renovation, restoration, anticipation-2009
In order to stay sane and remind myself that at the end of this project we will have the best village house in the Languedoc Roussillon, I need to keep a focus on my ever evolving vision for the finished article.
It is hard to do this when the renovation process is so slow, but if I see a piece of furniture that I know will work perfectly, I now buy it there and then as I have learnt to my cost that if you decide to go and think about it (or persuade your partner who isn’t keen) you 
will almost certainly lose out to someone more decisive.
Handy Hint- Don’t wait for approval, cosmic or otherwise ..if it is right, buy it! With what was formerly the kitchen/bedroom but is now the kitchen/diner still in dusty chaos, I spotted a beautiful buffet de cuisine in the big brocante just up the road in Alet-les- Bains.We paid for it and explained, as we did with the stove, that we couldn’t take delivery until the following year. This was not problem, indeed, see photo, the buffet was so buried under an elaborate display that half the shop would have had to be dismantled to retrieve it at that particular point.
The brocante is now a wine warehouse ( am I the kiss of death to businesses as well as paint shades?) but before it changed hands, we managed to arrange for delivery of the buffet . The base is now in the cave. As of now it is covered in tools and sawdust and has an eight foot awning balanced on it.
The top cupboard IS in the dining area, but we are storing dust sheets and tea towels in it (interesting juxtapositon but fairly typical of the way we are obliged to live in the house) and on top is our collection of vintage and modern light fittings ready for installation by our new electrician.
My second thing of beauty is a small hand painted dressing table that I bid frantically for on ebay but lost at the last minute to a buyer who obviously had one of those clever bidding apps/programmes. However it was clearly meant to be mine as they didn’t pay, so the seller offered me the option of purchase.
I was committed with work so, as Trevor was roughly in the right area for collection (i.e. we live in the Midlands but he was working somewhere in the South East!) I sent him off to collect it.
The following week I found an enamelled pewter mirror on ebay. Obviously the world was asleep and missed this gem, which I paid peanuts for and was obviously hand made at the turn of the 19th century, this and the dressing table set the feel of the terrace bedroom beautifully.
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