Cultural refinement and taste are measured against the standard of
French sophisticated lifestyle, from
gourmet food to fashion, from art to literature, from house construction to interior designs. The French people are perhaps the most artistically discriminating people. Their sophistication is their heritage from the aristocratic past. French house design is not just a matter of practical structural integrity, but also an issue of aesthetics. The standard of French house design is always measured against the opulent taste of King
Louis XIV. King Louis XIV is sometimes referred to as the Sun King because of his extravagant taste. Most European mansions and palaces are patterned after the designs of the palaces that Louis XIV had built.
A typical French house design is always spacious with many rooms for different purposes. French-inspired house designs are typically located in spacious lots for the additional landscape design and well-manicured lawn. A French house design is distinguished by the hipped roof. A hipped roof slopes down to the eaves on all four sides of the house. Hipped roofs have dormers or connecting wings with gables. A dormer is a vertically set window on a sloping roof.
