I got to the bottom! And, as promised here are my shiny gleaming with loving attention stairs. I'd be lying if I didn't admit that it was tedious, repetitive and grimy cleaning them up. It has taken me eight afternoons! But one of the things that I love about this house is that it just seems to sing when it is treated with love, kindness and a healthy firm dose of elbow grease. This is the next to last bit...there's still another bit behind me...but I'm so nearly there. Done and golden-ed handrails Higher up, looking down! From the top At the bottom! Today I rewashed all of the stair floors...next weeks job is to wax and polish all of the stairs and landings...I counted...60 stairs, 6 small landings and 4 large landings. That's going to take me a while as well!
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No really, really it's not...I am aware there is more life outside than exists within my walls...So next week Saturday 30th May is the first fete of the voie verte between Corniou/st Pons de Thomieres/Riols. Contacts: www.pays-saintponais.com andwww.parc-haut-languedoc.fr Lots and lots of stuff going on and a chance to discover this lovely walk route: http://www.pays-saintponais.com/index.php Now then, will I be able to leave the house renovation long enough to attend?...Of course I will and that is why it is taking me so long to do stuff here in the house...got to fete while you can!
The stairs are going to take a while. I am happy to report that they are going great and funnily I'm enjoying the drudge of the work. I'm not going to bore you with each little bit as I do it but I'm hoping to do a big 'reveal' around the end of this week. In the meantime I thought I'd share a couple of photos of the 'room that's really, nearly there...actually if I wasn't such a coward I'd declare it there. So here goes the first of my mythical chambre d'hote rooms: And from another angle:
I've just got back from a very rejuvinating weekend in Montpellier...When I have the photos I may share some of that but for now I'm back and feeling in a 'crack on' mood I was torn between painting, or...or ...or. Sometimes deciding the next thing to do is almost impossible...I need six of me...always. So eventually I decided not to paint but to start trying to shine up the iron work on the staircase. The iron work is very intricate and very very dusty it looks like this: Here's a close up: I'm not sure what the process should be...but my process was to hoover frantically while brushing with a little paint brush until the metal was dust free. Then I applied a very light coat of olive oil using an old paint brush (not single estate I hasten to add...just bog standard extra virgin) then I polished that off with a rag. This is how it looked afterwards:
This is my last floor to clean, I say that but there will always be floors to clean. This is the last floor in the house that hadn't been cleaned...shockingly I have lived in this house for 2yrs and 9 months and had never washed this floor. below are my new 'best friends' couldn't do it without them! , And below is my newly washed stone floor...took me four hours and went like this: shift crap, hoover, steam off paint blobs. wet a lot with 'savon noir' using mop, hoover up with wet and dry hoover...clean best friends!
I've been meaning to start this blog since the beginning of time or rather since I moved here so two years in reality. My how time flies! Yesterday I finally got a little camera, I've been trying to get round to that for two years as well. So now the plan is to document my life and adventures in this house and also what shall be known as 'the mythical chambre d'hotes' or the bonkers idea of a B&B and I really do question sometimes whether it will ever happen. I suppose some history of how we came to be here is in order. A little over two years looking for a new home and a new direction we walked through the doors of this house. I was only viewing it to discard it as an option. It had no garden and that I thought was that but it was big and it was cheap and it had been winking at me for the last ten years and every time it winked I said 'no I'm not interested you have no garden' As we walked in through the front door something happened. I've heard it said that decisions about houses are made in the first 60 or so seconds...and it was. 'Oh Oh' I say 'oh dear I think I'm going to like this' The house has two front doors or perhaps two back doors or even a front door and a back door I really can't figure out what is back or front. The door you see above I call the back front door although I think it is may be properly the front front door although the other front door is not the back door and is also most definitely a front door. It is confusing living here sometimes. With two front doors comes two addresses. I'll introduce you to the other front door later. We had tried peeking through the windows but I was hampered by a) shortness of stature b) ten years of grime on the windows and c)the fact that every shutter that could be shut was indeed shut. I'll show you some pictures of some of what we found however we didn't see what you see due to the fact that those pesky shutters were closed and as became very evident they were mostly closed because they were screwed shut to prevent them falling off so we pretty much viewed in the gloom and didn't see the house in daylight until the day we moved in. Then it was a slow process, removing the shutters one by one and hoping not to drop them on an innocent passer by This is the dining room and this is the oldest fireplace in the house The salon The kitchen The terrace The stairs The entrance to the kitchen from the terrace
So that's a taste of what we found and that was that we bought. Sometimes things are meant to be and then quite often it seems to me they run quite smoothly. From the day we moved in the house has felt like my home and loving it and caring for it seems to make it shine. It's not a massive house but with 300sqm of living space on three floors plus large attics and cellars it adds up and our taxes are very high, hence the idea to open the mythical chambre d'hotes a chance to share this lovely place with others who would enjoy it also and a chance for the house to earn it's keep. Right then enough history for now. Looking at my last post reminded me of the photos I took last night in the dining room. apologies though as having a camera doesn't guarantee quality photography. I don't really need the fire yet but some of the chimneys were swept last week and there's wood in the cave so heck why not! I definitely need to tidy the mantlepiece I think. It's the ninth of October today and the weather is still pretty damn lovely this was the terrace this afternoon. Note the cleverly placed bottle of pastis!
Really nearly! I might actually have to open the mythical chambre d'hote one day soon. I've finished the painting now and cleaned the floor. Here's a few before images... Poor room it had suffered really badly from a leak on the roof. It was just a slipped tile but it had completely destroyed the ceiling above and made a bit of a mess of the floor. So after lots of repairing and painting and floor scrubbing and polishing this is where I'm at. After all of that I treated myself to a sit on the bed and look at the view moment
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