Today Martha painted a first coat on about half of the living room ceiling. We are painting out the smaller wood slats and it is really lightening & simplifying that room’s look. And we have chosen a wall color (light, warm, sand) which we’ll apply much later, because …
Our furniture will be moved in on Tuesday. I know, it seems a little premature for that, doesn’t it? Well, the storage costs are pretty significant and storage conditions somewhat suspect. So, we think that we can store it all at the chez in spaces that are not going to be renovated — the living and dining rooms and in the garage. Hope that we right!
Yesterday Lynda went to work removing more of the bedroom wallpaper.
Dory & I spent most of the afternoon shopping for tile and tools. We found a fabulous tile store in Vaison la Romaine, 8 km away, which has a new owner who speaks excellent English. He graciously stepped in after listening to our communication struggles with one of his employees. We had lots of laughs, many around how 3 families jointly make renovation choices (we always get a wide-eyed look, followed by a small smile, when this fact emerges). In this case, lots of talk about “teams” and “team building experiences.” Well, “the team” may have found a floor tile that we will use throughout — on the entire bedroom & terrace levels and in the main floor’s bath. It is a 35cm square, terra-cotta color that we’ll lay on the bias.
Unfortunately we have also had some tile disappointments — on Day 6 we found that the existing main floor tiles are no longer available and then today we were even not able to find a close match that is thin enough (max. 1.5 mm) and at least 40cm in one dimension. So we are now scratching our heads on how to patch a 4″ width strip when the kitchen walls come out. Worst case, we’ll have to use smaller pieces and live with the resulting “patina.”
We finished the week with a dark & stormy drive to have aperitifs at Dick & Laura’s house in nearby Peigon. After some help from Dick, we finally found their house and spent a delightful couple (or was it a few?) hours enjoying their beautiful villa and company. Dick had visited Chez Mirabel earlier in the day and the two of us continued our discussion about the renovation’s whats and hows. I feel like we are very slowly coming up with a game plan (there’s that team analogy again). The biggest challenges seem to be that our project is too small to interest most craftsmen and to compound it we are going to be absent much of the time. We’ve made a lot of progress in a week, but it is scary to think that we only have 3 weeks left to come up with very detailed specs and a way for progress to be made in our absence. I am hopeful that we will make as much progress next week and will be well on our way to solutions.