Kitchen - photos

Starting point: very cluttered

It's been a bit of a challenge, sorting out the kitchen. We could have made our lives easier if we hadn't decided to paint the really badly stained wall...

Lots of stuff stored here temporarily

But now that the wall has been filled, stain-stopped and has two coats of paint on it we are already not 'seeing' it; we're only aware of the dresser in front of it, rather than the awful stains and bits of building materials spattered all over it.

Starting the cleaning/putting away process

So that was worth the pain! By moving the big dresser into the kitchen we have gained a lot of additional storage, and have moved not-used-very-often things into the entrance hall.

Emptying the dressers

All similar things are in a cupboard together, we have a "new" bit of worktop, and by repairing the sideboard we have an extra three cupboards, too.

Moving the dressers

We've managed to arrange all the saucepans together, under where we have the little hob, and have the everyday crockery in one cupboard.

Contents of dressers

I've separated out the food into cooking ingredients, and things that are more likely to be used from the table, and put them into two different places.

Dressers in the right place

We are trying out an arrangement of having a bank of units between the table and the sink (so that we get more storage/worktop when we get around to installing a fitted kitchen).

Cleaning the floor

The trickiest part of deciding where to put the furniture is the fact that the stove is about 3' to the left of where we'd planned it; if Jean-Marie had had his thinking head on, it could have gone there, and we would have had loads of space for the other run of units that we wanted.

Herding the furniture to clean the floor

I'm trying very hard to avoid having the second sofa with its back to the door; that's a really unwelcoming room layout. So much so, that I'm considering asking M. Waeber whether we can lift the steel plate under the stove and move it to where it should have been...

Everything in its new place

I'll have to speak to M. Monnier, too, to see if the stove can be moved. But logically there is no reason it couldn't be. Even if we have to move the flue above the ceiling, I think it should be possible.  Still, that's something to think about in the future.

And we can move around, too!

Oddly, today I'm still not feeling very lively, but I'm hoping that tomorrow I won't feel quite as wiped out!

And I've had enough spring cleaning for a while!

Entrance hall

"Before"

Again, looking at the photos shows me how far we've come, and how much better the place looks after our recent efforts.

"During"

Bizarrely, I don't have a decent photo of the "after" look - I think I just wanted to get as much done as possible and head for the Shuttle!

"After"

I must remember to post some photos of how beautiful it will look when I've gone a little bit crazy with the candles at Christmas.

Study photos

"Before"

We've come a long way!  It's good to look at the photos, as that reminds me how far we've come in the last few months.

"After"

OK, so we've still got a bit of a way to go, but who cares?  The over-mantle [hidden behind the table] is just too large to go above the fireplace in the entrance hall, and is too heavy to be stored upstairs (but that doesn't mean we won't try when we have more time!), so will just have to stay there for a while.

"After"

There are books hidden behind the bookcase, but I do have a plan for those: we have an IKEA bookcase that needs some shelves, so we just need to buy some planks of wood, and then that will be assembled in the entrance hall.

But the main thing is that we have a clean, tidy space containing a sofa-bed: we can welcome visitors!

Phew!

We're back in Maidstone again, and the house is pretty tidy all throughout the ground floor.

I didn't manage as much as I would like [I wanted to "spring" clean the shower room/loo/laundry/back hall], but did achieve a great deal more than I expected.  I'm currently battling with the OCD part of me that thinks I should go back before Christmas to do that extra cleaning (and sort out the contents of the boulangère stand; I only dusted the miscellaneous items that are temporarily parked there)...

David thinks we're done enough, and I know that we've done enough, but it is not finished.  I've got to work more on letting it go, clearly.

What we did achieve was everything cleaned and put away in the kitchen, entrance hall and study/guest bedroom.  Everywhere vacuumed and dusted.  The bedroom was done in October, but I'd managed to stack up loads of clothes and bedding waiting until we get around to installing the clothing storage in the dressing room, so that has all been temporarily tucked away out of sight!  David also assembled a wine rack in the small cellar and took the wine down there, and the various liqueurs I'd made; sorting those out for laying down or using is another job for the warmer months.

Speaking of warmer: it was fabulous weather whilst we were there - pretty cold at night, but warm and sunny during the days - just a shame that I didn't manage to get out into the garden.  Obviously the warm weather has encouraged lots of weed seedlings to germinate, so I would have liked to be out there laying waste to the interlopers, rather than spending hours on my hands and knees looking at the floor!  Still, it was a good use of our time, even if I'd rather have been in the garden.  We can now welcome guests without having to park the folding bed in the kitchen!

Sadly, one proposed guest didn't make it: Alasdhair wanted to come and stay over on Friday evening [it would have been lovely to see him, but would have taken away a fair bit of our working time; I didn't stop before 7pm, and mostly worked later (9.30pm is too late, by the way!) and didn't have a day off whilst we were there, so missing out an evening and morning would have prevented us from getting the entrance hall tidied], so I was relieved that he couldn't make it (and will greatly enjoy seeing him when it is re-scheduled) but not for the reason - his aunt, Luisela, sadly died on Thursday, and he had to go back to Italy for the funeral.  An unwelcome reminder that it's now our parents' generation who are the old people, rather than our grandparents (who are all long-since departed)...

And yes, I am feeling my age!

But hopefully tomorrow, not-so-much, and then I'll be back in the swimming pool.

David spoke with Matthias Huguenot, and he was very helpful and agreed that M. Antoni [a different M. Antoni from either of our two previous Messrs Antoni!] would check over the connections for the central heating in the new bedroom (so that we can confidently heat that part of the house, without worrying about an unsuspected leak causing damage in our absence; we love the "frost-stat" setting) when he comes to service the boiler, which should be next time we go.

Having messed us around for over a week, M. Torelli definitively said he couldn't come and do that check on Monday, by which time it was too late to organise Schwartz to come whilst we were still there.

We're going to take a view on what to do about the cracked basin pedestal (& mirrors above the basins) some time in the new year, but frankly I think it would be a lot less bother to order a new pedestal ourselves and ask Schwartz to fit it and the mirrors...  The only reason that we've persevered with M. Torelli for so long is that he has really good ideas, and we believe that things could be better if we let him do work that needs doing [the completely-wrong type of water filter specified by Jean-Marie, for instance will need replacing, and he told us of another type that is designed for second home usage].

We're hoping that Laurent will have fitted our door upstairs when we next go, and then we can move a lot of things to a semi-permanent "hidden" home where they can all be stacked up under a plastic sheet to keep the snow off.

Subject to it not being already covered in snow like last year when we arrived for Christmas!

Progress!

We were totally happy with just the two coats of paint on the wall, so I cleaned the floor in that part of the kitchen this morning, and then we moved the Basque dresser into position.

Owing to my feeble shoulders, this was a more involved manoeuvre than if two burly blokes had done it; we had "baby steps" using other furniture to rest the top on after each stage of lifting it, and I made myself some steps for the last two stages [Ciporex is brilliant!].

Get ready

Get set

Go!

OK, not that straightforward

But we got there in the end!

Once the top was resting on the base, we plugged two table lamps into the wall light sockets [there is a very cagey system the French have that has a small hole into which can be plugged a bayonet fitting or a flush-fitting jack attached to the end of the wiring of a wall light.

Or, as in this case, attached to the end of the flexes of table lights.  They are high enough up that we would have to stand on a chair to switch them on or off, but as they are connected as if they were wall lights, we can just use the normal switch.  The Basque dresser is too wide to have left the wall lights in situ, so this is a happy compromise, and we get some mood lighting!

The blue dresser has to stay there for the moment, but will go

I think it looks great, and the kitchen feels as if it is finally starting to come together.

M. Baty thinks he will have the gallery to the 'dolphin' dresser repaired by Tuesday, but we are unlikely to manage to collect that, so it will have to wait till Christmas; shame, but never mind!  But that won't stop us moving the other two dressers [hopefully] and getting under/behind them cleaned and all the furniture rearranged.

David also planted the very tall echinacea, very short rudbeckia & another rudbeckia together with an eryngium, so more things to look forward to in the garden come next summer.

It was a really lovely afternoon [this morning was very grey], but it really feels autumnal and as though winter isn't very far away...

Too good not to share!

Alongside my glass of something fizzy (and David's glass of something-else fizzy: dark brown, if you're interested [whereas mine is a pale gold]; Thomas Becket Brune de Bourgogne), we are having some crisps, and are delighted to be able to tell you that a gaping hole in the knowledge-base of humanity has been filled!

Our crisps now come with instructions; finally, we will be able to eat them properly!

[I think this post may end up containing a ridiculous number of exclamation marks, but I feel that this would be justified.]

Apparently, crisps [chips, if you are from North America or the Antipodes] can be enjoyed as a snack as well as accompanying a meal.

[Wow!  Using a favourite internet phrase: "/sarcasm" - you can probably work out what I mean!]

OK, we may differ in our opinions of whether crisps constitute an adequate side-order [personally, I would rather have a salad or chips (American/Antipodean: French fries) or even vegetables], but I'm guessing that I'm not the only person out there who didn't realise that if you are serving them as an accompaniment to a meal they should be re-heated for two to three minutes in a low oven.

"They" [Carrefour] advise against using a microwave oven.

Also good to know: should you not be greedy enough to finish your crisps [we're hungry people; we worked hard today], they can be stored in a cool, dry environment, but be sure to close the packet securely.

I'm currently debating with myself whether my grandmother [rest her soul] needs a lesson on sucking eggs...

[/sarcasm, again!]

Had a good day

We got down to the house about 10.30 last night, and in order to maximise the time we've got here I painted a coat of Stain Stop on the most badly-marked parts of the kitchen wall I wanted to paint.  It only needed 12 hours to dry, rather than the 16 I thought, so we were already up on the game.

This morning David contacted Laurent Mazij to see if he would come and fit us a door upstairs...

We've got a large space that's enclosed by three walls and a roof, but we can only access it by a ladder from the barn.  There are a few things stored there, but only stuff like chairs that can be carried [relatively] easily up a ladder.  If we had a door from the grenier, we could take all the spare furniture/doors/sanitary ware, etc, through to the other part of the house and risk that no-one will want to go to the bother of stealing our "treasures".

And then we will have a largely empty space to use as our "salon d'été", and can quickly find anything through the door if we need it back in a hurry (which is unlikely, to say the least).

We also wanted him to repair the flashing round the chimney; when Angelo and Jonnie swept it last year they told me that the tin has come adrift.

Weirdly enough, as I was just about to climb into my painting overalls, Laurent phoned to say he was coming over, now, so I put off giving the wall a coat of paint until after he'd been.  We're so used to people planning a visit and then not showing up that someone threatening to arrive in less than half an hour and actually coming was lovely!

Even better was the news that the chimney is probably watertight, so doesn't need to be repaired.  Laurent said to keep and eye on it during heavy rain to see if there is a leak, but the staining is probably from a long-repaired leak from before the roof was replaced.  He would have done it, but reckoned that it was unnecessary.

Saves a bit of cash, so we're very happy with that solution!

He also wasn't phased by the door request, and understood that we only want a temporary thing, and yes we understand that our door we plan to re-use isn't very sturdy, but then the wall would be easily broken if anyone had a mind to do that, and the stuff we store upstairs is only of value to us [old clothes, anyone?], so I think we're all happy with the plan.  He is to leave the beam alone, and build us a temporary step either side of it.

He says he will have it done within two weeks, the estimate being acceptable.

So we're keeping our fingers crossed.

[We do a lot of that, don't we?]

That meant I managed to get a coat of paint on the wall before lunchtime [OK, so lunch was about 3pm, but it still counts!], and unloaded the car before we headed off to the supermarket.

The wall looked pretty good, but still needed a second coat (but hopefully not a third), so when we got back from Bar-sur-Aube, I painted it again, and am now relaxing with a glass of something fizzy!

I really liked the paint I used: Crown "Breatheasy" matt emulsion in Antique Cream - it seemed to cover fairly well, and didn't spatter.  After having used a lot of Dulux recently, and become totally disillusioned, I was pleasantly surprised.

And it really doesn't smell, either.

Haven't gone completely native yet: if I had I would have put the Basque dresser where it is to go and then painted round it - we have enough furniture with paint marks to know this frequently happens!

Whether or not it requires a third coat, we will be able to put the dresser in place tomorrow and get on with cleaning the kitchen.

Plumbers: missing in action, and David thinks unlikely to surface, but he said we were fine to use the original part of the central heating, so that's making the house a lot more comfortable!

Yesterday when we arrived the kitchen was 11°C, and the bedroom 7°C [and outside it's been below freezing], so it was brilliant to be able to light the fire in the woodburning stove and put the heating on.  It must have been on the frost-stat setting, as David noticed the radiators were warm; that would explain why the kitchen was so "warm".

I found it quite interesting to note that the cellar was 12°C when I went down there to find a paintbrush; if the worst comes to the worst, I can sleep in there!

All round, a very heartening day; I hope yours was too.

Creating a new bit of garden

Sycamore; soon to be gone

It is only a bit, but it's also a massive step forward as we've finally finished chopping down the sycamore.

I had cut it off about 3' from the ground, with the intention of asking M. Lorin to pull the stump out with his tractor.  He moved away, we kept forgetting to ask if Claude or Jean-Luc would do it, the stump sprouted new branches, I cut them off...

I'm a lumberjack?

Long story short: we bought some stump killer, and David cut the stump down to the ground and we've put stump killer on it to (hopefully) kill it [I'm a bit sceptical; have seen sycamore stumps before].  I know we run the risk of honey fungus or some other root-attacking nasty, but we have some of that in the ground anyway, and we just needed to deal with something, so we're currently in the "keeping fingers crossed" phase.

With the tree finally out, then we could address the 'trench' - there was a sort of dip in the ground that I wanted filled before planting that part of the garden...

But the piles of sand and gravel had to be moved before that could happen...

Ground levelled; pathway laid out

Thankfully, David is an absolute honey, and piled them up higher, and moved the edge nearest the dip away from where I wanted to level it out.

Again, David was a huge help in levelling out the ground; we managed to get it less undulating.  Flat would have been a challenge too far [and given the various slopes at that end of the garden, dead-level may have looked odd; that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!].

Weed-suppressing membrane in place

We laid some weed-suppressing membrane down, and I put down some grit to make a path.  I've got the intention of doing all the other paths the same way, but we just ran out of time; it's amazing how it slips away.

There were a few plants we'd found on our travels, so they were installed and watered in, and all the bulbs were planted, too, so there will be something to look forward to next year.

Covering it with gravel

David planted bulbs in the rest of the garden, whilst I spread bark on the new bit of garden, until I ran out of bark.

The last time I was out at the house, I'd put bark on the area nearest the road [where previously I'd run out of bark] so most of the garden now has a layer of chippings.  That stuff is brilliant!  It really does help to keep the weeds down, and stops shoes getting muddy when we have to tread on the garden after it's rained.

Plants, bulbs, and bark = new bit of garden!

Obviously, I need another load of bark, but topping up areas where it has thinned out is less of a challenge than covering an area with existing plants that hasn't been covered previously.  I'm hoping that I can lay my hands on some more bark and top up as necessary when the perennials have died down, and before the bulbs send up their leaves.

Hasn't happened any year yet, but a person can hope!

Looking from the road [new bark in foreground]

Study/Guest bedroom

Luckily I had my lovely assistant to help with the assembly process

Ooh, this is the good bit!

Some of the books to be sorted

Murder mystery section

Other fiction [much smaller section]

As we have moved into our beautiful new bedroom, the old one has become the study/guest bedroom [courtesy of a sofa-bed from Janet: thanks, Janet!].  OK, should probably add: "/library" to that description!

And that should probably read: "will shortly become", as the moment we'd got the room arranged, we started temporarily storing other possessions in there whilst clearing the kitchen and entrance hall...

It will be great when the extraneous stuff is removed...

Once again a temporary dumping ground!

Breaking news

David just spoke with M. Torelli who says he's on the mend [although David says he still sounds pretty groggy], and that he will come to the house when we are next there...

Fingers crossed.

Getting that pipework checked out and being able to leave the heating on without worrying will be a huge relief.

Bedroom

Finally!

Why was this so difficult?!?

How great is this?

We're going to get lots of light in the winter

The overhang will help to keep out the sun in the summer

OK, still needs plastering/painting & nice doors...

Doors to bathroom and dressing room

Lovely new [super-king-size] bed

Stupid, stupid, stupid

Passing the pain barrier: probably a good thing when it kicks in within ten minutes of starting swimming?

Passing the stupid barrier: probably never a good idea!

Having joined the gym yesterday, I forced myself to use it today, otherwise I would find an excuse and probably another one tomorrow [possibly a better rationalization, given that I would have more time], and then Monday's Body Balance class would be even more of a hurdle than it's going to be...

As the only reason for joining was to get back to swimming [paying monthly means the more times I go the cheaper it gets, rather than a local authority pool which gets more expensive the more times I go (and that is a bus ride away in each direction, so that bumps up the cost pretty quickly)], I hit the pool.

Never let yourself get unfit - it's much more of a struggle doing two lengths without drowning than it used to be!

I struggled my way up to 20 lengths, and then rationalized that if I swam a mile (65 lengths) rather than a kilometre (40 lengths; my usual swimming re-start distance) it would get over that mental 'hurdle'; in the past it's taken me a couple of months to work myself up to doing the extra distance.  Not a huge leap, then, to persuade myself that if I swam 100 lengths, I would be cutting out two psychological stumbling blocks!

I know from walking, that the sooner I do my 'long' walk, the easier it is to repeat it; working my way up to it seems to stress me out more than any physical suffering I cause myself.  So I applied the same logic to swimming: 100 lengths is my chosen distance, and having done it once, I will be able to do it again.

Probably not my smartest decision, but already I'm forgetting those last 20 lengths.

Oh, and that brainwave I had yesterday as a reason for choosing the further gym?  A 20-minute walk home uphill seemed a great boost to my workout; today, not so much.

Not related to our house in France at all, but may well explain why today is not the day when I upload the photos of our beautiful new bedroom!

Joined that gym

OK, so it's only a small start, but it's a start!

And it's the furthest away of the three possibles, so I get a good walk uphill all the way home.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that will get me 'off the blocks'...

Struggling, again

I seem to have "issues" when I have unresolved issues on my mind...

I'm waiting for the electrician/builders to return in Maidstone, and the plumber in France to finally respond to repeated [but very polite] emails trying to ascertain whether our heating is safe to turn on and leave on in our absence.  With falling temperatures, and worried in case we have a repeat of last winter's early onset [snow in the Alps already, so that's not such a weird idea], we are really keen to have that question answered, but don't want to risk offending M. Torelli and have him not come back and finish the rest of the work if we ask Schwartz to come and check out his work...

[This is France we're talking about, people; that's not an unrealistic concern!]

Apparently, having outstanding "stuff" going on [or more accurately, not going on], in my life has a paralysing effect on me.

I have whole lists of pleasurable things I could be doing, but it's as though I'm a bad mime and contained in an invisible box I can't escape.

I could be updating Flickr, posting pictures of how lovely the bedroom now looks [and that is top of my list of things that I'm not currently achieving], or even doing a meditation/going for a walk/joining a gym.  It's not happening, and that makes me more anxious.  I know it's a 'self-imposed' thing, but I don't know what the 'thing' is, or how to defeat it.  I'm working really hard to just give myself permission to do things I enjoy...

Onset of ever-darkening nights and days-free-from-sun play a huge part, I suspect, but that doesn't ease the feelings of failing-because-I'm-not-trying-hard-enough.

That's the whole point: having some time off should involve doing nothing, or fun stuff; it shouldn't be this hard.

I don't know what the point of this post was other that to try and "break" the deadlock, but I find having posted something [however rubbish that offering] does somehow free me up to post something else [and hopefully something better], so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that that's the case here.

And that I haven't alienated anyone with what is not intended to sound self-pitying [I don't feel at all sorry for myself], but I suspect does just that!

Oh well, I most enjoy the honest blogs/bloggers, so feel obliged to be honest myself, and that's probably not a bad thing.