Everything old is new again

Eight years ago, on a trip to Europe, something clicked for Wendy Troupe. "This is where I want to be," she thought. She didn't mean physically, but mentally and spiritually. At the time, she was working as a Web developer and was, she says, "just so stressed all the time."

"Here we just work, work, work. Whereas in places like France, they have a way of gratifying the senses in their everyday lives," says Troupe, who lives in Newburyport with her husband and two sons, ages 3 and 7.

In France, she saw how design played a huge part in that joie de vivre.

At home, she found she could steady her racing, stressed mind by imagining design: "It just calmed me and eventually, I thought, this is what I should do."

Finally, with her design studio in the converted outbuilding of her home well-stocked with furnishings and fashions, last November she launched Le Bourdon Home and Garden (named for a town in France's Somme region), at wendytroupe.com .

Over the holidays she set up shop in Boston's South End Market -- "It cleaned me out," she says -- and sent her husband to the Marche de Noel Christmas market in Providence: "He got mobbed!" Le Bourdon -- with its mantra of "simplify your life, appreciate the aesthetic" -- was off to a flying start. But getting to that point was a gradual process. For more than two years Troupe collected antique European textiles, mostly ancient chateaux drapes and old linens from France, and traditional austere woolen blankets from England. Those fabrics now make up the piles of cushions and stacks of linens in her studio.

She picks up a pretty linen pillow that's filled with lavender, an herb that promotes sleep. "This linen is so tightly woven," she says, "I can't hardly get a pin through it. You just don't see that in new fabrics."

Not only is she "recycling" Old World materials into gorgeous new items for the home, but she takes vintage American clothing and trims it with buttons, brocade, and other decorative ephemera from her European finds.

"I'm mainly going for 1960s Jackie O style," she says, "tweed coats, twinsets, and timeless pieces." Troupe also loves scarves and is turning out chic linen ones for spring. "Scarves," she notes, "are a big French accessory."

These gorgeous fabrics that line and litter her design shop arrive filthy with decades or even centuries of dirt.

"The cleaning is very challenging," she says with a frown. "They used natural dyes back then, which are easily destroyed by chemicals."

Troupe uses Le Blanc linen wash (linenwash.com ), which cleans without bleach, caustics, or phosphates, and Mrs. Meyers (mrsmeyers.com ) "aromatherapeutic" cleaning products, made with essential oils.

Troupe saves every scrap of material left over from the manufacturing process . One cushion, made from an old linen sheet, proudly displays some delicate darning.

"I like to see that," she says stroking the material's "scar" gently, "it's part of the character."

Ultimately, Troupe doesn't want to be a retailer beyond the website. The design shop is open by appointment or during scheduled open house events listed online.

"I want balance," she explains. "I don't want to become stressed again. After all, living better is why I started this."