We are De-Pinked

In the living room, at least. It only took 6 coats of white paint to rid us of the ghastly color.

Today I have all but finished the walls in the 2nd half of the living room, just have another coat around the top of the walls below the ceiling, some ceiling prep to go before starting that, and then Voila! Fini.

The biggest item to remove in order to paint, was the heavy mirror that goes over the fireplace, such as it is. That's an electric fire in the hole.

 We will keep these nice mirrors as they seem to go with the Shaun de leers nicely.

In the process of prepping the living room, the old vacuum kicked the bucket, so we went in search of a new one. That isnt strictly correct, coz I had forgotten to put it on the shopping list....but there are wonderful promotions each week, and this being Thursday, these vacuums were half price. Not bad for 40 euros! Its a real sucker too!

I could have had pink, blue or purple! How original. Pink not being my kind of color, nor purple, so this is what we chose. Bagless and HEPA filter to boot.

Just to digress somewhat....we are so enjoying all the stone fruits right now. We bought these ones from the Bio store, and they taste like sunshine.:)
Waz particularly enjoys the Flatto Peaches.

The garden  (such as it is) is literally abuzz. We delight in watching the goings on, on the lavender out front. The scent is lovely now, and the bees of all kinds and particularly the Humming Bird Moths are wonderful to watch.

Look at that proboscis!

With all that rain the tomatoes are growing like Topsy. We have some little ones ripening, and many more on the way. They aren't expensive in-store right now, and we are enjoying the cocktail tomatoes most of all.

I fear that the shallow boxes are too small for the plants in there. Too late to transfer them now. They are fruiting, so we will see.

We welcomed the window guy on Thursday. We desperately need to replace all the windows and doors for double paned ones and more secure. Ones that dont leak, in other words. I dont want to spend the winter running around the house mopping up floods each time it rains, and I certainly dont want to spend the winter in the house with all the shutters down because that is the only way to keep dry inside. This is the scene at our front door, currently. You think we are renovating?? I sure hope he wasnt offended, lol.

Spending so much time indoors, right now, makes me a little stir crazy, and it is so good to go outside in the late evening and survey the property and our surrounds.

I hadn't looked at the garden with much interest in the last two weeks, and I enjoyed what I saw last night, as the sun was going down, around 9.45-ish.
What a welcome surprise to find this daylily in bloom so late in the day.

 That thunderhead cloud was pretty with the last of the sunshine on it, but someone was going to get thunder, not long after this.

 I dont know the name of this, but the shrub is pretty, if a bit unruly, right now. I will tidy it up after I have finished painting.

 The hibiscus is lovely during the day, and then the sun disappears, and so do the blooms.

 Hmmm...lots of pink in this garden! Whats with that?

 Our grape vine is looking pretty healthy thanks to Waz's ministrations. He is determined that we will get the grapes to eat before the wasps do!

 No idea what this PINK and purple flower is, but look how complex it is.

 Roses are still blooming their heads off...I should pick another bouquet to have inside.

 The view is gorgeous in the soft light, dont you think?

 Out on the roadside, the wisteria is getting well...wisterical! It is a bit over the top??lol

 I crossed the road into the vines to see if I could spy any more random orchids, but none to be found. Just this cowslip? Another complex flower.

 The vines have been trimmed recently, and the huge amount of fruit hanging close to the vine is amazing.

Back on home turf, and my little Echeveria is blooming. It put out a rather phallic sprout, and this is the end result. This pink is just fine, thanks:)

 The sun had disappeared over the hill, but I sat on the front step and just listened to mother nature making preparations for bed, all around me. The stillness was wonderful and a lovely end to the day. I looked past the large bowl of lavender, through the gates to the vines across the road still with some residual sunshine on them.

Waz is going to paint the gates a pretty green and make all the details - spikes etc, Gold! :)
So, back to the painting.... Getting boring, but needs to be finished so Waz can watch the finals of the World Cup Soccer. We have been enjoying the games so far. Poor man has been reduced to standing in the middle of the living room, watching the TV in the same place, while I  paint around him.
Yes, it was cool after all those horrid storms, hence the sweater.

So you see, I have some real incentive to finish, and soon.
At the end of today, one finished wall...the TV wall...just have to do the ceiling tomorrow and we can move the TV back.

 The opposite wall looks pretty good, after 6 coats of white to cover the pink.

Our window man told us to go into the show room and choose our doors and shutters and look at the brochures...no he didnt bring any with him. He couldn't take the time to stand around and discuss that with us, it was the job of the lady in the show room. So, we went into Barbezieux to the office and looked through our choices of doors. They will quote on PVC and Steel for the entry doors. We have chosen PVC windows in the same style as are there now. They are the original windows and suit the style of home. We didnt want anything too modern for a 1950's house. We also decided to put two new windows in the Pink Room, designated the Bureau (office) by the window man. Most of the windows are the same size, so we will follow that model and have a same size window added to the west wall, and a sliding window added to the south view wall. Im quite excited about this, but it will mean we need a mason to make the holes in the concrete walls, put a header in and then finish them off once installed.
We chose solar powered volets (shutters) which are pretty neat. They have their own battery in the header. All will be in white because of the sun and heat. The house will look so much better with all this renewal.

We now need a quote for a new septic tank, which was always on the cards. By law we have 12 months to comply, after purchasing the house. We knew the septic needed replacing, and also the windows, so this was budgeted for.

After dinner Waz installed another outdoor light, with me holding the ladder underneath. He has been sneaky though, and been up there without me holding the ladder, I notice.:(

He was a busy beaver today, and in the heat...finally admitting that it was too hot to continue.

The lawns got mown and the hedge trimmed, well about 2/3 of it along the south side.
We ate our three meals on the terrace today. Glorious!

 The 'pile' in the middle of the lawn grows. We will go out this week and buy a trailer. It is taking time to figure out our needs in this department. With four sides of hedging, we figure it will be put to good use.

Well, that's the end of another day...Saturday to be precise. The Tour de France began today, and it is the busiest day on the roads in all of France because it is the beginning of school holidays. I think we will stay home for the next two months:) Most of France is on vacation in August.

With that in mind, our new windows wont be ready to install until October...Merde! Better late than never I guess, and the weather will be settled at that time of year, and before the big cold. We hope!

Time for me to enjoy the last of the sun and the view before turning in.
Hope your day has been cheerful and positive.

A Demain.