Chez Mirabel

Today we decided to proceed with floor tiling and picked everything the local tile store had in stock (48 sq. meters, about 1/3 of what we need). I used the store’s truck, parked it on our Rue du Bourg and wheeled about 2 tons of stuff up to the Impasse des Fleurs & our front door. I think I’ll find some help when the remaining 2/3’s comes in!    

As a reward for that accomplishment, I took some time off and explored the hills above Mirabel — the hills we can see from our terrace which are golden with fall foliage right now. I found olive groves, apricot orchards, and vineyards overlooking our small valley, with the Baronnies in the background:   And I absolutely loved the alternating rows of grape vines and olive trees: 
– Rick

Chez Mirabel has a very interesting neighbor to the south: Jean-Philippe Richard, a world renown sculptor (http://www.richardsculpteur.com/atelier.htm). Next to our garage is his finishing studio, where Eric puts the finishing touches on his bronze castings. And one of his sculptures now graces our Impasse des Fleurs (our chez’s front door is in center of picture):

  I don’t know if it is apparent in these small images, but the piece is very appropriate … expectant like our project. Jean-Philippe and his girlfriend are also renovating their place and have invited us over as soon as they return from Paris …  can’t wait!

Today we traveled south to Avignon, and revisited the kitchen store where we all liked a model kitchen.  After 3 hours we emerged with the following design: 

We need to sleep on it for a few days before “pulling the trigger.” Fabrication will take about 2 months so someone will apparently be coming back around February to supervise the installation!

France closes down every day for lunch between noon and two, so we have to remember to run to our neighboring bakery in the morning to procure our sandwiches and a treat (we also have to remember to not do any other errands during those hours). For our lunch, we retire to our terrace for a lovely respite in the sun. Today we noticed that the apple sauce we bought also had something called “mirabelle” in it. We thought that maybe they were apricots and that our village was named after them. But, alas, they are apparently plums and therefore have no connection to Mirabel aux Baronnies 🙁

 (Alice is holding up the label)

From the bakery, Martha obtained an amazing pistachio mousse cake for my birthday … yummmmm! There is another bakery within meters of the chez, which seems just as busy. But “ours” has been so good that we haven’t yet ventured into the other one.

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.