Alexis' Earache and Vincent Van Gogh's Sunflowers and Marie-Kate and her Lilies

Alexis' ear started to ache Sunday night, all night, he's rarely ill and hardly complains when it comes to pain, but not this time.

Luckily here, our doctor surgery is open and 7.30 and there wasn't any waiting. He has a bag full of medicine(we do live in France), and an eight day course of antibiotics and some ear drops ( which he hates).

Good news, he only missed one day of school which was yesterday and now it's a long French holiday weekend until Monday, so lots of time to have fun and relax.

Time enough to get on with some art and get paint everywhere.

Alexis chose to paint Vincent Van Gogh's Sunflowers and Marie-Kate, Monet's Lilies.

Alexis is a perfectionist and got grumpy soon as he started painting, moaned and cried that it wasn't how it wanted it to be, wiped paint on his trousers, face and just about on every wall between his painting spot and the bathroom and moaned that his ear was hurting really bad again.

A couple of hours later, this is what it looked like ( his painting I mean, and not his ear)

I used Art Projects for kids website to inspire them, this site is an excellent resource for art. You can see on the computer how maybe his sunflower could have turned out, but Alexis preferred using black to go with his mood and red with his temper

And in between time, cool as a cucumber Marie-Kate painted some Lilies and used the zen approach with Alexis that didn't help his mood one bit.... But a couple of hours later, they're best friends again...until they paint together again.

Marie-Kate's almost finished Lilies... Just need to get Gaby to work on her "Eboy" style manga people canvas to join these two on the the top floor stairs.

cupcakes and ebay

For Mother's day, Marie-Kate and Alexis made some yummy cupcakes, the weather was still great and we had yet another barbecue.

Marie-Kate still loves her English school dress, can you believe it, it's the only dress she'll wear.

I've saved this photo for last, because my children think my new paintings off ebay are too much, and to make things worst, I've hung them on the stair wall, so they are the first thing you see when you enter our home....strangely enough, they haven't invited anyone here since...

Studio Before

Above our covered carport/garage we have a empty room, a room which will one day become a studio. We just have to figure out how to do it, what sort of stairs would work well and where to put them. Balcony plus stairs or not? Or knock through Oliver's bedroom to connect this room to the house?

Yes, he's up some ladders again, but I'm holding them firm.
This room is at least 36m2 big, it has a south facing window (street side) and an old wooden door (garden side). The wooden floor is in good condition

And the roof timbers look good.

Full of cobwebs though, and one old Tam Tam.

Lots of ideas to ponder over.

Near miss and stair walls and ceiling finished

The highest part of our stairs is about 5 meters high and Alain decided he could paint up there just using a ladder. Well he could and did it with a stretch, problem was is our landing had been waxed over the last 37 years and I'd not finished getting it all off, hence it was still slippy

Well you can guess what happened, the ladder slipped and Alain was two centimeters away from going ladder first through an 150 year old window. he was saved the black strip of wood on the photo, the one just in-front of the window.

It goes without saying, he isn't allowed up a ladder for a while.

Oh yes, we've finished the stairs, still kept with hardwick white, with a little arsenic and railings for the paint work. Today I'm sanding "again" the stairs and then paint and varnish and we'll be done.

glimpse of our newly finished stairs and le Prince Aventurier

Four flights of stairs later, and over seventeen liters of paint with bits and bobs still to paint (including whether or not to paint part of the stairs or not) we have finished the stairs, landings and half-landings. This is the view from the entrance looking up towards our newly acquired ebay painting, he's lots of fun and brightens up the space.

The first two walls have been painted in a neutral colour (dimity) and the door in blazer.

The skirting boards look almost black in railings, now we have to decide what to do with the stairs which were waxed. I'd like to lighten the wood and maybe paint the stair risers in a light colour.

The rest of the walls have been painted in Hardwick White..photos to come sometime today ( spindles still to paint...boring and long)

Bye bye Mr H's table and hello thrift one

Mr H's rustic farm table was too big for the room so I've been looking for a smaller round one for ages. I originally wanted a knoll table, but had trouble finding one that didn't have a marble top...then I found a Jean Prouvé table, really nice second hand one, but it was almost the same price as new so that was a no no. In between time I have had my eye on a thrift shop table, small but square and every time I saw it, I just liked it more and more. We bought it yesterday for 50 euros, a big difference from the Knoll that I made a bid on and lost (thankfully) that was obscenely expensive, too much for me to tell you, it's shameful. Same goes for the Prouvé too...

Well here it is after taking the middle legs off, that we didn't need unless we wanted to extend it and that's not an option due us wanting to open up the space for something special (soon to come)

I had some paint left over from skirting boards (railings) and and we painting the legs with it.

we kind of love this table now, so much better that Mr H's, which is soon to become Alain's work bench...that's if we can get it down into the basement.

It's been a while...Stairs, bedroom, Ebay and barbecues

photo's a bit dark, but I'll get a better shot next time

After two weeks away on a fpso off the Angolan coast, Alain and I had a lot of catching up to do and he had a some time off from work which was way overdue, so we've been eating out, visiting Paris and just having a great time, we even bought a couple of bicycles and a new couch (second-hand off Ebay).

Our new second hand Conran couch, it's so comfortable and can you believe it's 10 years old

The weather has been glorious, so much so, we've been having barbecues most days, we never had so many down in the south so go figure.

The work in the house is coming on too. Our bedroom has been painted in Elephant's Breath and we love it. I did manage to paint the armoire Pigeon, my favourite colour. Still lots to tidy, so the photo doesn't really show much.

The stairs and landings are almost finished, hardest part still to do, but who knows, we might just finish it for the weekend. I've stripped the wax of the stairs, know just need to figure our how to lighten the wood ready for varnish.

For the walls we used Hardwick white, which is far from white as you can see, but after first having reservations about the greyness I really like it now.

On the first floor landing (our floor and that of Oliver and Charlotte) we are slowly building up a art/photo wall. The doors (that you can't see) are going to be painted Arsenic, which is something that I'm really looking forward to doing.

Time for a cup of tea I think. Back later in the week with more photos and updates.