I like to name all of my rooms at the château, because naming things give them personality, and I like personality. Sometimes I get creative. Through this doorway is the Greek Compass, a lovely circular room where I smoke Gitanes and think about ionic columns. Sometimes I ponder the fact that America has completely blasphemed an ancient culture and that those classy ghosts are all spinning in their graves. Such a tragedy.

From the Greek Compass, you step up into the Blue Room, which is a totally unoriginal and boring name. When you have forty-five rooms to christen you can’t always be clever. And there’s nothing wrong with being literal. I should have named it “The Room Where I Let My Husband Showcase His Fucking AWFUL Stalagmite,” because that thing looks like two tons of Wrigley’s Spearmint, and how do I integrate that, my Torero?

Actually, because he’s a crazy bull fighter and I’m a French goddess that can out-negotiate anyone, Pepito and I are an antiquing dream team. I haggled for that 1870s map of Paris at Librairie Loeb-Larocque for almost nothing. The Dutch pastoral engraving came from a pile of knock-offs at Saint-Ouen. And because he’s still obsessed with his menagerie, Pepito dragged home that gorilla head and vintage bird print from Village St-Paul. Et voila. The perfect ensemble to tone down the chewing gum monstrosity.

Welcome to the Blue Room.