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Rosie’sFrenchAdventuresandIrish Shenanigans.com

~ Letting ‘Life’ show me the way.

Rosie’sFrenchAdventuresandIrish Shenanigans.com

Tag Archives: renovations

Absence makes the heart grow fonder

01 Monday Jun 2020

Posted by RosieJoseph in Change is a coming, new adventures, New Paths, renovations, The adventures of living life in the French countryside, The continuing adventure

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

birdsong, counting your blessings, French Countryside, here and now, home, Peace, peacfulness, renovations, Rolling hills, taking nothing for granted, White French kitchens, white kitchens

When I first got home the peacefulness of where we live came over me like a wave. It was not lost on me how blessed we are to live here. The birdsong that surrounds us, and the rolling hills.

Then I walked into the kitchen and saw all the hard work that RD had done painting the whole kitchen white (five coats on the ceiling! One of RD’s characteristics is tenacity, no doubting that!) what hit me was the size of my kitchen. I had not realised it was that big!

I love my home, but I have learnt that home is wherever you make it. So enjoying where I am right now, and counting my blessings in the here and now.

More to come ….

Rosie

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There is nothing wrong with a little vignette…

13 Wednesday Nov 2019

Posted by RosieJoseph in Dream, My home, renovations, The continuing adventure

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

celestial, Change, Changes, cherubs, Contentment, counting your blessings, French vintage, French vintage mirrors, hand painted, heavenly, painted furniture, renovations, rustic furniture, Simple things, stars, Stars and hearts, vignettes, vintage, vintage mirrors

I wrote a few weeks ago about how we were moving bedrooms and after RD did his stuff, I am still working on it until completed, as RD has been understandingly busy fighting with trees!

Not content with painting the floor and the walls, I decided to paint the furniture as well! The mirror in the above picture has been hand painted with small silver ribbons and flowers.

The mirrors have all been painted, but the door and other things need to be finished, not least this beast…

Three weeks in, 2 coats of undercoat, 2 coats of acrylic, stain bleed, and

we are ready for chalk paint. I still have the mirror to do. Add to that this grey shelf

Even the BLISS is having a makeover.

So not finished yet, but it has a celestial theme, with home made stars, angels, and vintage French lights, and vintage French mirrors. Just a few vignettes for now….

More to come…

Rosie

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Changes: Not least how much I change my mind. More renovations.

27 Sunday Oct 2019

Posted by RosieJoseph in My home, renovations, Simple things, The adventures of living life in the French countryside, The continuing adventure

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

bedrooms, beds, Change, chaos, counting your blessings, decorating, don’t wait, ghost visitors, ghosts, living in the here and now, nothing goes to plan, painted floors, painted furniture, renovations, trying something new, working hard, worn floors

Way back in 2016 I shared with you the renovations to our bedroom (I cannot believe that was three years ago!)

We chose that particular bedroom from the two because according to the house details it was marginally bigger. But what we hadn’t taken into account was the chimney breast that was in the room, and just how much space it and the small alcove that it left at the end of the room, took up.

We made the bedroom our sanctuary and I renovated all of the furniture, and it was a sanctuary for us.

But over the past year we have started to question whether the other room was bigger, and why we were not using it for us. You see this year has been the first year that we have not had visitors (although that may change at Christmas) and it has allowed us time to think about our home and how we should be making it work for us, and not for ghost people of the future, who may or may not come out to visit for a few weeks of the year. Why do we all do that? Consider if we have seating for perceived visitors in the future when in fact we should be living in the hear and now?

Spurred on we measured the chimney breast and alcolve and worked out that in fact we were losing two square meters from our bedroom, we were sleeping in the smallest bedroom! So we decided to take action and lose the double bed in our spare room, that took up so much room, waiting for someone to sleep in it! Madness!!

We have a day bed that we use as a seat as well, mainly when I am writing and RD comes up to chat. We also have the old mattress available for anyone who visits in the future, but we cannot live our lives waiting, we have to live with here and now.

You may remember that I shared a blog showing how our spare bedroom went from this

To this..

I loved it, I wrote my book, and started my blog in that room, but it is a much bugger room, and we needed to utilise it. So last Saturday we got stuck in: RD had a week off until he starts a new job, and the plan was to work on the house and the logs in the garden. To start with we dismantled all the beds, and realised over the next three days that we are now too old to sleep on the floor even with a mattress! And in no time at all our pretty spare bedroom looked like this

It was necessary you see because, being people who don’t do things by halves, we decided to paint what would be our new bedroom floor, so everything was stacked in what was our bedroom and we slept on the living room floor. Imagine us, wrestling a kingsize mattress down our narrow, curvy French stairs, with the sole intention of throwing it away afterwards. Then we changed our minds and had to wrestle it back up the stairs, which was even harder without the assistance of gravity! Fighting a big bendy mattress, which nearly won, was immense fun (not). But I do think changing my mind, and accepting change is probably something that keeps me alive.

Although we like to keep Sunday’s free last Sunday RD painted the floor, and I managed to give it a coat of varnish. We wanted it to look old, not pristine, to look worn as if the paint had been walked on and worn over the years. I think we succeeded….

RD also painted three of the walls white, and the plan was to give a final varnish on Monday, and the final coats of white to three of the walls.

But as always best plans always change the cesspit took a whole day (they finally finished in the dark at 7.30pm!) and despite my best efforts in varnishing the floor a second time, whilst running up and down the stairs to mop up poo water and bleach my floors, we slept on our mattress on the newly painted floor that night. R D wanted to put the bed together, but he was exhausted and I wouldn’t let him.

One of the things we have realised (I have realised) was that I was trying in some ways to recreate our old home in England, when in fact I need to embrace this home as something new. It has only taken me four years! So as Tuesday came we but our bed back up, and we gave the walls another coat of white. I have never had a predominately white scheme, so have decided to go for it, and do something we have never done before. So all of the furniture in our new room (which feels huge in comparison) is going to be painted white, and one wall has remained blue.We have new furniture in situ (look out for another post) but all of it will be painted white and there is a lot of work for me to do next week.

All will be revealed, but for now here is a glimpse of what’s to come, with my French vintage lights and mirrors in place (but only half painted!)

I can tell you though that on Tuesday night, as I lay in my bed, I gave thanks that I am blessed to have a bed; and it reminded me of a quote from Mark Nepo, in the book of awakening

‘We all walk around within the numbness of our habits and routines so often that we take the marvels of ordinary life for granted.’

Trust me, having a bed to sleep on is one of them.

More to come.

Rosie

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Homage to the 100 year old door, time to say goodbye.

07 Saturday Apr 2018

Posted by RosieJoseph in My home, The continuing adventure

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

french renovation, howling winds, oak doors, old doors, renovations, upvc doors, wind and rain

One of the first jobs I undertook when we moved in was to paint our old oak door before the winter kicked in.

Little did we know just how much the winter would kick in, and how much the howling wind would hurl the rain, and sleet at this old door. We love old things you see, believe that that they are a memory of times gone by, of good workmanship, and that they should be protected where possible.

So I tried to strip the door only to find it was an impossible task because it had been painted with destemper, a paint that has such a high content of lead in it you simply cannot shift it. Undeterred I managed to paint the door in the beautiful blue it is today.

But sadly the door could not protect us and as the last three winters have taken their toll the oak has split, the rain has seeped through, the door sticks, the handle falls off and cannot be repaired, and quite simply it would would be easy to break in, with just one kick.

As you can see the mold has taken hold, the water actually comes through and we have to use the handle Rich attached to pull,the door shut. But our biggest worry was that someone could steal our precious dogs,

and we decided that the door had to go.

So here she is, on her final day of protecting the house for over a hundred years.

It is time for it to retire, and we have to be pragmatic and fit a double glazed, upvc door to protect us from the wind and rain. In addition I cannot wait to put a mat down so that we can wipe our feet.

I am sad, but in the words of George Benson ‘everything must change’.

Moisy

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