300 ft (1,000 m) and nearly doubles off fresh snow. A chalet window seat fades faster than you would guess.

Haussmann windows, narrow balconies and a mas that turns its back on the wind

A Haussmann apartment gives you height: regulated ceiling heights, herringbone oak parquet (the French call the pattern point de Hongrie), marble fireplaces and tall windows that open like doors. If your window seat sits over a radiator, like the one in our gallery, leave the grille open so warm air can move. Measure between the reveals at the glass and again at the room edge, because old plaster is rarely square. The window seat cushion hub and the window seat measuring Pattern walk you through it.

The balconies are the romance and the constraint. Many are wrought iron and deep enough for two bistro chairs, no more, so the cushion is a thin chair pad with ties, not a lounge set. Measure the chair seat, never the balcony. See dining chair cushions.

In Provence, the mas almost always faces south for protection from the mistral, with no openings on the north side and narrow ones elsewhere. Life moves to the south terrace, which puts full sun on every cushion. Plan for shade, outdoor fabric and ties.

Breton cottages are low, stone and practical. Their window seats want indoor fabric that forgives a damp morning, and their garden benches want outdoor fabric that comes in when the Atlantic does.

Provençal light, ticking stripes and the color of limestone

Southern light is hard and white, and it bleaches saturated brights first. On a terrace I reach for colors that already look sun-softened: lavender gray, olive, ochre, clay, bone. No fabric is fade-proof, but a mid-tone hides the years.

Stripes are the French accent. Cotton ticking belongs indoors: it is 100 percent cotton and not made for rain, so keep it for Paris window seats and Breton daybeds, and choose an outdoor stripe for the terrace. The ticking roll is about 55 in (140 cm) wide, so on a long cushion the stripes run front to back. Read stripe direction before you write your order, and browse striped cotton and ticking.

Paris asks for the reverse. Gray light cools every color, so warm whites (oyster, bone, parchment) read cleaner than blue-whites, and a clay-pink stripe like the one on our balcony chairs stays cheerful in November. Daylight never lies; your screen sometimes does. Hold a swatch at your own window before you decide, my friends. Which light does your seat live in?