CANNOT WAIT UNTIL JULY

We will be back in France on the 9th of July, woop woop i soooo cannot wait.
I have a long list made up and would you believe my suitcase is nearly packed already.
I am hoping to get Rebecca's room finished as we left it in such a mess last time ,she will have to sleep downstairs until it is done,and also put the final coat of paint on staircase.
Myself and Rebecca are going out in the car for a few days while billy finishes those jobs.
So watch out everyone i will be unleashed on the roads on my own ( wee bit scared but not telling billy hee hee) he will only come with us then nothing will be done in the house.
Anyways i deserve girly time with my daughter as it has been a long stretch with her at uni..so off we shall toot to poitiers for some shopping.
I hope the sun will be out so should have more to update after then.

TWO DOWN ONE TO GO

I wont be looking like this on our staircase thats for sure.

Another unfinished job from December.

We did manage to get two coats of white paint on but as it was sooo cold the paint just wasn't drying well so we had to leave that job as well.The pipe that you see in the picture is our bathroom waste pipe which would you believe comes down the landing and through the front room to the outside drain.

So sightly but in between the paint drying Billy has made a wooden cover for it which has to be fitted on and painted when the walls are all finished ,so you wont be able to see it.

I am going to get a nice big long mirror for the wall beside it to create an illusion of more space ,well that's what i hope it will do,somehow i don't think it will its s small.

Better remember to not look at it first thing in the orning or ill scare myself before i have my morning must have fix of caffeine lol.

So really a day will finish all the painting and wood put up when the weather is warmer in the summer,it actually looks worse than it is,all the doors are glossed so that's them out of the way at least.

Then it will be a good wash down of the wood and then it will be much more presentable.

This room is the back bedroom which is the room that you can access the loft from.
This will be my daughters room when she stays ,the room Windows are very small but kind of cute ,the shutters are dark brown on both sides so until we sort out painting of outside i will just paint he inside of them white to brighten the room up when they are closed.
I so love closing the shutters in the house at night much nicer than pulling curtains.
When we were over in December Billy stripped all the wallpaper off and i must say it looked better with the wallpaper on lol.

Below is Billy hard at work and doesn't the room look filthy and I'm also ashamed to say we left it looking like this.
We ran out of time and just couldn't get anymore done.
PS Billy has asked me to point out that the grey in his hair is from all the dust. NOT HA HA.
He is much older than me ,well by ten years so I'm quite pleased to say that the dust doesn't affect me like that hee hee.
Oh i am awful aren't I.

PAINT IN FRANCE IS EXPENSIVE

The french own makes of paint are like water,four coats later and you can still not see much difference.
So we bought Dulux 80 euros for this little lot ,we nearly died when we seen the price.
Of course with sterling being at an awful rate against the Euro it worked out at about £75.
Well worth the extra in time alone as you would be there for days with french paint but why so flippin dear .
Does anyone know how i get rid of the underlines in this and my last post, im confused how did they get there.

A LOVE HATE RELATIONSHIP WITH STAIRCASE

Before photographs
I love the staircase but also hate it,does that make sense,
WHY I LOVE IT
1 Its quirky.
2 It has another small door to enter into it,
3 The treads on staircase are nice, all proper wood
WHY I HATE IT
1 Its tiny
2 Its a bit dark
3 The corner you turn to go up i always feel I have to duck my head but I don't,but then I'm just a shortie 5ft tall,notice old measurements there ,I still work in feet and inches ,shame on me.
WOOPS going on a bit there
4 Part of the landing was taken up for the bathroom.
Note to self do not complain Andrea you need a bathroom unless I want to go out back and see if our well has any water noooo.
Oh and how could forget to add to my hate list, THE WALLPAPER
So when we went in December first on our list was to get the wallpaper off ,two days later with both of us working with an electric wallpaper steamer finally we got it all off.
It must have been super glued on ,never have we had such trouble taking wallpaper off.
Then a full day of me sanding it all down then the cleaning up I was wrecked at the end .

HERE ARE SOME AFTER PHOTOS WHEN WE HAD FINISHED ALL THE SANDING

After all that work I think its safe to say I'm leaning towards the hate side of the staircase.
We did finally get two coats of white paint on all the walls but more on that in the next post.

THINKING OF OPENING A LITTLE BLOG SHOP

I WAS THINKING OF OPENING A LITTLE BLOG SHOP SELLING MAYBE SOME THRIFTY FINDS, BOOKS AND MAYBE EVEN SOME THINGS FROM FRANCE , IF I FIND ANY OF COURSE.
NOTHING TOO EXPENSIVE.
I WAS JUST TRYING TO THINK OF A WAY TO PASS THE AFTERNOONS SO I DONT DWELL ON MISSING MY DAUGHTER TOO MUCH DURING UNIVERSITY MONTHS.
I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR YOUR COMMENTS AS TO IT BEING A GOOD IDEA OR NOT .
LOOK FORWARD TO HEARING FROM YOU

MY FIRST AWARD

I have won an award from the lovely Vintage Kitten Blog,I'm so pleased to get it thank you very much Vintage Kitten.
Have a nice weekend fellow bloggers.

WINE AND KNITTING DO NOT GO TOGETHER

As we dident have a tv or dvd player in the house i decided to entertain myself

I opened a bottle of wine and got out the wool and knitting needles ,i had decided i was going to knit squares for a blanket for our bed.

So i casted on the stitches and left quite a long piece of wool for the sewing up of the blanket at the end ,poured myself a generous glass of wine and proceeded to knit.

Now i really don't drink that much alcohol I'm always the driver when we go out so the wine kinda went to my head a little bit.

And what had i done silly me id only gone and knitted the sewing up wool instead of the ball, so as I was quite tipsy i found it rather funny and proceeded to phone my daughter in Aberdeen and tell her all about it ,she knows i don't drink really so she did see the funny side ,you know what teenagers are like sometimes they don't see the funny side of their parents.

So after about fifteen minutes wittering on complete rubbish to her i found my partner had ripped it all out and cast all the stitches back on for me.

He is a great knitter would you believe ,he knits lovely Aran jumpers for himself i couldn't believe it when i met him and he told me he could knit.

I thought yeah yeah its probably rubbish knitting,but what a shock i got when i seen his knitting he is always correcting my mistakes in my knitting.

So at least with us both knitting squares the blanket will be finished sooner.

LOFT ROOM

These are photos of the loft room that we intend to convert in to an ensuite bedroom bathroom,the small door photo leads from the back bedroom into the loft

We hopefully intend to have the ensuite bathroom sharing with the two bedrooms.

I call the door my Alice in Wonderland door as it is quite small and cute, we were wondering could we make the entrance door larger which would mean taking down the bedroom ceiling to see if it can give us any more height,but that's a big job at the moment so maybe i can get billy to go into the loft and see what he can find out from above,hopefully he can fit through the space ,cos I'm definitely not getting up there you never know what you will come across .

Its really weird as our trap door to the loft is above the toilet which makes me think the bathroom has been added to a space on the landing, it is quite small but we think we can rearrange it and have that also as an en suite for the front bedroom ,no hurry anyway at least it all works which we are very glad off at the moment.

The first photo is off the door that leads out to the side pathway although there is no steps there at the moment ,this is the one the baker used to come up with his flour to empty down the chute.

FRONT BEDROOM

We have got rid of the horrible blue flowery wallpaper, sorry vintage kitten i know you liked it but it was sooo filthy.
My partner painted the bedroom all white to brighten it up for now

There is quite a few holes in the wall still to fill in from where the old electric plugs where but we just didn't get the time to finish them off.
The front bedroom is really just a single room but until we get the money saved to do up the other room which is in quite a state we have to use this room.
So after the painting in comes Mrs mop that's me with bowls of hot soapy water and after nearly two hours of being down on my hands and knees scrubbing the floor then setting up the bed ,with partners help of course with the bed here is a photo of how far we got on.

I'm quite pleased with the result much cleaner and brighter.
There is still the window to sand and paint and a few touch ups of white but the house was so cold in December the paint took so long to dry but we will finish those jobs in May and hopefully get a few girly bits and pieces for the room.

Around by the window there was water which wouldn't cover up with the paint so we need to repaint with a oil based paint to get rid of the stain and then refill a piece of the window where the water was getting in.

RUSTY HEATER

Well this is the biggest heater we had ,soooo not pretty to look at lol but we were so glad of it , it gave out great heat it was also very noisy.

It was in the house when we bought it and as at the moment we are on a tight budget so tight it squeaks lol we kept it.

We kept this on all day downstairs we were warm enough down there until you moved in to other rooms without heaters then you froze.

We got a quote for oil heating which was over 7000 euros and to be honest we would rather have all the work we want to do first done and then get it in,soooo just summer visits.

Awh ill miss going but it will give us more money for the work rather than paying car hire flights etc

DEFROSTING

Well i am back and as the title says I'm defrosting,we were freezing it was soooo cold in the house ,i really don't think ill go back again in the winter.
I ha vent heated up all week i took the flu on the Wednesday and shivered and coughed and I'm back and still don't feel well.
I never slept at all on the Wednesday night and the church clock chimes on the hour and also on the half hour i heard every dong the whole night long,i thought i was gonna go mad.
I do have trouble with sore legs and feet quite a lot and all my muscles in one leg cramped so bad that i cried most of Thursday morning with the pain.
So paracetamol, muscle rub and cough bottle was the order for the rest off the week instead of paintbrushes and paint for me.
I did help up to Wednesday so i will put up some photos during the week ,I'm watching x factor then off to bed i know i should be supporting Owen from northern Ireland but i really really want Alexandre to win.

OFF TO FRANCE TOMORROW

WELL WE ARE OFF TO FRANCE TOMORROW FOR A WEEK.
I'M SO EXCITED I HOPE IT IS NOT TOO COLD AS WE HAVE NO HEATING IN THE HOUSE.
WE DO HAVE PORTABLE ELECTRIC HEATERS ,TWO SMALL ONES ONE FOR EACH OF THE BEDROOMS AND A REALLY UGLY OIL FILLED ELECTRIC RADIATOR,ITS ALL RUSTY BUT IT WORKS AND I'M SURE WE WILL BE GLAD OF IT.
WE ARE PLANNING ON STRIPPING WALLPAPER OFF THE TWO BEDROOMS AND THE STAIRCASE AND PAINTING THEM ALL WHITE FOR NOW.
OF COURSE I ALSO WANT TO GO OUT TO POITIER'S AND MAYBE A DAY TRIP TO BORDEAUX WE SHALL SEE HOW WE GET ON.
THE CHRISTMAS MARKETS ARE ON IN POITIER'S AND THERE IS ALSO AN ICE RINK,I JUST MIGHT HAVE A GO AT ICE SKATING.
I LOVE SHOPPING IN POITIER'S THE SHOPS ARE GREAT SO I'M HOPING TO FIND SOME BITS AND PIECES FOR MY DAUGHTERS CHRISTMAS STOCKING.
I HAVE A NEW CAMERA SO WILL BE TAKING PLENTY OF PHOTOS.
I WILL BE BLOGGING AS SOON AS I GET BACK
AUREVOIR

KITCHEN UPDATE

The kitchen door leads out on to a small back yard which has an outdoor sink, i think that will come in handy for washing out all our paintbrushes etc.
From the yard there is a pathway which is quite narrow passing the well and a outhouse down to a gate which then leads onto the side garden.
The door in the kitchen photo outside in the yard is the back door into the bread oven room.
I believe it is hard in France to get a house with your garden attached,sometimes peoples gardens are a bit away from their house so i suppose we are quite lucky in a way.
Unless of course if you are lucky enough to have a bigger budget than us and then you can get an old farmhouse with lots of land all around but we are happy enough just to have our little piece of France.
Even though i love Northern Ireland and there is such lovely places to go and see i feel so much more at home when we land in France .
Roll on Saturday i cant wait ..

I HAVE BEEN TAGGED

I have been tagged to reveal six things my readers dont know about me by Middle way.
1 I am a smoker trying to give it up though its hard.
2 I am a twin i have a twin brother who is half an hour older than me.
3 I love readng.
4 I love to travel whenever i can get cheap flights.
5 I love gardening.
6 I am addicted to the internet

BEFORE PHOTO OF KITCHEN

Well not much of a ktchen here but this was how it looked when we bought it,we have done some changes to it when we were over in july i just wanted to post the before ones first.
Second post today im being really busy today as my daughter was home for the weekend from aberdeen uni and i have just left her back at airport to go back to uni,tears all round but at least ill see her in three weeks for christmas .
The so called kitchen dosent have a kitchen really just a few sheves and sink it really looks sad dosent it .
Click on pcture to see it better.

FLOUR CHUTE

This is the flour chute in the room above the bread oven.
There originally was outside steps up to the door of this room where the baker used to go up and throw the flour down the chute to arrive in the bread oven room.
The outside steps aren't there anymore so in a few years time we are hoping to extend the kitchen out the back so that this room will all be part of the inside of the house.
You can also reach the room from the inside of the house from the back bedroom but would make much more sense to have an entrance from the kitchen end to make the downstairs bigger also.
We really haven't decided what the room will be yet probably an en suite bedroom and then enlarge the back bedroom too as the room is very large .
As you look up from the bread oven room to the chute it stll has an old flour sack tied onto to the bottom we are going to keep the chute there as it adds a bit of interest i think.

Chauvigny

This is a beautiful restaurant in chauvigny about 40 minutes drive from our house.
It is situated up high in the grounds of a medieval area, so beautiful they do a eagle display here.
We had the most gorgeous crepes here and we just love to walk around this area.
The man in the top right window is a dummy ,while i was outside looking up at first i thought he was real silly me.

Bread Oven

Our house used to be a bakery so this is the bread oven room.
It still works although we haven't tried it out yet but i think I'm gonna try out making a pizza when we are there.
The room it is in really needs a good paint and a new floor put down also a good clean up of the bread oven brickwork and some welding done to the bread oven doors as one of the hinges is broken.
The photograph actually looks worse than it really is.

Woop Woop we are going to France again

I'm so excited we are going to France again on 6th December for a week i cant wait.
My partner is gong to work I'm gong to be lazy and supervise ha ha.
Just jesting i will be helping .
We got cheap easy jet flights 82pds return from Belfast then we will drive down from Paris.It will take 5hours from Paris but i treat it like an adventure lol you can tell i don't get out much by that comment.
We just take our time and stop at the air es for plenty of coffee breaks.
The dreaded periphique is what i hate its so nerve wracking driving on it ,once we clear it i breathe a sigh of sheer relief and i am then able to relax.
All my partner gets from me when on periphique is be careful be careful im like a parrot.
Sometimes he passes a few comments to me, not printable lol cos i keep saying it but he knows im just worried
So i hope to have some more new photos then.

LOTS OF WORK TO BE DONE TO THIS HOUSE

This house isn't the prettiest in the street ,its a small terraced House with lots of hard work to be done.
We eventually want to live in France in the next 5 years or so so we are trying our best on a small budget to make it into a nice home.
This is the front bedroom.
The paper has to go along with the old wardrobe ,the wooden floor is in very good condition I'm glad to say.











The most horrible and filthy bathroom ,yuck I'm sorry to say we cant afford to change the sanitary ware so in the meantime its get the marigolds out with buckets of bleach and scrubbing brushes.

Its as well i like cleaning .

BUYING A LAWNMOWER AND PICTURES OF GARDEN

Well we had to go and buy a lawnmower and of course my partner and i cant speak french,although we are trying .
Just as well we had my daughter with us to translate,she is studying English and french at Aberdeen University this is now her second year.
I really miss her but it will be worth it in the end .
We went to the local supermarket called Hyper U in Montmorillon to buy the lawnmower, a great place to shop it has everything you need just like a Tesco supermarket.
And of we went to cut the grass as it had not been cut for 8 months, boy was it long,it took my partner nearly two hours.
This is the side garden that Billy is cutting.

After the grass was cut we brought the car and parked it at the side as there is not much room to park outside the front .
We will have to organise a proper parking area in the garden but to be honest that's the last thing we will be doing as there is so much work to do inside .
We are also on a very tight budget so its mend and make do in this house for a few years.





This is the well just across from the outbuilding.








This is the pathway from side garden leadng to the back of the house very overgrown here .

Second visit to moulismes house

Our second visit to the house was in july 2007 we decided to make it a weeks holiday and explore the area .

As we did not have any beds pots and pans etc in the house and given as my daughter Rebecca was coming with us we decided to rent a gite in montmorillon for the week.
Before we went i organised a visit from an electrician based in our area to give us a price for doing the electrical work.

I found him online at http://www.artisan-anglais.com/.

The gite was really lovely comfortable and spotless .

My daughter Rebecca outside the gite aka my little Irish munchkin lol.

Rebecca and my partner Billy at the lake in the grounds of the gite

this was full of fish which we fed every day.

Montmorillon is a beautiful town about ten minutes drive from our house.

This is the macaroon museum in Montmorillon.

BUYING A HOUSE IN MOULISMES FRANCE

FROM WHEN MY PARTNER AND I WENT ON A LONG WEEKEND TO PARIS WE FELL IN LOVE WITH EVERYTHING FRENCH AND DREAMED OF BUYING A HOUSE .
IT TOOK NEARLY FIVE YEARS FOR THAT DREAM TO BECOME A REALITY
WE SEARCHED THE INTERNET FOR MONTHS LOOKING FOR A HOUSE TO RENOVATE AND WE FOUND A HOUSE WITHIN OUR BUDGET.
WE TOOK A HUGE RISK AND WITHOUT EVEN VIEWING IT WE PUT IN AN OFFER,WE COULDENT BELIEVE IT WHEN THE OFFER WAS ACCEPTED AND THEN THOUGHT "OH MY WORD DID WE REALLY JUST DO THAT"SO,TELEPHONE CALLS WITH AGENCY PRINCE NOIR IN LUSSAC LES CHATEAU TOOK PLACE AND ALL THE PAPERWORK WAS DONE BY POST,WE WERE FINALLY GOING TO SIGN AND VIEW THE HOUSE.
THAT WAS IN NOVEMBER 2006,WE BOOKED TO STAY IN HOTEL DE FRANCE IN MONTMORILLON.
WE WENT TO THE BANK TO OPEN OUR FRENCH BANK ACCOUNT WITH LAURA FROM THE ESTATE AGENT WHO ACTED AS OUR TRANSLATOR AND AGAIN AT THE NOTARIES OFFICE.
THEN ON TO VIEW THE HOUSE FOR THE FIRST TIME.
WE WERE REALLY NERVOUS AS TO WHAT WE WOULD THINK OF IT .
BUT IT LOOKED EXACTLY AS IT DID ON THE WEBSITE ,IT WAS EVEN BETTER AS WE DID NOT REALISE WE HAD A MUCH BIGGER GARDEN .
WE WERE VERY PLEASED
THE PREVIOUS OWNERS SON INVITED US TO HIS HOUSE AND WE HAD COFFEE WITH THEM ,THEY HAD A BEAUTIFUL HOME .
WE THEN WENT SHOPPING IN MONTMORILLON AND THE NEXT DAY DROVE BACK TO PARIS FOR OUR FLIGHT HOME TO BELFAST