Size of Paris Apartments

Apartments in Paris are smaller than you are used to, but only you can decide how much space you need. A few years ago we rented a one bedroom apartment in Paris for me, hubby and our at the time 20-year-old daughter. The daughter slept on a sofa bed in the living room. It was small, but the quite big enough for us to enjoy 10 nights there. The only room that we Americans would consider tiny was the kitchen, but it was big enough for me to cook a some meals. It was definitely a one person kitchen. Being able to look out the window and see Notre Dame made cooking in there quite pleasant. If you are planning to rent over the holiday period you should get going. Some of the best places are already gone.

A lot of apartment photos are taken with wide angle lenses to get the whole room in the photo. The photos can make the room appear larger than it actually is. 20 square metres is very small, although not unusual for a studio apartment. It will be about the size of a U.S. hotel room. Imagine a room 12 feet by 18 feet. This is about 20 square metres. Now consider this space will also have the bathroom and kitchen. Would you feel comfortable living in this space for the duration of your stay? Whether or not it is too small for you, is really a personal decision. For three people, I'd personally prefer a larger apartment. I've rented apartments of about 35 sq metres on two occasions and they were fine for two. I would have found them tight for 3 adults, but they would have probably worked fine for a family.

Hi, Patrick. We rented an apartment in Paris for 3 people (1 adult and 2 teenagers) that was 35m sq. Here is the website www.franceresa.com. It was #330. I would say this was pretty much minimal size for 3 people. We were fine, but there was not a lot of extra space which makes me think that anything smaller (especially 20m sq) would be really tight.

Thanks so much for the quick replies! We felt that around 35m squared would work but weren't sure.

Yes, big city apartments can be quite small. And yes, often the photos are taken in a way that make them look deceptively large. But the real question is how much time do you expect to spend there? When we rent apartments on trips (including twice in Paris) we are generally only there for dinner and sleeping. A 1BR apartment typically has a small bedroom (about 10'x10') and a living room that is only slightly larger (maybe 10'x14') in which the kitchen lines one wall, there is a tiny dining set, and a couch than unfolds into a bed. When the couch is folded up, that seems like room enough for three to me. When it's unfolded, it's not, but you should be sleeping, so it hardly matters. A square meter is about 11sq ft. So 25sq meters is about 275 sq. ft. That's not large by any means, but that's not much different than a modest 1BR apartment in the US either.

In December you will likely spend more time in an apartment than you would in other seasons. When we were there in Dec/Jan the sun didn't come up until about 9:00 a.m. and it was dark around 4:30 p.m. Considering the short daylight hours and how cold it was for us (wimpy Californians - but the warmest temp we had was 33 degrees), we definitely spent more time in the apartment than we have on any other trip during spring, summer or fall. Hopefully you will have warmer temps, and being from Rochester you are more conditioned to deal with the cold.

One of the reasons we like to rent apartments is to have a little room to be comfortable lounging and the ability to spread out a bit. Personally I would look at something with at least 45-50 sq meters (480 - 540 sq feet).
Check out Vacationinparis.com and iloveparisapartments.com