Episode 65- French living for beginners

renovation, restoration, forced relaxation…2014

I don’t want to relax, but we don’t have a choice right now.

Trevor is not in any state to Do It Himself so we nearly have a proper holiday. (I say nearly, things are never straightforward, or maybe that’s just us)

In fact, it felt like the  closest to a real taste of how life will be  here that we have had to date as usually we are busy working on the house -Not this time, we pottered.

As people ask me what we do with ourselves whilst we are here I have selected a photo of the village house that certainly sums up this year’s first French trip and what has been going on on this project to date.

NOTE 1)  The pile of paperbacks we have waded our way through during the last  XXX years of property renovation in the Aude.

2) The mobile phone charger which I forgot to take down to the Argeles sur Mer apartment  with us so I couldn’t contact anyone and they couldn’t contact me for two days. (Critical when your one-woman day job means that you have to be contactable at all times, even when you are on “holiday”)

3) My all singing all dancing smart phone which wasn’t smart enough to pick up  more than a few hours phone or internet reception  all week. Luckily there weren’t any major crises to avert that week.

4) One of my many uncompleted projects ( sewing panels of late 19th & early 20thc Jacobean style embroidery onto plain coloured  cushions)

5) Colour charts for shutters and house facade paint & finish  options- a source of even more dispute  than the contentious “where are we going to put the bath?”

If you zoom in you can see the layer of dust around my  made to measure corner sofa which is most expensive item in whole house so far and is getting repeatedly knocked about. Good job I favour a vintage look…………………. shabby chic living by default.

Left-detail of-  Jacobean tree of life embroidery. These are actually “antimacassers” – used for both protection and decorative purposes on the backs of armchairs and sofas and very popular between the early 19th century & the 1940’s.

These are frequently overlooked by vintage linen buyers as the positioning of the decorative bits restrict other obvious upcycling uses such as cushion covers.

But these are beautiful and have the perfect colours for the sitting room so I will sew a large panel to front of a chartreuse and a French blue/green cushion.