Furniture, Hardware & Appliance Shopping

What follows is a small selection of basic self-service furniture and appliance chains. There is no guarantee that anyone will speak English, but once you have found what you need, little more than basic French should be necessary for the transaction.

Look in the Yellow Pages or on the stores' own Web sites for the branch closest to you.

Top Shops

• Carrefour Hypermarché: Hypermarket selling white goods, electrical appliances and tools including garden equipment. Self-assembly shelving and basic furniture (as well as groceries and clothing). Low priced basics.
• Castorama: Self service hardware and DIY store with basic domestic hardware and lighting, satellite equipment, self assembly kitchen units, shelving, doors and a wide selection of yachting ropes and clips. Indoor and outdoor tiles and bathroom fittings and fixtures.
• Darty: White goods and home appliances including computers and cellular phones.
• Fly: Inexpensive "fashionable" furniture and home accessories of an adequate quality. Goods include beds and free standing cupboards, out-door furniture, soft furnishings and bathroom and kitchen detail accessories such as painted corner shelves, wicker and wire work baskets and racks. Ideal if you are needing the odd item to refresh a furnished rental home.
• Basika: All home furnishings at low-end prices. Sold flat-packed for home assembly. Branches in the Ile de France, Bordeaux and the Provence, Alpes-Maritimes area.
• Habitat: Much like the Habitat chain anywhere. All home furnishings, including fitted kitchens, bathrooms and all out-door requirements.
• BUT: Furniture and appliances including all white goods for the kitchen, dining, sitting and bedroom furniture and home office furnishings. Items sold flat-packed for home assembly. 
• Mistral Bricolage: Hardware, DIY, paint and tools. Home improvement fittings and fixtures for the home and garden and some self assembly basics.