Bellême is a small Perche hill town that rewards slow exploration. It is also home to CHEZ les VOISINS, a concept store with a clear point of view: objects with history deserve a second life, and a practising interior designer is better placed than most to find them. Marie du Sordet founded the store in 2011 with upcycling at its centre, and the retail operation has since grown into two distinct spaces that together make a visit genuinely worth planning.

The larger of the two is L'ANNEXE, a showroom of around 400 square metres where furniture and room-scale pieces have room to breathe. Industrial lighting rigs hang where they belong. A military-canvas bed sits without apology next to a faded armoire. The scale lets you see things as they might actually function in a room, which is partly the point. La BOUTIQUE, in the town centre itself, works differently — smaller, more intimate, better suited to hunting for a single enamelware piece or an old coat hook than to rethinking an entire interior. The two spaces reward separate visits, and the contrast between them is part of what makes CHEZ les VOISINS interesting.

Marie's interior design studio runs alongside the retail operation, taking on projects across France and beyond the Perche region. That background shapes what ends up on the floor. The stock is not assembled at random. Industrial finds sit near decorative accessories, and vintage furniture shares space with functional objects chosen because they still work. Each piece carries evidence of where it has been, and the selection reflects someone who thinks about rooms rather than just individual objects.

For collectors and secondhand shoppers, CHEZ les VOISINS occupies an interesting position. It is not a brocante or a flea market in the traditional sense, but it draws from the same sources and applies a practising designer's eye to what gets kept and how it gets shown. Buyers who enjoy the hunt at a vide-grenier will recognise the instinct behind the curation, even in a more edited setting.

Opening hours follow a Thursday-to-Sunday pattern. Thursday and Sunday mornings run from 10:30 to 13:00. Friday and Saturday open in the morning from 10:30 to 13:00 and reopen in the afternoon from 14:30 to 19:00, making those two days the most flexible for a visit. The store closes Monday through Wednesday. If you are moving through the Perche region on a weekend, the full Friday or Saturday schedule gives the most breathing room.

Bellême itself sits within the Parc Naturel Régional du Perche, and most visitors arrive by car. Those travelling by bus will find the Office du Tourisme stop approximately 180 metres away, served by bus lines 418, 419, 420 and 421. Champ de Foire is an alternative stop on the same four lines, roughly 430 metres from the store.

CHEZ les VOISINS suits anyone who approaches secondhand buying with a specific eye rather than a general sweep. It also suits visitors who want to combine a browse with the wider pleasures of a Perche market town. The two spaces are different enough that seeing only one leaves the other still worth a return trip.