Coup de Cœur – Part Six: Do you see what I see?
An occasional series chronicling the tale of the renovation of a former medieval watch-tower in southern France …..
The previous owner of the house was a photographer of some talent. He could make the silkiest purse out of a lady pigs ear, of this I am certain. When we looked at his wonderful images on the numerous websites that carried Maison Carrée to her adoring public eager to stay for a few days and sample the delights of his culinary skill as well as the comfortable and welcoming interior she offered, we never once worried about wall coverings. Downstairs was pristine white and upstairs had some sort of nice neutrally wallpaper. When we arrived to view what turned out to be the Wreck of the Hesperus, one of the stand-out moments was the realisation of what that nice neutrally wallpaper actually was. Not wallpaper in fact. Not fabric. Nothing so outré for our Monsieur. Nay, nay and thrice I say nay … he’d gone a whole new road – a positive Route Nationale, a Motorway, an Interstate Highway. I can imagine the sprightly conversation he had with himself inside his head:
‘What shall I cover the upstairs walls with?’
‘How about floor, old chap ..?’
‘You genius! Floor! Of course – floor is the way forward for these walls. And shall we perchance wallpaper the floor?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. Obviously not. That is an absurd notion’.
And so it was. Laminate clip together floor. But not just any laminate clip-together floor. Oh no! This was laminate clip-together bargain basement, below economy starter range floor. The floor that the salesman guides you too first before pointing out that absolutely anything at all that you choose from here will be better, even spending tuppence halfpenny more and thus securing himself an extra portion of fries on the commission he earns. That sort of laminate clip-together floor. And it had been slathered all over the walls. Look closely at the top picture …. do you see what I see?
Having done as bidden by the kind M. Terminateur so that his crew could busy themselves ridding our roof of those pesky vrillettes we occupied ourselves as best we could, whenever we could (remember it’s a four hour round trip from North West to South West tip of le Cantal on winding backroads descending and scaling deep gorges and negotiating tight épingles (épingles de cheveux being hairpins) and though I am presently living in the land of mahusive distances and ludicrously cheap fuel, I honestly think it’s a stretch for a daily commute that you aren’t getting paid for. I was polishing the staircase for entertainment one day when there was a thunderous crack followed by a thud, and a whisper later, a riotous crash. I dropped my bottle of special wood oil and rushed up the stairs (killing the chances of the oil drying to a gratifying sheen in the process) to find HB² looking frankly irritatingly smug. He had taken a crowbar and jemmied a generous sliver of the offending floor from the wall and underneath looked rather interesting.
He proceeded to slice his way through both the front bedrooms and the back one – the one with it’s cleverly placed shower delivering to a spontaneous auditorium at the back of the house for the ladies of the village, should he decide to give of his famed full frontal peep show once more. I’m considering selling tickets if we get desperate enough that we need extra funds. By lunchtime the walls were fully delaminated and revealing the secrets of their pre-veneered days. My nerves were in shreds because this stuff was razor sharp and entirely rigid. Two Brains clearly should have been wearing a helmet but instead favoured an interesting series of movements that echoed accurately St Vitus Dance to avoid being brained or scalped by the merest slither of a second. We had a car full of laminate to take to the lovely man at the déchètterie with the enviable view. After two p.m. Obviously. This is rural France and everything stops for lunch. For two hours. It took multiple trips in Franck our trusty unalluring but reasonably priced car and a deep and meaningful conversation to ascertain whether this vile material computes as wood. It doesn’t. It is to be viewed in the same way as a carnivore regards nut cutlets. It simply is not meat. Nor indeed wood.
Do you see what I see ….? It’s Franck skulking sneakily waiting for his next load of laminated booty
Meanwhile back at the ranch The Brains was eulogising over what had been uncovered. Previously we had paid scant attention to the one unplastered wall on the stairwell merely having a cursory discussion over whether we should give it too a smooth finish. But in that deluge of lethal laminate everything changed. It was akin to the moment in Carl Sagan’s Contact when Jodie Foster sees the universe with fresh eyes from a beach somewhere out ‘there’ that she has landed on after being lunged through space at a squillion miles an hour. In the comedy shower-closet bedroom are exposed the same glorious planks, cut by someone with an eye for rigidly even lines that rivals my mother’s. By way of explanation – my mother is a wonderful letter writer but has always shunned the slip of lined paper popped under the page to guide the pen evenly approach and consequently, although she commences elegantly (even now in her mid-eighties) she rapidly starts to wander at an angle so that by the time she reaches the bottom of the page she is writing at a 45° slope. It’s a foible that no-one ever mentions, but all notice. These walls were clearly made by a kindred charpentiere. They are of tongue-in-groove construction, about 9″-10″ wide and slender. They slot together very well sporting the odd large flat headed nail to complete the perfectly rustic and rather naïve effect.
And still the excitement continued. The layout of the house, and we had assumed the original layout, was a small landing with doors at right angles to one another. One into a bedroom with a square double doorframe through to a further room and the other into Peeping Tom’s Joy – the room with the freestanding shower in front of the window. But taking the cladding off the walls had revealed a door from PTJ into the back bedroom. This poses new questions about how we lay out the upstairs. Our thought process is fluid and a teeny bit erratic so this revalation just adds a zesty new spritz to the operation.
On the other side of the wall were further, piquant delights – loose hessian overlaid with several layers of historic wallpaper. A couple of florals, a groovy grey linear embossed which immediately took me back to the dull horrors of my childhood and my favourite, a sort of squarial pattern each square containing a picture – a flowerhead here, a windmill there, there again a boat, and even the makings of a medieval town. I wonder about the person lying in bed looking at the pictures – I wonder if they had ever travelled from Marcolès and whether they dreamed of getting on that boat and searching for treasures in far-off lands. In fact we know that a very tall Russian lady lived in the house for decades last century – maybe she was put in a boat to cross the sea or maybe her journey escaping White Russia as a small child was overland. Either way it must have been arduous, gruelling and not a little frightening.
I am reminded of another house long ago and far away in England. The girls and I lived in the grounds of the, by then closed, only Jewish Public School in the country (US readers Public School obscurely means Private School in England). Carmel College. There was a house called ‘Wall House’ which was perfectly invisible except for a front door with a letter box. In it lived a very very grand Russian lady of advancing years who wore astonishing velvet and brocade ensembles which cascaded to her ankles and conjured up vivid reminders of an age so bygone that I never knew it. She invited me to take tea. I was seated on a glamorous and very upright silk upholstered chair. She called out in Russian and clapped her jewelled hands smartly whereupon and instantly in the corner of the room a shabby bundle of cloth shifted revealing a remarkably decrepit and faintly moth-eaten man. He bowed and moved into the kitchen from whence he returned after a pause during which she and I continued a rather formal and resolutely non-probing conversation, bearing a silver tray complete with very ornate fine porcelain teapot and guilded and delicately painted teacups with their dainty matching plates on which were slices of terrifically inebriated fruit cake. He served us sombrely and then went back to his corner, disappearing like the Psammead into his quicksand of sheets. I suppose he had been with her all his life. The world is full of surprises and some of them are quite uncomfortable.
Anyhow, there was a statuesque Russian lady for many years in Marcolès. Hold that thought. Particularly the height. Because the other curiosity hidden behind the disgusting veneer is a series of oval holes. You might remember there is one that casts down on the stairwell from the privy giving it an air of anything but privacy. But there are more. Some have been boarded over and some stuffed with newspaper. But why? They are reminiscent of those holes you stick your head through on an English Pier and have your photo taken as a pin-up girl in an eye popping bikini or a muscle-bound man in striped bathers. The odd thing is the height of them. If you wanted to stick your head through them you would have to be a VERY lanky lady indeed. I imagine they were crude internal portholes to let some light into the middle of the house but I rather like the image of a Frenchman on stilts, complete with compulsary moustache peering through various cut-out holes just for laughs.
PS: When I arrived back after taking the very last load of the offending clip-together laminate flooring to the dump (and we have kept a plank as a grim reminder of the way it was) the elderly couple opposite were arriving back from a toddle out. They meandered across the street and asked me how it was going. Oh, really good I regailed them. We’re progressing well with the clear out of all the dreadful things – can you imagine, he had cheap laminate flooring on the walls. Lunacy – he was clearly mad. They nodded in that slightly absent way that polite people have and took their leave. As they opened their front door, I swear I could see laminate flooring on …. the walls. Just another oh bugger moment and a further reminder to self to keep thy big mouth shut.
The bonus is entirely to indulge my mother and the child-me that she raised – she used to play Johnny Mathis to us on the gramaphone in the drawing room on rainy days amongst so many other 45s of Unicorns and Doctor Kildaire, Nellie the Elephant and Dusty Springfield and Ferry Cross the Mersey and Doris Day, as we puzzled our puzzles, stuck our fuzzy felt and honed the skills required for taking tea with grand ancient Russian ladies by making our own tea party for the teddy bears. Those halcyon days when I didn’t question her lack of ability to keep a straight line when writing her comments on my report cards or the milk order because she was just simply ‘My Mummy’ ….
If you enjoyed this you might like to catch up on previous installments by typing Coup de Coeur into the search box in the side bar. The more the merrier at this party – so much more fun that way.
Oh. now I have stopped laughing; one really must be careful as to where one jokingly levels one’s aspersions re previous owners to the neighbours. Check their decorative predilections first. And also their family tree… whoops…too damn late……………….!
Big ouch moment, that one! Mind you they all say we english talk with a mouth full of hot potatoes so perhaps that, coupled with my hope that they may be deaf may mean I got away with it. No? No. Probably not. Never mind – I’m keeping a low profile at the moment and may don a wig and moustache when I next visit 😀
Moi aussi.
Fortunately, at least, thus far, my neighbours are giving me the “well, she’s English, take what she says with a gracious pinch of foreigner salt” leeway.
I’ve probably stretched their laudable indulgance a little, but.. heyho……
Oh I absolutely let out a very loud laugh and am still laughing, when you to the , nodding absently like polite people sometimes do, I knew, just knew they had the same walls 😂
The oddball you bought this “projwreck” from is quite a cad.. He’s a snake oil salesman with a camera and I’m thinking he gave them a version of The Emperor’s New Clothes, so they’d jump on the idea.. He may have even sold them the floor planks as a new trending product called “Walloor” 😂
But please don’t inquire if he did, it may have been them with the idea they sold him 😨
Btw, the cut out holes seem to be an attempt at ventilation.. Considering the orginal floor plan was altered, it would make sense, just not very practical or attractive.. Renovation is like peeling layers of an onion.. But you never know what’s under the next layer..
Lightbulb moment! Thank you! Of course that must have been it – eureka you ARE a genius 🙂
He is quite hated in the village and this may be one of the reasons – perhaps all the houses have a floor-walls!!!! Glad you enjoyed it … By the way, the snake-oil salesman as you have him plays a big part in my novel …. he’s pretty easy to draw – don’t need any cartooning skills because he is a total caricature in his own right!!
It just wouldn’t fit if he had the body of Adonis and the voice of Enrico Caruso.. I imagine him to be bell shaped, with an irritating tone that swaps between superficial and condescending..
Am I close to being correct ?
Do you know him?!!? 😀
I’ve met many of him, in car dealerships, furniture stores and yes, even while property hunting.. Usually getting the impression of OCD, narcissism and greed, Most are rolled together in an unhealthy mass, from years of bodily neglect and indulgence..
The worst sort of archetype in fact 🙂
Well that’s the mold that should’ve been broken into a million pieces long ago..
You can’t hardly walk into a place where sales persons lurk, waiting for prey to pounce on.. My favorite type of sales pitch is none at all.. Be close enough for me to see, but at least at arm’s length away and let me ask you to help me.. If I’m looking for property or a vehicle, let me decide where I want to look and ask my own questions.. respond with a straight and honest answer.. If I’m interested enough to look, then I’m liable to overlook what bad news might be attached.. But piss me off in the sales pitch, I’ll walk away without even a goodbye..
Now THAT should be published and sold as a guide to salespeople. It says exactly what I feel and I’m pretty sure most others too. I absolutely hate being approached by a salesman until I want to ask a question.
@Pan;
Thanks to your funny remarks my English vocabulary just got two important and VERY useful enhancements: Thank you for the PROJWRECK & WALLOOR….
And you are SO spot on with your description! We actually bought our present house from a ‘agent/proprietaire immobiliers’…… same shape, same form, same words – just let me run to the bathroom!
I am so happy to have enhanced your vocabulary with a couple of Panisms 😉
I love these crazy tales! Laminate flooring on the walls? Never in my wildest, cheapest dreams ….
By mouth was on the floor when I first saw it … I remember advancing slowly with a tentative hand outstretched to touch it because I actually could not believe what I was seeing! So glad you enjoy the stories 🙂
When you got to… I was typing too fast, again
Hey if anyone wants to redecorate, I can get truckloads of Walloor 😂
What a great story, and reading about the process of the renovation is very interesting.
I’m glad you are enjoying it … I find it very interesting as the place reveals itself and almost tells us what direction to take. Patience is a virtue in this case because we want to take one pass at it and get it right – I don’t think my ageing bones could take any more!!
I find it fascinating the story it tells as you proceed. Yes, I understand about the patience – I wait in anticipation for what occurs next. 🙂
More in a month …. I have to feed the instalments out slowly for fear of catching up to where we actually are. End of March will be interesting when I go back to France for a week and see what has been occurring in absentia!
Exciting, I look forward to the next installment! 🙂
I enjoyed every moment of this! Yes…the hessian supporting layers of wallpaper…in the words of the great collaborator..’I remember it well’ and the dust that went with dismantling it.
And as for the encounter with the neighbours…you wouldn’t have any Australian blood, would you? In my youth the definition of an Australian was a person who only opened his mouth to change feet…
So glad you enjoyed it – I love your responses which are laced with so much experience. I’m not any part Australian though my favourite Uncle has lived in Hervey Bay for years and is entirely native … this could have something to do with total disregard for diplomacy! Fortunately the entire village dispised our predecessor – we wonder if it is because he sold them all laminate flooring for their walls 😉
I have to own up to an Australian grandfather….diplomacy wasn’t his strong suit either…
Isn’t it great to take over from someone loathed by the neighbours…you start off with Brownie points just by buying the place!
I’ve seen pics of my first house in France which is now up for sale….and just guess what is covering the damp patch on the sitting room wall…
Noooooo!!!!! That is too funny. And vive les Australiens …. PC is SO over-rated!!!
😂 I should then be Australian too !
You are a natural Oz! Actually I have two cousins who were raised there – both girls. One was in the Australian Navy for several years before being invalided out with a catastrophic back injury (now recovered) and the other was a Jillaroo (cowgirl) before taking a really bad fall (she used to announce that she knackered bulls for a living) – she now drives a big-boy truck at a mine in Northern Territories. You’d fit 🙂
What a tiring and crazy process! I always love reading these adventures while I am sitting here relaxing and not having to be involved! You are a tough women dear Fiona! xx
Tough or insane or a touch of both, I think dearest Lyn! xx
hahaha I love the pictures! Are you still over on our side of the ocean?
Yes, I’m here till the end of next month then in France and the UK for three weeks and back for another few months after that – I’ll be back and forth til the Autumn I think which is really lovely.
Oh yes! Sounds like fun and at least you get to stay for several months in one place. Email me if you want, maybe we can talk some day! wow exciting!
Oh I will email and it would be great to talk 🙂 xx
yes xxx
I love all the layers you are removing…flooring on the wall…hummm kinda out there but whatever rocked there boat LOl and no I don’t have flooring on my walls…LOL I just wish the walls could talk, and the round holes…crazy…..to be honest, when you said can you see it, all I saw was a baby cradle…LOL I thought you were dropping a hint of a new addition and it wasn’t flooring on the walls…LOL I thought oh my the rides going to get interesting…LOL great post…and glad the rabbit didn’t die….LOL kat
That cradle is an authentic Auvergne crib from the late 18th Century – they are quite rare and as you can imagine I had designs on it but sadly it was not to be. If I were to be podding it would be a miracle of the highest order given my age and the fact that I had the nursery removed 13 years ago LOLOLOL!!!! He’s a funny old cumudgeon the previous owner – he really had remarkable taste in antiques and ‘things’ but he cut corners like an Indie 500 driver when it came to actually getting the fabric of the house right. And possibly sold floor walls to all the village given the neighbour opposite. Which may be why they all hate him so much 🙂
LOL I love the floor on the wall effect…but not in my house…LOL and yes it was a beautiful cradle….and miracles do happen….but not without an oven….kat
When they removed my oven they gave me councilling because I was relatively young – I told them to use their resources for those that need it … I have four girls and even if there was a dreadful catastrophe and I lost them all I knew then and I know now that I would not want any more. Now grandchildren – that’s where my wishes lie …. I’m like a clucky old broiler on the quiet 😉
lOL I didn’t get any counseling but I was trying to beat out cancer….I had bad endometrial issues and put of the removal for 3 years….but like you…at my age…I was 57 I certainly wouldn’t want to have more babies…only hold granbabies if that ever happens…my daughter is passing on having children her husband can’t have any and they have thought about adopting but they are both travel hounds and love their freedom….my son…another entire story…LOL
I think I probably put all mine off having children – I’m a single mother and their cross to bear 😀
Love it and the way you tell it!
Reminds me of my place where ceilings and floors are covered in a bilious orange “lambris” (tongue and groove) which resists every attempt to paint or otherwise conceal. And talking of foot and mouth in too close proximity – I did a similar thing when I asked my macon to re-point an interior stone wall. He suggested a faux stone tile effect and I blathered on about how I hated that sort of cheap and nasty stuff only to discover that his house is a testament to it.
Now you have made me burst out laughing …. the faux stone tile moment – ouch! We had our share of lambris ceilings too …. more of that in a later episode. It keeps me sane writing about it …. and you have to laugh or it would engulf one in the wrong way entirely 🙂
😂 oh I love true confessions ! Anyone who’d dare to say “oh not me, never foot in mouth” I would accuse as a liar..
I sometimes still find my foot in my mouth.. But when I was younger, it seemed I was flossing my toes daily 😄
Love that – flossing my toes … that’s a stealable phrase 🙂
You should see my mind’s eye, I truly envisioned that which as I was reading all the foot in mouth comments, so I typed it in 😂
My mind is a wonderful and scary place 😮
For cryin out loud, which should’ve been when.. Now I’m typing words I’m not intending 😒
Oh 0h 0hhhhhh I just found another noteworthy remark of you Ms Pan-hashtag (can’t find anything on HH’s iPad)….. flossing one’s toes….. that’s truly hilarious and right up my street. If ever we start a ‘foot-in-mouth-group’ make me part of it!
Kiki, I’d make a perfect candidate for that group 😂
I ckicked on your name and it took me to Flickr, where I drank in the amazing photos you post.. Do you also have a blog ? I’d love to visit it if you do 😊
PS I forgot to ask – are you OK with me listing your blog within an article I’m doing for a US magazine about moving to and living in France?
Gosh of course – I’d be very flattered and look forward to reading the article myself 🙂
Xcellent!
🙂
That is awesome !
That was brilliant – pure comedy gold!. So many strange things in one place. The peepholes are my favourite, though, even above the beautifully crafted obliques of the walloor. It looks like one of the holes was covered by a picture – very Hammer Horror. And why are they oval?
Soon you may be pitied locally as ‘that house with no laminate left on the walls’
So glad you enjoyed it …. I know you are in a kindred place! The holes are extremely odd and it is a serious point of discussion as to whether we keep them 😉 I’m now genuinely concerned that the locals DO all have the laminate and that we will be drummed out of town for being such philistines!
@”Do you see what I see?” – oh, I do… 🙂 and I recall Anaïs Nin’s famous & realistic statement:
“nous ne voyons pas les choses comme elles sont, mais comme NOUS sommes…”
Anaïs Nin has it absolutely nailed!
I love the photos of the wall layers. A very interesting and artistic collection!
If I can rescue some of the wallpapers with a steamer I might cover a concertina book with one 🙂
That would be a perfect book cover 👍
It’s true that people have some funny ideas about wall coverings. A lovely house (from the outside) we googled at a couple of months ago actually gave me nightmares. The bedrooms were covered floor to ceiling in flock wallpaper. The floor and ceilings were covered in it, the fireplaces, wardrobes and doors were covered in it. The only feature that wasn’t covered in flock wallpaper was the windows. They had imitation flock wallpaper curtains.
They probably found a really good in bulk 😂
‘Good’ as in I really love flock wallpaper, beige with a gold fleur de lys motif. Oh, my lucky day! They have 500 rolls of it in the local Bricorama. I can even do the bathroom.
😂
Hahaha!
I hate when I type while laughing, almost always absentmindedly omitting a word or two.. “a good deal..”
A flock of flocks – with my bird paranoia that would be disastrous!
The multiplication of the motif would have driven any normal person insane.
Hysterical! Renovating a house in rural France is fun, non? Those holes are crazy!
You have to laugh, you have to laugh, you have to laugh – I repeat this daily as a mantra 🙂
You are right, the original ” buy my house” photos look so appealing.
I don’t know what’s worse, thinking everything looks great then discovering the traumatic reality later, or being under no illusions as to how bad it was from the gitgo.
Our hovel was so awful, even through rose-tinted dodgy French ” à rafraîchir” glasses that the seller & Immobilier didn’t even bother with internal photos!
That really was telling your something, I think! The previous owner here ran it as a Chambre d’Hôtes and you can still find the lovely pictures on the web if you dig hard enough and search accurately. They were not reflective of the place and the village despise him for it because so many people came in good faith to stay in it and found something akin to the dechetterie to greet them! I think overall you just need to have a strong core and a mighty bonkers streak for this game – that’s a compliment by the way 🙂
Great Scott! There was me thinking that our sweet and long-deceased neighbour’s interior decor couldn’t be worsened. Hideous pink cabbage rose wallpaper that covered not only the walls but also doors, cupboards (exterior and interior) and ceilings between the beams in the main part of the house, and thundering coach-and-horses wallpaper similarly on every square inch of the bedroom. Plus the enormous elephant-trunk heating conduits that dangled down in the rooms from the loft space above. And the interior ‘walls’ that were in fact single sheets of plasterboard only held up by the wallpaper ………
Friends from England invited us to stay at the seaside second home they had just purchased on the Atlantic coast in the late 80s. The building itself was a distressing concoction of naked breeze-block and cheap aluminium windows, backing on to the car park of a supermarket on a busy commercial estate. As I gulped and tried to find something positive to say, my eye fell upon the hideous furniture – a melamine kitchen table and matching chairs with tubular legs ending in small black rubber feet. Lime green with black striped sagging sofa and chairs. Like something from a 1950’s low-budget film set.
Eeek, I said, what ghastly stuff! How on earth could anybody live with it? Are you going to bring furniture out from England, or buy new things here?
There was a pained silence, and my friend replied rather stiffly: “Actually, we brought all this with us.”
Oh Susie – you are such a reliable tonic! I’m trying not to snort (unladylike and rather horse-like in my case) but I am rocking with laughter. I had a book when I was a child that involved two dogs who decided to be decorators and they wallpapered themselves into the room …. it turns out reading about your late neighbour that this was in fact en vogue in the human world and the dogs were just aping it! As for the furniture … what a gaff! And in English … not even the trusty language barrier to hide behind. Priceless and thank you thank you thank you for lightening my day 🙂
A labour of love or a ménage of madness! I am so looking forward to seeing the finished project.
The latter certainly! And you will, of course – the work continues in absentia 😉 xx
A wonderful morning read Osyth. The first of the hessian/wallpaper images looks like a Braque or Picasso collage during their cubist period. You never know, it might be worth a fortune. And as to the “inebriated fruitcake”, I’ve known a few of those over the years as I’m sure you have too. Happy Friday 🙂
Andrew I always love your input — for me the story of the Russian lady was the most important bit and guess who was the only person to get it? YOU WERE, YOU WERE? The wallcoverings are interesting … I thank any Lord at all that I can make my own mind up that I shan’t use any 🙂
I think you should reconsider; the stripped wallpaper and hessian is very retro and has a certain abstract, surprising quality to it. Perhaps you can add some exposed bricks and graffiti and be truly avant-garde 🙂
It’s sorely tempting …. 🙂
You’re good at seeing the possibilities. Looking beyond that thing staring you in the face. I need to rip everything apart before I can even venture a guess at what it’s going to become.
I have my moments when I can’t even see what’s in front of my face. My husband and I are both experimentalists which probably helps 🙂
The laminated flooring story puts me in mind of a book by Nick Hornby – Fever Pitch when the character Miss Hughes sleeps with Paul (the main character) forcing her to admit to her flatmate that she has lost her bet and therefore must re carpet the flat by saying you can carpet the floor, the walls, you can even carpet the bloody ceiling of you like…!
That’s a great book and I remember the scene well!
😉
Osyth, the Russian lady and tea time was a great story inserted into the post. The man who was elderly fading into the background would make such a lovely short story. In fact, this quality of using interesting details amazes me in your writing.
In our country, the flooring on wall can be almost like wall paneling. In one tiny house I rented they had put a primer on the paneling and had painted it a sour cream or tan cream color. It really eliminated any ugliness to it and I adapted well to it. The kitchen had the same cream over plaster walls and a meandering, hand-painted green vine along the top of the walls which went well with green checked calico curtains.
Moving from rental to rental, I learned to adapt but when I married in 1993, we saved to build a house. I found myself, out of “comfort” seeking, to inject my favorite part of every house I had lived in, into the new house. I hand painted violets on a meandering cream ribbon border and created the barn siding wooden look with lavender paint and dark combing lines. When I read you are here in America, I wondered who you are visiting snd where you are staying? (Which states will you visit?) Have a lovely time! 🙂 R.
Robin, it took a twin spirit to see what I felt was the most crucial part of the story. You are the only one who has pointed to the story of the old man in England. I will think about giving him more space sometime. He has stayed in my consciousness now for nearly 20 years. The problem with the stuff on the walls in Marcolès is that it is effectively like plastic so impossible to paint. But I am a huge fan of wood panelling, I love it painted especially. IN fact I love painted wood. It is one of the things I am most in love with her in New England. In answer to your question I am in Massachusetts about 20 miles West of Boston just far enough into the country to satisfy my craving for space but close enough to drive to Cambridge and Boston easily. I am here because my husband lives here. In fact he was born in Liverpool (England), lived 9 years in France and then moved here 26 years ago, taking citizenship along the way. Green Cards are hard to get so although we were married (in France) nearly 3 years ago I am here by grace of the kindness of the USCIS who have allowed me a year (up to mid October) with multiple entries so that I can cross back to Europe periodically to check on my mum (nearly 84) and daughters (much wiser than I). We have a planned 6 months in France from mid-Oct whilst my husband takes a sabbatical in Grenoble and then hope upon hope that I might be free to join him permanently here. It is a bittersweet time for me. I want to see as much of this country as I can. The ups the downs, the riches and the poverty. You are, I must say it again a true kindred spirit … I read of your moving time and again and remember that time which stretched for decades for me so well and that learned skill of making a home in an instant so the children could root and snuggle for a while til the next upheaval. Thank you for being you x
Thank you for being you!
I hope you like Massachusetts and see the different sights. I have second cousins in Rockport and Gloucester. There is a nice commenter on my blog whose name is Dan Antion who has a wife and 30 year old daughter, Faith, who lives outside Boston. There is a woman named Judy, who also joins Dan and myself on Thursday’s Doors posts, both live in New England.
Thank you for saying you feel connected with me, like kindred spirits. I feel this may be true! ♡ I also appreciate your explaining why this plastic-coated flooring used on walls, cannot retain paint. Also, how you expressed liking the painted wooden paneling where we lived.
The best part of each move in our lives was they led us to becoming a closer knit family. It sounds this way with your “girls,” too. Although I “lost” the pretty home and gave up on the controlling last husband, the kids stayed in this adopted city that make 30 years this Fall of one place, 5 different rental houses (then a gorgeous house almost repossessed due to ex losing job and sitting on chair for nearly 4 years.) The son and his wife have a combination family of 3 of theirs and 2 shared with her past husband, all are special to me, of course. My artistic and creative daughter who was so “girly” has ironically 2 boys, 7 and 11. It takes me 5 minutes to get to my son’s home and he has the holidays with delicious cooking by himself all saving my need to do much but play with grandies. It is 12 minutes to my oldest daughter’s house. My youngest lives in the bigger city half hour away in Columbus, Ohio. Single and always calling to invite me to parties or events. Life is good. Hope you may stay as your heart sounds like it wishes this to happen. Take care and have a wonderful week, as it begins.
Controlling former husband is a connection too. My second. I got lucky with the third having said never again 🙂 I am very hapy that your children are close by. It’s the one thing I find extremely tough – that mine are three in England and one in Malaysia. We are already planning Christmas to make sure we are together and with my mum who I also miss incandescently. Moving and moving does make you closer knit I am certain. I will check out your posts and see if I can find Dan and Judy. It’s so nice connecting with people here. In France friendship takes a long time to develop. There is a strict unwritten code to which one adheres and you find that people are shy of intimacy for a long stretch. Here people are very welcoming very quickly which I like. I hope I will get to stay here for a good while longer 🙂 Happy week to you ….
I have hope to find my last partner or companion in life but I don’t feel so pressed. Sixty makes me mellow but believe me, I have a passionate side, too.
I do hope that you will get to see everyone for the holidays.
I am so happy you found a soul mate who is like a steady rock, one you may put anchor to and hold on to for the rest of your life, dear. You deserve less stress, more fun and enjoyment.
Glad you feel our country is friendly towards you, since I cannot possibly not want to be connected to you or others I have met here. I would need to have email address should you every leave blogging…. smiles and hugs, Robin
Oh My God – house of horrors! (good job you liked my last post, coz this one seems to have slipped through my net…..)
The thing is if anything other than plain old ‘papier peint’ is put on the walls, then it is there for one reason – to hide nasties lurking beneath – but how thrilling to find a secret door…….
The mad woman that monsieur le frog was married to once tiled the cooker ‘splash back’ area with polystyrene tiles (not so mad, as she was trying to delay the sale of the house e- and succeeded!)
We could have a tv program pretending to be potential buyers and uncovering al these delights of France………after saying that, we do have a full size tapestry rug nailed to the external wall in the bedroom to insulate it (obviously not my idea!) So I feel like I am sleeping in a medieval chateau. I came home from work one day and there it was – M le F thought it was completely normal – ah the joys of a multi cultural relationship…..
I’m currently wrestling with the horror left by my hubs ex-wife …. he’s done his best poor chap but some of his solutions are akin to your tapestry rug!! I see myself as a house warrior, defending the lovely home this place deserves to be and revealing it like a Princess released from the tower (no surprises there then!) …. As for Marcolès – I will see it at the end of the month and can only hope that instructions have been followed. Language barriers notwithstanding!!! I actually loved your last post but am running hither and thither hence a) lack of activity on my own blog and b) lack of commentary on yours xx
Good job we have a sense of humour…..
Yes, I know how you feel, I am still playing ‘catch-up’ on reading – hence I only just seen this, I will search for any others tomorrow.
Give me your e-mail ad again so t at I can send you some hen-do photos xx
fiona.o.blundell@gmail.com – hen pics will certainly be welcome! xx
Oh my! You made me giggle all the time! And laugh out in the end! We call situations like this “in ein Fettnäpfchen treten” in German (to step into a sticky, greasy spot) – and it´s a preferred past-time for me! 😉 Whenever I see one (that´s a “Fettnäpfchen”) I throw myself unto it 😉 Very many such embarrassing moments for me… 🙂
I liked the story in the story about that tall Russian lady inviting you for tea – somehow it reminded me of Alice in Wonderland and the writings of Neil Gaiman who´s one of my very favorite authors.
This renovation truly seems to be more an adventure and an odyssey into history than anything else! So glad you pointed me out to this little series, and hope to read more of it soon! xxxxxx
Following a recommendation from someone, oh wait, I think it was you, I’ve just finished reading this series. I did as you suggested and found them via the search box, which was very good at giving me the full set of articles, but totally useless at allowing me to hit a like button or add a comment. But, as it was you, I persevered and eventually managed to work out how to do it for this final post in the series. So please take the like for this as applying to all six – in my post-electoral torpor I think it unlikely that I’ll manage to work out how to find the others!
What an amazing undertaking you have embraced with this project! Having never been one for even the simplest DIY effort – I tried, but it wasn’t much good (emergency plumber on a bank holiday, anyone?) – I just can’t imagine taking on a mammoth task like this, even in a country where I speak the language and have a vague idea of the local customs. My admiration for your ambition, optimism and refusal to be defeated knows no bounds. I hope that the project has realised all your dreams for it.
And how’s the novel going? 😉
Thank you for persevering and leaving a comment – I don’t understand the vagaries of wordpress at all. The house progresses and I will be writing a little more soon – it gets worse, so much worse …. the novel needs attention along with the A-Z of a Year in the USA, The A-Z of being Franglaise and the one about me … keep nagging me, I need it and I actually do feel that my pesky writers malaise is lifting and that I have the impetus to get on with the books that are locked in my head and very slightly on paper!! Xx
The flooring on the walls is what the French would call “cache-misère”–hide the misery. Like lipstick on a pig, but more successful.
The portholes are fascinating. Will have to continue to browse your archives to learn what you did with them.
I suspect the unusual shapes of the original wall planks are because they were hewn by hand from trees and the workman used every bit possible, even if the result wouldn’t be straight.
In our apartments we also found doors that had been papered over. And back when we were looking to buy, we visited a house where access to a bedroom was through a half door (so one had to almost crawl) and up a couple of steps. I realized we were above the neighboring grange–the lower level wasn’t part of the sale. How did that work?!?!? In another place, the bathroom was in the cave under the neighbor’s house. Again, WTF!
I guess my experience of living in a 17th century cottage in Oxfordshire which I renovated and restored helps. I dont really get phased by bits of houses intruding onto other houses and that place had bizarre doors in several places. There was also a tunnel from the cellar under the road to the pub opposite. It was quite a place. I think you are being kind to the previous occupant in calling it ‘cache misère’ – he was a con-artist and a commercial photographer. He was more about photographic trompes l’œil than hiding anything. And his approach to shortcuts is nothing but barbarism. That is the reason this is all taking so long because we are unpicking the woe before we get to the wow! You are right about the wood and I will devote a post to it along the line. Sadly you will now have to wait til Monday for the next post. Because the original set was only 6. I have 2 further years to cover to bring us to the present and then …. well well!
Can’t wait!!!
Only four sleeps 💤 😊 – Its very kind of you to be so enthusiastic. It’s a mighty boost I can tell you
@Francetaste: We have a ‘hidden’ (not so much really) door leading from the kitchen to the now? Staircase and I believe that at the time of building the meulière in 1920, it was a direct access for the live-in housekeeper. She would have had to be quickly in the kitchen from her room upstairs. We now have parked a large fridge/freezer in front of it but you can clearly see the doorframe. I find things like that intruiging, interesting fascinating and obviously, after much talking about this, was the only one ever who asked the question. Nobody ever wondered about this. It’s true, the French like keeping to themselves!
!!!!
Reblogged this on Half Baked In Paradise and commented:
And so we drift elegantly to the conclusion of this retrospective of posts in the series so far. Tomorrow I will start afresh and, if you haven’t lost the will to live, I hope you will join me weekly as we devote Monday to Marcolès and our seemingly ceaseless crusade to rejuvinate our Maison Carrée …
Johnny Mathis and Nellie the Elephant in one post! You outdo yourself. Thanks. 🙂
Hurrah! Glad you enjoyed it/them 😊
What tales each of those layers could tell. Not just tall ones. Another hugely entertaining rendering
If only they could talk …. so pleased that you are enjoying the telling
Thank you for a very entertaining Sunday morning read. I’ve just read all your re-posts and look forward to finding out how things are now. I know there’s a lot of blood, sweat and tears but it is exciting peeling back those layers isn’t it? We found an enormous fireplace behind an ugly, half smashed 1950s tiled one, together with dressed Cistercian abbey stone behind the cement-plastered chimney breast above it. I love feeling back through the lives of the people who came before us through these discoveries. Maybe you could make a photographic mosaic of all those fabulous wallpapers! Or a book of short stories about the people who looked up at them every day (like in your lovely little vignette). It certainly looks like you have many more stories to uncover and share. And of course I want to know if you kept the grandstanding shower cubicle 🙂
Thank you so much my Chicken Brained friend! You are so right – it is wonderful when one peels the onion and finds something special lying beneath. Your ‘cheminée monumentale’ as the French gloriously call a huge fireplace and dressed stone (Cistercian Abbey no less!!) are glorious finds – finds that would make me smile constantly forever, I think. We have preserved squares of each of the wallpapers to do something with and my daughter has suggested I write one story in particular that captivates me and either hide the book in the wall for discovery in centuries from now or wallpaper the loo with it’s pages. Certainly after I complete the fictionalized account of the purchase which forms the book I am writing presently, I am minded to write more. And the history that we now know would make for a lovely little series. The fact that my husband is only the second man to have ever lived in the house since the tower was toppled with the first being the heathen who immediately predated us, makes me all the more fascinated by why I was so sure we had to take the project on! Thank you so much for your continued support and over the next several weeks I will bring everyone up to speed with where we are now …. which IS much further but often doesn’t feel like it. Which is another reason for writing it …. keeps the old black dog at bay a bit!! 😊
Only the second man to have lived there? Now that IS fascinating! Is your novel funny like your blog or more serious? ps Love the idea of hiding a book in the wall 🙂
It’s written in the same style as this series … comic hopefully or hopefully comic. The place really has two incarnations and they are not quite what we thought when I first wrote part one. I decided to leave it as written and will update the history in places along the way. But before the demise of the tower there would just have been a Priest in residence. So male. When it was reconstructed as it is now and up until the year 2000 or thereabouts no men at all. And in fact the fellow who lived in it before us had a wife and two daughters. I find it very interesting. I promise I will share more in the coming weeks. I’m just trying to get my head round what the correct order should be. As you know very well, these projects are not a matter of a single thing at a time but rather several things bumping and bashing along together so in an attempt not to confuse too much I try to focus on one thing at a time. Would that life were actually like that!! Book in the wall it is 😊
Love the ending – Johnny Mathis and the neighbor story. I guess you didn’t expect to catch hoof and mouth disease from all that dreadful remodeling.
‘Hoof and Mouth Disease’! That a genius description 😊 I’m afraid I can be a little freewheeling when I start talking which carries constant risk …. I’m so glad you enjoyed this, Bernadette – it’s fun writing but so lovely when writing is well-received by those you value, I feel 😊
Oh dear – just when I think “what else??”! I’ve never seen or heard of such craziness of how a house was built. LOL! So much fun to read, because you are such an amazing writer! You could make watching water boil an interesting story I believe! 🙂 In every wonderful sense of being complimentary! <3
Jodi I am now being revived from fainting at your praise! That is such a lovely thing to say. Though I don’t think I will test out a post on water boiling! This poor house is like a neglected woman who was once beautiful and has been left to fade in the corner, made to wear horrible clothes by an abusive husband and now needs to be taken in. hand and allowed to shine again. Tomorrow I’m going to reveal what we now know about the history which will shed some light on those walls (but not the lunatic who decided to laminate them – I fear nothing will ever illuminate me on that person!) 🤗
Can’t wait!! 👍😉
Embrace those childhood memories as they tend to evaporate before our aging eyes.
They really do and I must admit I added that paragraph for the re-run … somehow 18 months later it was even more important at to remember that time. Time marches on. 😊
It is a mad house you bought but I’m sure you will turn it into a clean and beautiful house, we’re looking forward to reading news from Marcolès …
… I hope you very polite neighbors aren’t too unhappy after what you said to them lol
Thank you …. I try to keep faith with the idea that it will! My neighbours still speak to us so I hope I didn’t scar them too deeply ….. 😦
I didn’t think there was anything worse on a wall than layers and layers of old wallpaper. I consider myself corrected.
It was truly ghastly … however, my husband who has recently been stripping layers and layers of wallpaper at the house in Massachusetts might be persuaded that you are right 😉
One of the main selling points of our current home after my last home full of wallpaper was the new one’s entire lack of it!
😁
I remember those boards, parquet flottant, lovely name, awful product, especially on walls! We had the layer upon layer of ancient wallpaper beneath the hessian too, in the house in Picardie. The hessian had been stapled lovingly to a wooden support made from pallets. We kept a staple as a souvenir. There must have been a million of them to prise out. And the pallets were riddled with woodworm. We could hear them ticking away in early summer. It all burned nicely though.
Oddly the paneling has no worm at all. Given the feast they made of the charpente … picky creatures perchance? Parquet flottant is also called lambris by some which is very close to the word lombric which they use to refer to earthworms in Cantal!! I think this hessian was put up pre staple guns but never fear there were plenty of tiny sharp nails instead. It was under all the papers – I feel I should research historic wall coverings some time but really I don’t have the strength!
Lambris as I know it is the wood strips that clad walls as a primitive attempt at insulation. And cheap parquet flottant I’m sure is closer to plastic than anything that was once related to a tree, so of no interest to woodworm. Not stupid your previous occupants
You are right but these days they sell floor polish for fake parquet and call it cire de lambris 🙂
I wonder if that means that ‘lambris’ is more chic than ‘parquet’? Whatever, it’s all hideous and needs burning 🙂
Vile stuff and none had any place in any house of mine!!
We’ve visited so many houses with parquet flottant glued over lovely old boards. Estate agents always make wild claims about how easy it is to rip them up…
Estate agents always make wild claims. Period!
Estate Agents make wild claims, Period!
Lovely reading this again. The wall flooring and the port/spyholes are priceless. Were you not tempted to hang portraits with eyeholes over the ovals and spook your guests for a bit, in ‘Carry on Screaming’ style? Certainly there are some novel uses of material here and few of them had much potential for a future scheme – unless you were to succumb and formica-clad the ceiling…
I’m amazed he didn’t think of Formica for the ceilings …. maybe enhanced with lino-clad beams 😂 I actually love your idea for the portholes …. can you imagine 😨😂 xx
Finally in the UK and finally hitched up the local library internet. It works thankfully, but slow. French décor has been an education, as has food. I think they perpetuate a fantasy that you only dismiss once you have lived here for a few months. Smoke and mirrors indeed! I remember one house we visited had extraordinarily floral bright wall paper in every room, and on the ceiling too – mismatched, obviously and over radiators too. The elephant in the room was the oil heater – it actually filled the second ground floor room. There were but two rooms – one for a future dining/kitchen and the other for sitting. The agency took us over the whole house – ground floor first room, first floor, and smaller attic floor, but left the final flourish till last – the second ground floor room. Obviously we did what every potential buyer did, we flatly turned it down – that thing would be a huge amount of work to move, including taking down the front of the house. It had been installed before the large windows and door went in. [Oh really?]. I felt sorry for the old lady selling. Maybe she should have papered it – maybe we wouldn’t have noticed it after all.
Roll on the next part of your story. Happy Mondays.
That boiler is what my husband calls building the boat before the basement. We saw a house that had one the size of the Bismarck albeit in cellars but to get it out would have been impossible. The house was 17th Century so the fact that they had installed in the early 20th was boggling! Glad you got back to England safely. Relax and enjoy all that London has to offer 🙂
This begs the question, do people with flooring on their walls put wallpaper on their floors? 😉
I’m seriously considering giving it a whirl …. 😨
Although – normally at least – I’m not the swearing type, having gone through this report under very much laughing & many guffaws (I am searching for a verb of this word!), I HAVE to say: Holy Moley, bxooxx heck, gooooooodness me….. and you my darling will have to wait until I’ve mounted the computer later on (and before my eyes give out/in again) because ‘I do have things to say’…. omg OMG O.M.G…. It really can’t get any better than that, can it?!
And it’s SUCH A LOVELY BEAUTIFUL HOUSE! I would have bought it too in a heartbeat….. Cripes….
When you buy with the heart the head will punish you later but when your heart is strong, your head has to accept that whatever it says, you won’t be deterred. Such is love, n’est-ce pas?
‘Daahling’, where is part 7? Have I missed something or shall I go to part 8 without further dithering?
I also apologize profusely for all the faults, missing ‘I’ and other words, grammatical splits, invention of not existing words (all highly embarrassing). This after I’ve quickly re-read former comments and having flung myself to the floor screaming for stuff I wouldn’t want to see or read in a classroom….. Apart from funny word creations we find too, like when my husband meant to write the word Stecker (German for connector) and he made Verstecker (= somebody hiding but doesn’t really exist as a word), little ‘gaffes’ making my day. It’s the little joys of being married to a dyslexic (btw another word totally different from the German Legastheniker!)
I’m supposed to be an English master but I make appalling gaffs without the excuse of it not being my native tongue or dyslexia. Part seven you can either put ‘coup de Coeur part seven in the search box on the side bar or find it in the slide show at the top … it hound be the second pis t that shuffles through. Let me know if you struggle and I’ll send you a link ☺
I feel better already – it is appalling…. and so bleeding human too!
You, par contre, have the gift of gab – is that an expression I may use or is it insulting?! Which is totally NOT what I meant to say. I could listen to you reading the telephone directory, you sound so real and good and amusing!
Yes, the English phenomena of a Public School meaning Private School always puzzled me, and also that in every country I ever lived, the same word (always regarding schools) meant something else entirely somewhere else. But, if even in tiny Switzerland we have those same problems between the even tinier cantons, why not in UK, US, Canada, France, Germany and everywhere too?!
The incredible story of the Russian Lady nearly threw me off my chair. This sound so incredible…. Scary too. And this dwarf-like, nearly invisible bundle of a man, a servant, shuffling in a corner, waiting for his master’s commands? I find that hard to believe and yet, I do. And then a Russian Woman in your house? From a long forgotten time ago? It’s getting weirder and weirder…
The holes cut in the walls were surely to a) distribute the heat of the one hearth in the house at the time, which would have been the kitchen with a tremendous fire place, and b) to give the house an ‘airing’ and maybe even distribute light (more) evenly?! This really is a ‘miracle’ house full of secrets and mysteries to be slowly detected.
In your last instalment I thought: Goodness me, those walls…. They look like cheap laminate – but not in a 100yrs I would have thought that thought to the horrid end – that it could indeed BE laminate. That’s just so sick, and yet, not so. When we looked for a flat in an old and well-kept house in Switzerland, visibly much loved by their ancient owners, we saw that apart from the kitchen EVERY room in said flat was covered in wooden tongue-and-groove panels. Every surface, every room, it was hideously beautiful and totally awesome (but not in a very good way). I felt a tremendous pity for the owners and it broke my heart to say nay to them because they clearly believed that theirs was the most beautiful and artistically ever apartment. It even had built-in desk and a dining bench. From a quality point of view amazing, from a weary eyes’ view terrifying. I stayed in contact with the owners for a few months, visited them regularly and I had to stop because during all that time they hoped that her rental would SURELY be for us, if only we could see the beauty! Isn’t beauty always (maybe luckily) in the eye of the beholder?
I also marvel at the variety of wall-papering/covering. Did you know that our beautiful home here has gorgeous frescoes (wall paintings) depicting scenes from Versailles but said glorious scenes were all covered with teal-green/blue greasy, dirty, cigarette-smelly cloth. Every wall of 3 rooms was covered in this textile! We had a specialist cleaning lady to come for her opinion. She arrived with a large basket full of poisonous sprays and tinctures, rubbed here a bit, sprayed there a bit, rubbed, worked and said: ‘There’s nothing I can do about those. They carry dirt, smells, stuff and probably animals from some decades’.
The same evening we started ripping them off and that’s when we eventually found those wall paintings!!!! Treasures – painted by artists of clearly great talent in the years 1929-34, well conserved and protected for the past 40 years thanks to the spleen of the previous owners. When we contacted them to speak of those magnificent scenes and asked why on earth they would have covered them up, they said: We didn’t think they were suitable for our small children…. Up to today I have no clue WHAT would have been so shocking but hey, after 10 days of standing on a high ladder and lifting off the 1000s of staples, painting carefully with crayons over the many, many holes they made through the paintings, painting also over the countless paint splatters and the carelessly nailed on loudspeaker and telephone cables and hoping not to fall, not to break neck and arms…. And so worth it! We discovered beautiful but terribly neglected frameworks, liberally hacked upon, with those horrible glued-on and nailed-on fabrics and the dirt and the smell. With some people, even carefully worn cashmere 2-piecers and real pearl, and dandy city-suits with matching hankie in the breast pocket can’t hide the inner pigs they were. Little were we surprised when we found ‘instalments’ of their wrong-doings all over. And all the greater and mightier is the joy of having a clean (well as clean as can be….) well-loved house with a new roof & great insulation, filled with honesty and good vibes.
And yet, and yet – it must go. We must sell in order to find our way back or even just closer to our home country. Help Help Help
You write voraciously about your home …. you should blog about it – it’s fascinating and with your wonderful pictures would make a very appealing story. A question … what does ‘spleen of the previous owners’ mean? I ask because spleen in English is a blood filtering and recycling organ in a mammalian body’ but there was a restaurant (a very good restaurant) in Grenoble until very recently called ‘le Chasse Spleen’ and I never remembered to ask what i meant beyond the obvious ‘Hunt’. What help do you need with your house … I am sure if it is in good condition in Isle de France it will sell, non?
woohooo – my moment of glory has enfin come! Spleen is an english word indeedy…. it means many things but we (in my region of Switzerland) use it for a crazy idea, an eccentricity, a folly, a brain-wave gone wrong…. It’s also (amongst other) Having a bee in the bonnet!
Here I meant to say that thanks to their covering up those beauties we now enjoy their freshness and glory as they were in the 30th…. So Thank You (or rather ‘them’) for nothing!
As for a sale: Yes, it IS gorgeous, unique, and some 20km too far from Paris to lure the Parisians to us. It has a lot of land which this Madame here grandly calls garden, it has a lot of forged iron gates, a magnificent large staircase to the lower gate to the street, is 3′ on foot from a train station and some 3′ off a route national – and surprisingly quiet and peaceful. Lots of green but few people with money to throw at a house, sadly…. I did send you a mail I believe, I might have put my phone number in it. I’d like to talk to you and I’d like you to come and visit for a few days if you feel like. (no obligation whatsoever, ça va sans dire). Did you get said message? I did also write that a reply is not expected (or not rapidly)
I do have your mail. I have been very preoccupied with a matter that has been plaguing us for several years and which we hope is about to be concluded. I have a meeting tomorrow which will tell one way or the other. After that I will reply. À tout!
Fiona, there is NO hurry, as I said. We must learn to do things in a proper order, and I’m speaking to myself in particular. Whatever your important meeting is, my thoughts and prayers are with you – all will serve a purpose! We very often do not get the replies or decisions we wish for but in the end it will always be for our best.
We had a showdown yesterday. It also wasn’t what we wanted but we immediately knew it was the right thing and the decision had been taken from our hands. Bless you!
I don’t know why I missed these posts first time round. Anyway, I’m happy that you are reposting them. My jaw was getting closer and closer to my keyboard as I read through this instalment. I have seen wallpaper that looks suspiciously like cheap carpeting in French country hotels, but never actually laminated floor covering used in that way. But what an exciting find underneath! I think serendipity led you to this place so that you could make the fascinating discoveries beneath the dire exterior. And this is certainly the stuff of novels…
I’m delighted that you are enjoying the replay … The French do seem to favour slightly strange wallcoverings … I remember staying in a hotel in Poitiers in the 80s and they had literally carpeted the walls in about 1972 so you can imagine the horrors of the geometric pattern and the colour scheme – orange, brown, lime and purple from memory. The laminate was certainly a new departure for us and one we care not to pursue for longevity. I am certain there is an element of serendipity to finding this house – without putting too fine a point on it, we are willing to preserve and replace even though it will take us much longer and break more finger nails. We don’t want a museum but we do think that there should be authenticity to the restoration rather than a chi-chi cover-up job. I’m very heartened that you feel there are novels for the telling. One must write to please oneself but it is gratifying if the ideas don’t sound too wide of the mark!
While it must have been dispiriting to discover the full extent of the previous owner’s cover-ups, in a way it was probably a good thing. It means you’ve had to take the place right back to the bones and in the process restore its authenticity. I’m sure there must have been times when you felt like throwing in the towel, though!
So true. Two years on it is hard to see what progress we have made but we are stripped right back now and along the way, because we had to go right back to the bones, we have understood what the house should look like and it is not what I thought at the start. So it IS fortunate that he made such a pigs-ear … otherwise we might have been blissfully ignorant of what we believe the house is rather than what it appeared to be. But yes — -that towel has been hurled frequently!!!
I knew we were sisters! My mum and dad fell in love listening to Johnny Mathis LIVE in San Francisco in the 50s…what a coincidence. How wonderful to find what we call shiplap in the US under the ghastly laminate walls. In the same awful apartment, never cleaned bathroom, we uncovered years of wallpaper to reveal that it had once been a hole in the wall bed (for the parents) and our outside shed was the loo.
There you go … the proof at last!! My mum would have loved to fall in love to JM I am certain. I shall tell her … that’ll remind her to put Johnny on the CD player which she will enjoy. That apartment of yours was a treasure trove …. I have heard of all sorts of things under the wallpaper but never what they call in our region of France ‘un lit clos’ – amazing! My husband’s brother and sister-in-law live in the house he was brought up in Liverpool and it still has the outside privy. It’s very practical when there’s lots of people around though boy is it cold in winter (that reminds me …. crack out the Long Johns at the end of next month when we go visiting!!) x
Now there is more proof, my Irish Nana grew up in Bootle. Most of my great aunts and uncles lived from there to Formby (the posh parts, you know).
One of his sisters lives in Bootle – the others are in Crosby and Waterloo. We have SO much to chat about one of these days!
😂🤣 A foot in mouth moment…Although I have to say, what the hell?! Laminate flooring on the walls??! I’ve heard it all now
I hope we’ve heard the last of it 😉