Anybody out there? Help! We still can't decide on the colors for the house! We have to make a decision this weekend! I'm so nervous! We don't want to do the wrong thing! All the colors seem to change depending on the brightness of the day, or the angle at which you look at them, or whether you look at the house individually, or as part of the neighborhood. Oh yikes.

Anyway, for what it's worth, here are the final choices. I know, I know...it's impossible to decide anything from these pics. But please try anyway.

New Gardening Blog

By the way, I've started a new blog just for our yard/future garden. It's called Totally Green: Tales of a Beginner Gardener. It goes into more detail about the mechanics of gardening than this blog does house restoration, but that's mainly so that I actually absorb what I'm learning about gardening. So, if you have an interest in gardening or are curious to know what we're going to do with our yard, drop by!

The Color of A House

Sometimes it seems like everything associated with this house is complicated. The latest issue is the question of the color we should paint the house -- not the rooms, but the house's facade.

We have been thinking about this ever since we bought the house, and for years thought we'd have a very, very pale blue house. It seemed that this was the original color of the house and we wanted to restore it to it's original state. But now we realize that the house wasn't blue, as none of the houses in the village (or surrounding area) are blue, and the houses that we thought were blue are actually light gray with pale blue shutters -- the color of the shutters gives the houses their bluish tint.

Our neighbors, having had 4 years to get used to us, now actually speak to us on the street, and lately have been dropping hints about what color we should paint the house. They appear worried that we're going to paint it an odd city-folk color, like hot pink or electric purple. They don't have to worry -- we are actually limited by local law to a certain range colors that are typical of the region.

We have a palette produced by the department (which I guess would be the 'county' in the U.S.) and have been going over and over these colors for months now without resolution. Dawg has become fixated upon a sort of muted orangish-yellow color (peach?), and my obsession remains with having a bluish house, which translates into light gray. In the end, we decided to ask for four samples: (i) Dawg's peach color, (ii) my light gray, (iii) beige, (iv) a very pale pinkish-beige. The painter - who is actually part of the same outfit that did all our stonework - agree to paint a square foot of each these samples on the side of the house by the time we visited next.

We arrived last Thursday, curious to see what our four choices would look like. The painter/macon proudly informed us that he gave us six options instead of four. Here they are:



What's that you say? The image is too small? You can't tell the difference? Okay, here are some close-ups:











Still can't tell the difference? We couldn't either. Which one is peach? Beige? Gray? And why'd he even bother throwing in two "extra colors"? To me, they're all cement-colored with a smidgen of red mixed in.

The painter/macon gave us a long explanation about why he could only get these colors, something about the paint looking different in small samples rather than large. I don't know. What I do know is that if we paint the house the wrong color, it will ruin all our efforts to maintain the original character of the house. There have been missteps with the house, yes, but all on the interior; stuff most people wouldn't notice. If the exterior of the house is the wrong color, though...(shuddering) it will be VERY upsetting.

Seeing that we were completely baffled, the painter/macon brought us a different palette, and told us he could reproduce these colors with more accuracy. Not sure why -- I think he's using a different kind of paint. Anyway, we selected colors similar to the ones we chose before.

I'm really afraid to see what he comes up with this time.

Anyway, I'll leave you with pictures of some other houses in our village. If you have an opinion about a particular color, don't hesitate to let me know!

Deserving A Post All Its Own

I think the most beloved object in the house, other than its occupants, is our lovely Lacanche range-cooker. Remember when we were trying to decide on a color and were leaning towards something vibrant like or tangerine or lemon yellow? Well, happily, in we decided in the end that a neutral color would be best and went with “Frangipane,” which is a fancy way of saying beige.

We abandoned all thoughts of a bright stove while having lunch with friends who had just remodeled their kitchen in tasteful ecru-and-white tones. And as we admired their kitchen, our friend K said, “So glad to be rid of the old one. Don’t you remember? It was hideous. It was orange. Orange!” And I said slowly, “Yes, it was hideous. Yes, it was orange!” At that moment, I knew that we would never have “fiesta-colored” oven. And now, seeing it gleaming in our kitchen, (grâce à Dawg’s parents for his 40th birthday – thank you so much!), we feel as though we dodged a bullet. Even now, every so often one of us will glance over at it and say, “I love this stove." And the other will fervently agree, avowing that no other color would have been right.

Cooking on this thing is such a pleasure. We went with the six-burners and haven’t looked back. On our second weekend at the house, Dawg made a boeuf bourguignon. We only had two burners going at the same time, but we reveled in the knowledge that if we wanted to make another dish, like, say, scrambled eggs and bacon for twenty, we could. There was room for all.

And now, here are a couple of pics of our beauty shortly after it arrived.








Now, I know I'm notorious for abandoning this blog for months at a time, but do stay tuned. Everyone was so helpful with their suggestions for the color for the stove that we were thinking maybe you could help us with another color problem, a major one: what color should we paint the house?

It's not over

So, in my last post I made it sound as if our house was all finished and wrapped up with a shiny, red bow...but that wasn't case. We didn't spend another night there for 3 months. We couldn't, really. The week after we stayed there in November, the place became a filthy, unliveable worksite again. We had the roof redone, the kitchen workspace installed, the old crepi scraped off the house's facade and replaced with plaster, the front stairs replaced, and certain rooms painted white. But now, except for the painting of the exterior and the garden, all major works are finished. And so two weeks ago, we crept back to the house, laden with a new bed from IKEA and a new slide from Lil'Dawg, to see how everything turned out.

It looks great.

The roof went from this:




To this:




The facade went from this:




To this:






To this:




(Okay, not a great picture, but you get the idea - they replastered it)

The kitchen went from this:

To this:

To this:

To this:

Not bad, eh?

We did it!

It felt something like a dream walking into our house with our bags and baby, knowing that we were coming home for the first time. But after that, it was surprisingly normal. It was our house - the house we fell in love with almost 4 years ago; the house of which we know every square inch. No ghosts popped out at us. No fretful memories of the years of grime disturbed us. Everything seemed the same as it had always been, except much, much better. And that's when I realized that we had done it. Even though we restored the house from top to bottom, we managed to keep house's original character perfectly intact, while eliminating the creepiness.

This was a major goal of ours from the very beginning. During our house-search, we saw many beautiful old places with horrible modern "improvements." Plastic window frames, glass-enclosed terraces, exposed stone where there should have been paint, eye-watering paint jobs where there should have been stone. We decided that we wanted a house that would look almost exactly as it might have in whatever era it was built. Of course, we modernized it with things like double-glazed windows and insulation, but we tried hard to impress upon the workers that we did not want anything that would change the house's inherent character. (And believe me, it was a struggle. You wouldn't believe some of the things that they wanted to do in the name of modernity and convenience.)

So, walking into the house, it felt great to realize that even with all its shiny new doors, windows and walls, it still was a Really Old House.

That said, it was also a Really Dusty House. We hadn't been in the door five minutes before Lil'Dawg was covered from head to toe in dust. Seriously. Just like we'd rolled him in it. I didn't even bother to take off my coat (though I could have! The house was warm!) before picked up a broom and got to work. All that day, we swept, mopped and scrubbed, but when we left the house the next day it was still dusty. I guess it will take a couple of months of repeated scrubbings for the house to realize that it is, finally, clean.

When we weren't cleaning, we were shopping. We didn't have any chairs and after a full day of cleaning, the idea of flopping on the hard floor didn't seem appealing. So we went to a store to find a table and chair set. We were envisioning buying a lovely wrought-iron set; one we could put in the garden when the weather turned nice, and upon which a simple white table cloth and wine glasses would look appropriate. What we ended up with was a ungodly plastic set in dark green. We threw a colorful tablecloth over it, but it didn't help much. The contrast between our beautiful handmade wood floors and the unnaturally-colored, mass-produced, green plastic chairs was just too striking. They will have a short tenure.

That night, we dined on the same meal we have eaten in our little village for the past 3+years: avocado, tomato and Boursin cheese on baguettes. (If you've never had Boursin cheese, you must, as it is more addictive than crack. It is ridiculous that with all the wonderful cheeses that exist in France we always turn to Boursin in times of need, but we do. I don't know what they put in it...it's possible it's not even cheese. But man, it's tasty!) We had wanted to have something more memorable, seeing as it was the first time we'd eaten inside the house, but in the end it was appropriate: our fabulous Lacanche stove will arrive in early December so we won't be needing to eat cold sandwiches any more. Bring on the boeuf bourguignon!

Sleeping there that night was... interesting. We were on an air mattress that was not too comfortable and reeked of plastic. But the thing that took us most aback about sleeping there was the noise. Not from passing motorcycles or drunken revelers, which we're accustomed to from living in Paris, but from the village church . Church bells! Church bells! Every hour on the hour! We go from dead silence...silence so heavy it weighs on your ears...to bong! bong! bong! bong!

Now, I specifically recall asking someone about this before we bought the house. Maybe it was the agent. Maybe it was our neighbor, Red. And we were told that the bonging stops around 10pm, starting again around 7 am. But no, it does not! Why doesn't anyone stop this?? I can understand how one might need the clock to ring in times gone past, before clocks stopped being luxury items, but come on! Even the oldest, gnarliest farmer must have a ditigal clock now! That the bell keeps ringing, even though there's no need for it, seems very French to me. The bell rings all night because it has always rang all night, and even if no one likes it, no one can - or should - stop it either. Dawg now wants to be a member of our village's council to campaign against the all-night ringing of the bell.

To be honest, though, the bell didn't wake Lil'Dawg, and the only reason I noticed it was because: 1) I was tossing and turning on the uncomfortable air mattress and so was awake anyway, and 2) I was annoyed that we had been Lied To!

Okay - enough chitchat. I know you want to see pix. But first, I want to shout out to architects #1 and #2 , who are getting married this Friday. Herzlichen Gluckwunsch zur Hochzeit, my dear friends! And thank you for helping to make our house such a pleasurable place to be!

And on to the pictures.... (These are just a taste; I'm putting together a full set on shutterfly).

Living Room





Library










Kitchen








Guest Room






Guest bathroom





Lil'Dawg's room






Master Bathroom







Master Bedroom











Ready to go home....



Outdoor Shots:

Our beautiful View




The Yard


Our Wonderful, Really Old House

Full Circle

I remember when we first signed the papers for the house 3 years, 9 months ago. We were so excited. We didn’t care that the house was dilapidated, filthy and smelled strongly of pigeon shit. We loved it and couldn’t wait to get our hands on it.

A day or two after signing, I went to the local department store to poke around their hardware department. It tickled me silly to buy a rake and a pair of wellies, and I must have spent a good hour mulling over which canvas gloves to buy. Heavy-duty polythene sacs, dust masks, secateurs, and industrial-strength disinfectants all went into my shopping cart, and when I returned home, my fingers were cramping beneath the weight of all the bags I carried. But I was so thrilled – these products marked the start of a great adventure. Cleaning our house would be our first act of love towards it; the first step toward making the place our own.

Today I found myself in that department store once again. Like last time, I contemplated the best cleaning supplies for the house. But this time, I bought ordinary stuff – rubber gloves. Brooms. Sponges. A dustpan. Mr. Clean (or as it’s called here, Monsieur Propre). Yes, people: the rumors are true. Three years and nine months after buying the place, our house is finally habitable. This weekend we will stay overnight there for the first time.

I must admit, I’m a little nervous. I have only seen the house at night twice. The first time was when we just happened to drive past it in on our way to a local chambre d’hôte. The second time was when a meeting with the workers ran late, and we ended up racing against the sun, like anti-vampires, trying to lock up the house before darkness fell. We didn’t quite make it but we tore out of the village as if zombies were on our tail. The house, with its grimy cobwebs and crumbling walls and missing floors, was just too creepy to be in after dark.

Now, all that’s changed, of course. The walls are all white and gleaming. The new floors smell wonderfully of freshly cut wood. And there’s nary a cobweb to be seen, let alone one black with dirt.

But I’m still the tiniest bit weirded out by staying overnight there. The house has been creepy a lot longer than it’s been nice. I feel oddly shy and apprehensive, as if I’m about to go on a date with an old friend, who used to live out of his car and eat from garbage cans, but has since cleaned up really, really nicely.

What shades of the old house will remain, I wonder? It’ll be so familiar and yet unfamiliar, too. I imagine, like any really old house, it makes lots of weird, creepy, settling noises. But it’ll take us awhile before we know the sounds of the stairs creaking is normal, and not some 19th century ghost coming to reclaim the house, or the village axe murderer creeping upstairs to chop us to bits.

Yikes.

Still, I can’t wait. We’re on the brink of a whole new adventure.

I’ll let ya’ll know how it goes.

Getting my Goat

Architects (or lack thereof) aside, we are doggedly moving forward. Soon we will actually be able to spend a night in our house, possibly as soon as mid-October. Originally, we thought it would happen by the end of September. At the last meeting in late August, the carreleur (tile layer) swore that he would be finished tiling the bathrooms by Friday, September 19th, so that the plumber could connect the toilet, bathtub, etc. and we would finally have a functional bathroom.

Well. We made an impromptu visit to the house on Wednesday, September 17th – two days before the carreleur was supposed to have finished. And guess what?....

Come on, you’ll never guess....

The bathrooms weren’t finished.

Steady now - I know you’re shocked. But actually, so were we. We bounded in, full of hope – but the bathrooms looked exactly the same as when we had visited weeks earlier. Dust-covered boxes of tiles lay on the floor. A half-empty bottle of mineral water was perched on our useless sink. Some tumbleweed rolled by. Our bathroom was a ghost town.

Enraged, Dawg fired off phone calls to both the carreleur and the stone mason (who had subcontracted the work) and threatened to institute penalties if the bathrooms were not finished by the agreed upon date. (Mind you, they told us in May that the bathrooms would be finished by the end of June…which became mid-July…which became the end of July…which then became the end of September.) The carreleur called Dawg back hours later, bumbling with apologies, swearing that he had been planning to finish up that very weekend! He swore that he would be finished by Monday, Sept.22nd at the very latest.

But the very next day, he calls to inform us that a big box of tiles had gone missing, and that he had to order more, which would take 10 days. Now, does someone smell a rat? Of course, it is possible that the tiles were really stolen. Once some wooden floorboards that were waiting to be installed were stolen. But isn’t that just so convenient? We now have to wait 10 days for the new tiles to be delivered.

And to top it off, the stone mason – who has been extremely reliable for the past three years – has become increasingly unreliable. For the past few months we have been waiting for the delivery and installation of stone so that the mason can finish the floors near the fireplaces. The mason, M. Carbourdin, said that there were delays with the quarry. Fed up, Dawg again threatened to institute penalties on the stone mason. A few days later, M. Carbourdin called to say the problems with the quarry had miraculous cleared and said the stones would be delivered within the week.

That was last week.

Today* Carbourdin calls to say that “the stones fell off the truck” en route to delivery and he’d have to order more. Can you believe this? Neither do we. It’s the builder’s equivalent of ‘the dog ate my homework.’ Dawg simply told the mason that what happened to the stones was not his problem, and that Carbourdin had been find a solution by next week or else we were going to find someone else to do the job. Sigh.

I mean, can you imagine making such excuses at your job if you fail to deliver to a client? Having worked on construction law cases for 2.5 years, I do know that delays are to be expected, especially from suppliers. But I also know that you need to make reasonable efforts to circumvent delays – like having a going to an alternate supplier if one fails you. It is just. So. FRUSTRATING.

But.

The house, though still uninhabitable, is looking good.

No longer scary. Almost warm.

In July, we invited our friends (whom I’ll call Tollie and Skip) to see the house. And for the very first time, we had guests that looked impressed with the house instead of shocked. Skip who studied landscaping was very excited about our garden (well, potential garden) and we had fun chatting about where raspberry or blueberry bushes should be planted, whether a cherry blossom tree would thrive there, and how to get rid of the many, many, many, many weeds without using industrial strength pesticides. Half-jokingly, I said that we should get a goat. It really was a half-joke, but now each time we think about it, we get more serious. But we have so many questions – like…is it really possible to rent a goat? Would we have to feed it more than grass and weeds? Does a goat require a lot of care? Would it really eat everything in our yard? How long would it take for a goat to eat a 1500 sq meter yard? What if we rented several goats for a week – would that be enough time for them to clean out our yard? If there’s anyone out who knows a thing or two about goats, please feel free to chime in.

In the meantime, I'll leave you with some pictures of the house as of Skip and Tollie's July visit. Feel free to ooh and ahhh.

Living Room:



View of Living Room from Kitchen:



View from Living Room of doors to library (left) and doors leading to hall. (Aren't the doors goregous? The person who made the doors also made the windows. By hand. Just wonderful.)



Library:




Kitchen:



Master Bedroom (note the beautiful view!):




Close-up of beautifully restored fireplace in master bedroom (I have to do before and after's of this fireplace, the difference is amazing):



Guest bathrooms in-progess!





Guest Room:



And just for fun... Skip and Tollie pushing Lil'Dawg around our lovely village:




*Note: Although I'm posting this on Oct. 11, this post was originally written on Sept. 24th.