A Berrichon Kitchen

I have been busy. Very busy. Painting a faux tile floor over the old grey concrete that coverred 1/2 the kitchen floor. Then plumbed in the first water line that ever graced the room itself, be it a kitchen or not. Then built a berrichon-like 6 legged table to set the big double ceramic sink on (tres cher…very expensive!) then plumbed in the 10 liter hot water heater in the old abandonned sink location beside the window. Plumbed in the sink and new drain outlet thru the old rock wall.
All of this AND builtin the cooktop on a table and installed the propper gas setup to let it function on propane, it being from California and only known to run on Natural gas. It’s all been wonderful to do and fun to see the results but it has been non stop work for the last three plus weeks. I defrosted the freezer this morning and we went to the brocante in St. Aout (Sant-too) before the horse races this afternoon with our Brit friends. They have fixed a picnic and we are taking three bottles of the finest 85 cent sparkling wine to wash it all down with. The day is overcast with occassional blue patches to give hope for a ray of sunshine in this perpetual spring. Zuchinni are popping out of the now huge Zucco plants, I try to keep inventory so we don’t get deluged with uneaten ones that grow ever bigger each second. My toatoes have fared poorly, first it was the wilt which decimated nearly every plant thanks to the overly wet days and nights. Then the fruit sits there green and refuses to ripen even a little bit. They won’t be worth eating raw ever but maybe I can coax them into a sauce that’ll be ok. We will see.
The noisy neighbors kept up the weed whipping all yesterday afternoon, so if it isn’t that damned noisemaker it’s the son and his damnable motorbike racing too and from down th narrow streets of our village. Where’s a slightly drunken tractor operator when you need one?

Two Summer Days in Paradise

The ceiling was the item of opportunity today, Kim said he’d more than happily help and that he would call in the morning Monday. That he did at about 10:15 and announced he was bound with his mum to the market in Lignieres, did we need anything.
No was the answer, what I needed was HIM…ceiling disposal is a major task, hard work, dirty and difficult. I gathered a rake, two shovels, a hoe and a 15lb breaker bar for the task. The ceiling was, in my estimation, barely hanging on to the lath so would take little in the way of urging to break loose and fall to the ground. I started at about 10am and had half of it off and onto the floor an hour later, about the time Kim arrived. I really welcomed his help, the dust, the grit in the eyes were all difficult to deal with. He tore into the remaing parts like a demon possessed, wow! The lath, plaster, horsehair and ages of dirt and seed…SEED! Yes, seed, sveral hundred pounds of either wheat or oat seed, sans bag to help ID it, but yes, SEED! Down it all fell, oh what a mess. Within an hour we were deep into the dirty, gritty mess and looked just like it despite out eye protection googles, ther face masks and helmets. What amess. Only one broken window and I did that myself.
One slip. Gasp! I coughed up crap for an hour afterwards even though we wore masks.
The beams are now exposed, 6X6 roughly, oak, old oak, whole limbs. Some rot but not bad. Tomorrow I’ll pressure wash them to rid us of the dirt and grit as well as the spider webs. In a few days I’ll seal them witha poison product that kills the beetles that infest them most of the time. Then comes the tiling and painting.
Goodnight all,
H

Wake up and get to work! It’s Paradise!

A “Day Off” around these parts means travelling across the French countryside to either Bourges or Chateauroux and buying yards and yards of cloth OR/AND walking miles (literally) in a HUGE Hardware, Lighting, Painting Supply, Tile, Lumberyard Superstore (Hyper-Magazine here) to find something for this huge old house of ours.
All of which means MORE work (of course) doing something (painting, tiling, wallpapering, climbing up and down and LOOKING, sweeping, cleaning) with whatever was purchased. It is the same for both of us, our travels are about our work, our purchases are about our work, our existance is about our work and our WORK is this lovely old pile of rocks.
—
There is no summer this year, no canicule (hot days), just clouds, wind, rain and the occassional ray of sun to remind us that our nearest star is still out there beaming along with it’s magical warm light. Temps above 75 degrees (24 Centigrade)
are rare, infact MOST days are in the 60’s and nights in the 50’s this Summer. Brrrrr. But we are Californians, where the price of electricity is TWICE that of France (13.5 cents/kilowatt hr. vs 7) that to air-condition our home there costs about 10 dollars (7 Euros) per DAY! And summer there can include (and DOES) DAYS OVER 90 or 100 degrees. Here we put on sweatshirts and sweaters and go back to painting or tiling or whatever else is on the menu for the day’s activities. Oh progress is being made, remember back to the old GE (General Electric) ads when Ronald Reagan said “Progress is our most important project!” That’s how we feel, little is completed BUT we are working all the time towards that common goal…thus we are Progressing. Amen. Summer or not we are having a good time with all of this, wheres my sweatshirt? In the laundry no doubt.

Wake up and get to work! It’s Paradise!

A “Day Off” around these parts means travelling across the French countryside to either Bourges or Chateauroux and buying yards and yards of cloth OR/AND walking miles (literally) in a HUGE Hardware, Lighting, Painting Supply, Tile, Lumberyard Superstore (Hyper-Magazine here) to find something for this huge old house of ours.
All of which means MORE work (of course) doing something (painting, tiling, wallpapering, climbing up and down and LOOKING, sweeping, cleaning) with whatever was purchased. It is the same for both of us, our travels are about our work, our purchases are about our work, our existance is about our work and our WORK is this lovely old pile of rocks.
—
There is no summer this year, no canicule (hot days), just clouds, wind, rain and the occassional ray of sun to remind us that our nearest star is still out there beaming along with it’s magical warm light. Temps above 75 degrees (24 Centigrade)
are rare, infact MOST days are in the 60’s and nights in the 50’s this Summer. Brrrrr. But we are Californians, where the price of electricity is TWICE that of France (13.5 cents/kilowatt hr. vs 7) that to air-condition our home there costs about 10 dollars (7 Euros) per DAY! And summer there can include (and DOES) DAYS OVER 90 or 100 degrees. Here we put on sweatshirts and sweaters and go back to painting or tiling or whatever else is on the menu for the day’s activities. Oh progress is being made, remember back to the old GE (General Electric) ads when Ronald Reagan said “Progress is our most important project!” That’s how we feel, little is completed BUT we are working all the time towards that common goal…thus we are Progressing. Amen. Summer or not we are having a good time with all of this, wheres my sweatshirt? In the laundry no doubt.

The Examination Room Transformed

We have been working since last Sunday on the exam room. In a previous life it was a bedroom for a child whom we now know as a fellow 60+ yr old ex-teacher in Lignieres.
She came to the house and explained the layout for us. Her father had died when she was but 6 yrs old outside on the street somehow. She had her bedroom in the later day examination room. It was blue wallpaper then as well…along with the two doors to nowhere on either side of the central doorway. We removed all traces of the blue nightmare. In it’s place a much lighter treatment of trois wallpaper (covering earlier damage and uneven character of the horsehair plaster wall). Kelly said “We’ll knock this out in a few hours Monday…as we were stripping the wallpaper last Sunday). Not exactly. The pipes for the radiator and the 10 cm for the upstairs potty and cold water pipe for the sink interviened. It took hours to do each corner of the room what with the damnable pipes and the doors to nowhere, we didn’t finish the papering until this morning…Sunday morning, a week later. We finished by papering each door panel, matching the pattern side to side and top to bottom. It looks good but boy, what a bunch of work it was! Now we get to tile the remaining areas around the sink with fine Italian 5X5 (inch) beige tile. It’ll be pretty and a damned sight better than the awful, depressing blue mess we started with.
Goodbye for now,
H