Ch ch ch Changes.

With a busy agenda today we were out the door at 9am  headed to Chateaubernard on the chance...note the word CHANCE ...that the company we sought would be open. Many were, this 14th Juillet, Bastille Day, and though we thought it a bit crazy to go, we went anyway. Of course they were closed, but Mr Bricolage the huge new hardware store was open and fully staffed. We weren't the only ones wandering the aisle picking up the needed bits and pieces. Some were not 'needed' per se, but we found them and they would have been on the 'needed' list some time in the future anyway.

Our first port of call was the Trailer place, and as I said, it was closed, and of course it is closed on Monday too, but no matter as we will be otherwise occupied on Monday. Tuesday will do, Im sure.

Next up, Mr Bricolage. I love how the till receipt tells you how much you have spent there to date! EEKKKK!!! lol. Dont look!!! And this is one of the companies we dont have a carte fidelite with.  We will, I promise. At Leroy Merlin when we have spent 1500 euros there, we will qualify for 10% off  a one time purchase, so we had better make it a worthwhile addition!

Back to the Brico.
We were one of the last to leave at noon (midi) and were not quite shunter out the door, although the sliding doors were slow to let us and another woman out. The parking lot was like a race car circuit with staff racing away to get their lunch.

But I am a bit hasty here...at 10 (on the dot) we stopped at the patisserie/boulangerie for a café (from a machine you pressed a button on...quite a decent allongee though) and a tarte, of course. We wont return, they weren't that great!
THEN we were onwards to the Brico.

Now that we have everything in the right order, and we are home and setting everything out, we can begin work.

Lunch didnt feature in the scheme of things after that mid morning pastry, so work went through until about 2pm.
First up, I heard noises coming from the front patio. I normally try to get a before and after photo, but Waz had already destroyed the before...

The railing, apart from being ugly as sin, is deteriorating and is rotten in places.

We lined up our new outdoor quick put-ons at the front door with the new begonias.
These clog things are essential to our in and out, as there are plenty of bees around, drowsily walking around on the concrete, at this time of year, and both of us are allergic to stings, and we tend to walk around barefoot...not any more!

So Waz continued to destroy the front railing. We had thought we would chop it off 2/3 the way across. We stopped there and sat down to contemplate the results.

 Hmmm... Do we really like it like this? Looks a bit weird. We would replace the wood with some nice wire railings and metal stantions. I was afraid someone would just walk off the end and hurt themselves....that being me of course!

Nope, the rest has to go....and out it comes.

 WOW! What a difference! Love the feeling of increased space. Yes, bright out there today, and HOT! Not a lot of wind, and the laundry dried in a flash.

 Being slightly paranoid, I added things to the lip there. The plants and pots are horrid, but you get the idea.

 Looking at it from where we sit, most days...Love it! We will replace the left side one with the wire and metal as I said earlier. That side definitely needs the barrier...quite a drop off there.

While he was doing that, I was changing out the froufrou door knobs upstairs...
I dont like these rose things suspended in acrylic.

 to this ….

 I had also bought ties for the drapes, as they otherwise get in the way when the windows are open. These are multi-strand leather. The drapes in our bedroom are natural linen color. It seems to work there.

 And as I have a lovely NZ native timber dresser coming on Monday, this white plywood thingy had to go, as did the mirror which was too low for me...my navel looked good in there!!! not! Some idiot had drilled a hole to put the electric wired through  on the right hand side where the phone it. So when we tried to remove the top, we couldn't without cutting through the plywood where the wires were. Sigh!

 Now I only have to remove the mirror. In this case, not an easy thing. The hangers are many and screws everywhere. Mess! But the new Rimu dresser will cover most of it until we renovate this room some time in the future, or until I cant stand it anymore...depending which comes first...well, it is ALL in the future, but...ok...

 AND....having now destroyed the front railing, Waz is now installing light fixtures in the pistachio room...yes, that is the lovely flocked wallpaper which is also staying until I can think what to do in this guest room. It doesnt look toooo bad, I keep telling myself. BTW, this is the ONLY light fixture in the room, so we needed one of the lights to face upwards. There will be night stand lights also.
I hate the painted plywood headboard for a double bed...a queen is going in here, but for the moment, it will have to stay. Another thing to do.

 We have these lights elsewhere in the house and like the amount of light they produce. They are very versatile also, and we like the metal.

 Now, the pink bedroom produced yet another set of issues. If only French wiring was consistent. I heard Waz say something about this one should be easy??? ha! What a mess! this is above the bed, or course. Again, none of the bedrooms have a central ceiling light, only lights above the bed. It will take rewiring the whole house, I predict, to make those kind of changes. The ceiling is concrete, btw.

 The brackets for the white plywood headboard that I removed from our bedroom. These also came off. This wall looks a bit like a sieve now, it has so many holes in it. This too shall have to wait.

 How attractive! I will have to find a mirror in our NZ stuff, that fits over the Rimu dresser.

 Meanwhile lunch was a cup of coffee and a cranberry/banana muffin from the freezer.

and then...Dinner. Waz went off for a nap, late afternoon, and I got cracking in the kitchen. I made a huge bowl of cole slaw...love the stuff! boiled some eggs, and cooked the chicken thighs. LOVE the taste of these French chickens. Avocado  are getting less expensive, so I usually have a few in various stages of ripeness sitting around.

 Waz eventually got the lights attached, and the effect is rather eerie, but then the shutters are closed, making the room dark. It works, and will be good reading light for whoever occupies this room.

Meanwhile, Im cleaning up all  the plaster mess all over the place. The vacuum doesnt want to suck. I cleaned a mess off the filter...Im a bit anal about my vacuums...but still it didnt want to suck. This required me taking the whole thing apart, as you do. I found this mess inside, which was clogging up the whole works. No wonder it didnt want to suck. The previous owner had long red hair, and there was a great clod of it in there.

 All that removed, the filters all cleaned and she was sucking again just fine. Phew!
New vacuum, so this was significant!

And yet another light fixture, this time in the bathroom. This one is same kind as the others, just four on a square for multi-directional light. WOW! Lots of light there now. Could barely find ourselves before.
I love standing at that 2nd story window in the evening and looking out on the garden and the glorious views beyond, before shutting it all up.:)

Finally, Waz assembled the new towel rail for the guest room (on the left there), and we put the new drapes up on the west windows. I wanted to see if I needed to hem them at all.

 Mid grey linen look.

I will wait for them to hang a bit and straighten out before making a decision on the hemming.


So here we are...I'm about to go outside again...almost 10pm, still really light... and move the trash cans off  the front terrace and down to the garage. It might be a bit more humbug, but I dont want to sit on our newly liberated terrace out front and stare at the trash cans! Simple.

A Bientot! We will sleep well tonight...oh, and the Belgians won over the English!! woot!

If you dont know what I'm talking about...well, never mind:)