Corner of our soon to be finished sitting room

One week of work (all on my own) and the painting is almost finished. We painted the walls in Mizzle and after worrying about it being a little dark after the first coat of paint, (north facing window and it was cream before) it just became better and better with each coat of paint... five liters later. Lots of finishing touches to make and then I'll take a couple more photos

Gliimpse at entrance/hall

view from kitchen

I was really apprehensive about using Charlotte's Locks and Elephant's Breath together after testing them in-situe, but I decided to give it a go, and my first impression is one of relief, the colors seem to work. I have a lot to finish, and these photos were taken just when the sun was setting, even if we never actually saw a glimpse of the sun today.

Charlotte's Locks

charlotte's locks, masking tape and all

We have been busy being lazy, watching Fringe, Monk and House. The children have been playing in and out (especially a new Dance game on Xbox), going to friends and just generally chilling out. No homework has been completed (or started for some).

Alain and I went again to Paris on Saturday, again to the Conran Shop and Farrow and Ball.

I started painting the cornices in the entrance yesterday in Charlotte's locks, and a second coat this morning, I think it still needs another coat, maybe later today and then tomorrow I shall paint the walls. Charlotte's Locks is fairly bright and funky and I just hope it looks good with the other colors we have chosen, it certainly makes a change from blanc cassé, the color we painted our whole house in Sanary in, to sell it quicker.

On the subject of selling houses that are colorful, does this really put people off? Gaby has a friend who lives in an enormous house in a nearby village and it's for sale. They haven't mentioned it, but me who loves looking at interiors of others, especially when renovating, found their house on a real estate site.

I'd just been to pick Gaby up from there and I just loved their orange tv room but, on finding the

very same room on internet, I was baffled to see not only the orange but stripes of white in

the room that I have no recollection of seeing, since then I like it less. The house is wonderful

though, and if you've got 2million euros to spare, you'd get a 7h garden, 11 bedrooms,

100m2 sitting room and two cottages thrown in.

a tiny glimpse of the tv room (found on internet..hope they never see it)

The house has left such an impression on one of Gaby's friends, that now, she's too embarassed to invite this group of friends to her house, that I find sad. They have an English assignment to finish and I thought, they'd end up back at the big house again, but no I was wrong, they are all coming here, into our seriously in renovation house, with our yucky 1970's kitchen and that's fine by Gaby and I, what counts is friendship and not appearances, right?

Second floor landing...Shared computer space

We went for yellow in the end, a colour that I usually dislike, but here, I think it works fine, and it's better than the orange I tried out and as Gaby has red in her bedroom, she was against us using the same colour!

I painted the cupboard doors with blackboard paint and make a temporary bunting with Marie-Kate yesterday while I look for something better.

The table was once again found in our local thrift shop (I love this place) for 8 euros, I'm not going to paint it.

Shopping list: round rug, garland (I love these things), paint for bedroom doors and a bookcase for bds and books and some more chalk.

Hard decision coming up; restore floor (more glue and cement) in an untidy 15 year old girl's room, enter at your own rest type room. Or do 16 year old boy's room, the difference here, he stuffs all his junk, laundry, et cetera in his fitted cupboards ( which incidentally will have to come down too).

7 hours to transform this...! Before

I took this shot a couple of minutes ago, yes, what a mess. I promise, it isn't staged to make it worse, it really is a mess. This is our 2nd floor landing which leads to Gaby's, Alexis' and MK's bedrooms. The idea is to finish this room today (a little more stripping, painting of ceiling, walls and woodwork and varnishing floor). As I am an eternal optimist I am hoping to finish it around 4ish, or at least before 2011 knocks at our door...Yikes, better get started.

Oh yes, this space will be home to their shared computer, a present this year.

Update 18h30 Have I finished? No way, just painted ceiling and changed my mind about the dominant colour "orange" which just doesn't go, so the choice is between bright yellow or red bus red. But nows time to chill out at home, with those I love, and we are eating raclette...yummy

3rd Bedroom "Alexis'" almost there

I bought 2 chairs (one above) for 16 euros and painted this one dark grey and the other one bright yellow (in MK's room)

A little more varnish, a computer to move out onto the landing (when finished...yes I have started that) and window frames to paint and blinds to buy.....list is at least a little shorter:) but Alexis' room to getting there and he loves it!

Alexis loves his skittles (bought in local thrift shop).

pompoms

No baking today, MK made pompoms, well we made a pompom each using wool that had mini pompoms already on it, the result was a bit OTT, so we kept the second one "wreath" shaped.

Alexis' bedroom is coming on, I'm sanding and need more bands, lots more bands (used 4 up till now). Painting and varnishing should swiftly follow and he should have his room back for Thursday...still looking for a locker type wardrobe and another bookcase (found a bed, just have to decide between grey or red paint..)

More.....snow.

It's snowing again and it's sticking, but I'm too busy scrapping glue of floorboards, this time in Alexis' room, which incidentally one of the biggest bedrooms in the house (over 22m2) argh, hence my silence, as I really want to finish this room, and the landing and Charlotte's room before Christmas (one can dream).

I'll post some photos tomorrow.

(Photo taken from our bedroom looking towards other neighbours house beyond).

Snowy House

It's been threatening to snow all morning and much to the children's delight after lunch it began(not enough to make a snowman use yet, maybe it might even stop...).

Our house is right in the heart of the village, this is a view from the garden looking down on it. On the right is our future summer kitchen. Where the roof is lower on far left hand-side of the house, you can just make out the triangle topped shutter , well, this will be our future studio, it's actually very big (36m2), but it's the last thing on our lonnnggg list.

In our garden we have two outside caves that were used (this one the sure) to store beetroot).

The other cave is behind that wall, I find this one a little creepy.

Don't suppose we'll be dining outside for a while.

J'ai Froid

View from stairs of the little bit of the garden (there's a well behind the low stone wall)

It snowed a little during the night, only a little though, much to the children's disappointment.

It's really cold and my children who aren't used to such cold weather are now faced with having to wear hats and gloves, my my what fun I had trying to get Marie-Kate to wear them for school...boy she's so stubborn

The temperature hasn't risen above -2°c all day.

M-K's blue bedroom

The bedroom wasn't finished on Friday, I was way too optimistic. After a weekend of getting the glue off the walls, cleaning et cetera....painting all Sunday and Monday it was time to seal the wood. Still lots of finishing touches to make like paint the bookcase, hang up art, and school board ( I found on of those school blackboard's which in fact is green in a second hand store, which is made up of three parts, the biggest part is in the entrance and the two others which are smaller will go in MK's and Gaby's bedroom.

I'm not going to paint the desk, luckily, M-K likes it as it is, too.

More photos when the floor is completely dry.

M-K's Bedroom

I started chipping and scrapping the cement off the floorboards last weekend and phew I've finally finished. I've a third of the room to sand still, and then I can strip the walls ( the green wallpaper is lovely in comparison with the black woven wall covering in Alexis' room and the same but in brown in Gaby's...sorry no photos, stripped that off the first chance I got).

Impossible to finish today, but I'll give it a go...

Update at 17H15.... was a little optimistic, got started late as I had to wait for a chronopost parcel ( we have a telephone after a a 3 month break). Anyhow floor sanded, and half a room stripped and I did clean out the grout between most of the floorboards too..tedious job!

Tomorrow will be more productive, I hope!

This New House

Going to have to change that plastic door handle real soon

We put the house on the market in Sanary in June and sold it on the 28th July after probably 50 visits via PAP and real estate agents.

It took 6 long weeks to sell, something of which I'm not used too, as all the houses I have ever owned (three) before sold within days and only after a couple of visits. These house were in the UK, perhaps that's where lies the difference.

Anyhow, here we are in the Yvelines. We bought the first house we visited, and it wasn't even on our list. We visited 7 more just to be sure but we were all smitten by this house, despite the work that would be needed.

house and shutters to be painted next spring

I am working on the floors, which is tiresome, and we have the painting to do everywhere!

25m2 just in this bedroom