A hamlet in Verovres.
Is it warming up there….because I am working there next week.
I was there a month back and it was 4 degrees in the house. I’m a tough cookie but that was too cold for me. I lasted 24 hours.
All but one of my bedrooms and bathrooms are on the ground floor, my house is anything from 400odd to a century old depending on which part you look at, with a bit of major tweaking 24 years ago by me. I like my thick stone walls and put in a PAC which runs underfloor heating which I love.
1 Like
Thick stones walls are great because they heat up up in the summer and retain their heat which lasts to December keeping the house warm. But they also cool you at the same time during the summer. Well certainly in our case.
How that works…I have no idea but they certainly built houses in those days better than they do today.
Bedrooms on ground level today is a must. It is essential for new buyer in France.
1 Like
The rooms/corridors etc which aren’t stone or tiled white chez moi are red, orange, terracotta, apple green, sky blue, yellow, bright pink, apricot yoghurt (what the daughter showed the painter when he asked what colour she wanted her room), and various shades of off-white.
3 Likes
There is quite a difference between painting and furnishing to please only the current owner/s, and furnishing to appeal to many people when wanting to sell.
Colours are subjective and neutral colours, of which grey is one, can put off less viewers. I’m not saying it is right or good that not many people have joyous artistic souls but it is what it is.
Perhaps, in the same way someone would dress for a prestigious job interview. Bend like the bamboo! As a wise old man said.
It is a beautiful day and we have the windows open watching Boris Johnson trying to defend himself from an obviously hostile Committee.
1 Like
Well at least you have something good going on down there. 
Hot down here too, only teeshirts today outside
But yours is neither in the SW, nor a recently created gîte. I am basically referring to the wave of Brexit escapees around 2016 - 2020, who rushed over here
Brexit refugees!
We are two of these. 2020 Sold up lock stock and smoking barrel in UK and decamped in the middle of a pandemic with two forty foot container loads to our maison secondaire location. Then we bought a new house. We would have done the whole thing in 2016 but decided to await the detailed agreement.
I’m pretty sure our Provencal farmhouse doesn’t look remotely British. Outside nor in. But it is spotlessly clean and there are some industrious spiders who keep making it back in from the garden, so I do have a daily dance with a feather flip.
1 Like
What no Union Jack cushion? Ikea capital letters spelling “home”? Fuzzy bed throws on bottom half of bed?
And you can still keep your passport?
2 Likes
I’ll get an aspidistra.
I’m a bit concerned about my passport, having sent it off for a new one this week. Fingers crossed.
1 Like
If you don’t already know it, you might enjoy Abitare, it’s been my favourite for over thirty years and from time to time I pick up their lovely annuals discounted or s/h . Dezeen’s free daily news letter is good too if you’re interested in contemporary (one of its bonuses is the comments section where mainly architects from around the world praise of diss individual featured designs).
1 Like
I think greys work much better in the UK than say in the tropics (eg Turner and Whistler). When sunlight’s really bright you don’t see those subtleties. Love pairings of tertiary complementary greys - for those who don’t know the term, it’s when you mix together three pure primaries to get really complex, subtle greys - used to teach this it a lot in Visual Studies with first year art students - these greys are so much richer than straight black white mixes and paintings done in this way always look sophisticated even if the drawing’s crap!
Unfortunately, in France that sort of thing went out with Monet and you’re unlikely to encounter any of it in the third generation self-taught Figuration Libre pastiche artists who are so popular around here. In case you haven’t twigged, I do have a problem with that stuff…,
This morning we did a 3 hour 12km walk in the forests high above the Lot Valley in T-shirt, shorts and trekking sandals, followed by a picnic with friends down on the river bank - It’s the sort of thing one can read about in the UK press as part of some idyllic holiday feature, but it’s our normal life - wonderful!
Also Spring is sprung and after five hours in the sun, I’ve got have brown ankles to complement newly re-soled Italian suede loafers for when I next go into bourgeois Figeac…
Life’s simple pleasures…
2 Likes
A contentious point, super efficient houses need very little heating is there a carbon neutral old stone house? Yes thermal mass smooths out peaks and troughs. Insulated thermal mass even better and air tightness should be part of the std EPC as badly fitted insulation does nothing.
I think I have the hawk eye, of course OTOH will never know what’s been overlooked, but I can walk past dozens of brocante and vide grenier stalls without pausing and then stop dead at something. In the past year bargains found in this way include a luxurious ankle length Uomo cashmere overcoat for €10 (only wear it in Toulouse or Paris), a Le Creuset orange pan and lid (unused) for the same price and a seemingly brand new Staub non-enamelled cast iron casserole for the same price. Also got an Avirex bikers’ jacket for OH for a few euros, but she won’t wear it cos ‘it’s too heavy’.
Do miss The South African flea and markets where one could get all sorts of bargains.
However, we also have small bronze statue that I snatched (very slowly so as not to give anything awayI that I thought was a Gaston Lachaise ### Gaston Lachaise - Wikipedia
sadly it turned out to be a post-War American pastiche that had been cast in Paris.
Returning to the upside, a couple of friends have just given us a very high quality 1980’s Dutch designer leather couch that they inherited, but don’t have room for (they’ve got two of the same already) .In order to make room for it, we’ve given another couple of friends a pair of English Art Deco mahogany and cane bergère armchairs that I bought at an auction in 1983 and now need a bit of restoration.
Much more fun building an interior over the decades and different countries rather than doing some TV inspired makeover
3 Likes
I am exactly the same. Kudos on your ace finds! I love too that you ‘recycle’ amongst friends.
My dear late uncle, and was French but long time lived in Hong Kong, was an absolute magician finding discarded things and having them restored into gems. He was the best person to fossick with because of his patience and his eye. The only way we argued was because I was happy to pay the asking price and he was more of te ‘bargaining is a sport’ sort. I miss him still.
1 Like