Sorry for the lack of activity on the blog. The house is on the market and with people coming to visit it and there being not that many sites about Loudun, I do get worried about visitors googling the town and finding me complaining about some of the questions they ask. 

But I'll give a brief summary of how things are going so far. Obviously with the current financial climate, we are a tad nervous about the house not selling. We have already found our next renovation project and are anxious to get going on it. But of course, we can't exactly get up and leave without selling this house.

We've had on average 1.5 viewings a week. So far everyone who has come has loved the house (trust me, the French aren't quiet when they don't like a property they are viewing - they have no qualms about telling you that your paint colors are horrible etc). Our decoration seems to be hit, but people don't like the fact that there is no private parking. It's hard to respond to that because we've never had a problem with parking (there is always a space outside the door) and it's a small town with tiny roads, 90% of the houses don't have private parking. 

Top 10 Best Moments

In no particular order, here are my top 10 best renovation moments:

1. Passing the Consuel Inspection: this by far was one of our best days. To understand how great that day was you'll have to read my Top 10 Worst Moments, which includes finding out we had to apply for Consuel inspection. Not only did passing mean that we were one enormous step closer to moving in but it also meant that we didn't have to spend hundreds of more euros on reapplying for inspection.
   
   
2. Getting connected to the electricity mains: this one is fairly obvious. Not only did it go incredibly smoothly, but it got us to know the EDF staff who cover our area, which turned out to be really handy when we got cut off by accident and they came out in the pouring rain late in the day (for all you who don't have any experience with French service providers, anyone helping you passed 4:30pm is virtually impossible) because they remembered us as the crazy English/American couple with the baby and figured we really needed electricity to get through the night.
   
   
3. Working Plumbing: it's not that the plumbing was hard to tackle, it's just that plumbing is notoriously difficult to get right the first time, even for the most experienced plumbers.
   
   
4. Putting the kitchen floor down: As soon after endless discussions about what to do with the floors, how to restore the tiles, which way to put them down, etc, etc, we were pretty excited to see that a) we had enough to cover the floor and b) they looked great!
   
   
5. Exposing the living room beams: I wasn't actually here for this part. Alex had come in Novemeber when I was still in London so I didn't have the satisfaction of tearing down the plaster ceiling and discovering the beautiful beams underneath but for him it is definitely in his top 10 great moments.
   
   
6. When the winter ended: I can't quite explain this enough. In fact, this will best be understood when I post the Top 10 Worst. All I can say is that the day I didn't have to wear three layers of pajamas in bed, two duvets, three wool blankets, and a hot water bottle just to go to bed was a good day.
   
   
7. Getting the planning permission/declaration prealable: considering how minor work was that the application was trying to get permission for, this shouldn't really be on the list, but I'm adding it due to the stress it caused and therefore the relief that was felt by all when we got the letter telling us go ahead with the work. Our main concern was that because we are within 100 metres of an historical monument they would tell us it was a no go. I'd read horror stories about how specialized architects sometimes have to come to your house and inspect your 'relationship' to the monument etc. Also, it's hard to read all that when you know that most people just ignore the application and go ahead with the work anyway. So getting not only one, but TWO separate letters of confirmation felt great. It also gave me a huge boost in terms of feeling like I could now tackle even more complex French bureaucratic red tape. And if you can handle French red tape, you can handle just about any other type of paper work without developing an ulcer.
   
   
8. When the roof window didn't leak: see above. It all went according to plan. Perfect. Just perfect.
   
   
9. Putting down the garden deck: the garden was pretty much unusable before we got the decking down. You could stand out there, but the idea of sitting on a chair, trying to enjoy some wine in the summer sun was out of the question. Getting the deck down meant we could actually use the outdoor space and also meant I could finally start putting out the dozens of plants I had ready for it.
   
   
   
10. Moving in: enough said.
    

We have an agent coming on Saturday to give us an estimate on the house. It didn't exactly go well when I called to set it up. First I was put on hold for two minutes. Then I was asked for my husband's name, which of course immediately got my blood boiling. Then the agent didn't quite believe I was talking about the right house (because apparently I'm just a stupid woman who obviously doesn't have enough sense to know which house she is trying to sell...). OK, well actually I think the problem was that the agent didn't realize that this house had even been up for sale two years ago and was probably thinking that the house was still in the same condition it was when we bought it.

So we are now rushing around trying to get as much finishing work done before Saturday. The idea of getting an agent in this early is because we want to go on vacation with some good news. My in-laws came by the house this week and gave us their estimate (considering they have been renovating and selling houses for over 25 years, it was interesting to hear their opinion). Their estimate was about 20 grand more then we had estimated, which of course put a smile on our face. Anyway, the agent coming on Saturday was recommended by a friend. They felt that of all the agents they had in to estimate their house, he was the most accurate. We'll see how it goes.

In other news....Leroy Merlin stopped stocking Lavender Blue outside paint. In case you haven't been to France, bleu lavande is one of most popular colors in the country. I don't have statistics to back up that statement but it is everywhere. EVERYWHERE. They apparently have no intention of restocking it and I doubt that's true but we don't really have time to find out if they are lying or not. So we were forced to buy a different brand and of course the blue is slightly darker than the previous color, which means it's totally useless for touching up already painted things. Like the back door. Do you have any idea of how soul destroying it is to repaint a door almost the exact same color?

In another moment of frustration, the color that we bought to paint the flower detailing above the living room fireplace turned out to be horrible. So we're back to painting it white. It's not the end of the world. We just seem to have the worst luck in the world with paints.

Things not to burn..

So between buying a house in a foreign country, getting ready for labor, trying to wrap up the last weeks of office work, some things slipped my mind. One of them was finding out if we had ever received copies of the deeds of the house, which the notaire was supposed to sent to us a few weeks after the final signing. I didn't worry to much about it, well because I just didn't. A few months after moving here, calling the notaire got added to my to-do list and has been sitting at the bottom of it, giving me anxiety.

According to my brain, we had never received the deeds and it was going to be important for us to have them at some point...I asked Alex several times if he remembered ever receiving the deeds and he would sort of mumble a 'maybe, I don't know, perhaps, can't remember, let's worry about it later' answer. And eventually I would forget about it for a few weeks until something triggered it and then I would start looking at the to-do list and get heart burn.

Today Alex walked in holding rolled up pile of paper in his hand and big sheepish smile across spread across his face.

"I found this in the small stove."

I see that this rolled up tube of paper is actually the deeds to the house.

"You found the deeds to our house in the old stove? What the hell are you talking about it?!"

"The old stove! I found them in there."

I keep looking at him like he is insane.

"We hid them in there - don't you remember?" he says "When we were going on vacation?"

"Yeah, I think I would remember if I put our deeds in an OLD STOVE!"

"No, you were standing right there when we did it."

I look at him, sense that he doesn't really remember this either. "Do you remember putting them in there, Alex?"

"....sort of. Kind of. Maybe. Whatever."

"Weren't we thinking about selling that stove?"

"Yes."

I can't find a photo of the old stove at the moment, suffice to say that it's the last place anyone would look if they were snooping for our deeds on vacation and also the last place we would look if we were trying to remember where we had hid them.

More Garden Photos

Got the decking down, or what are actually called 'dalles'. We still have to finish putting up the back end of the garden (there is a 4 foot gap that needs fencing) and to the right of the door we need to also put up fencing. A bit more painting on the stairs and then we are done. DONE.

We sat out and had ice-cream and Alex almost fell asleep on the dalles. We are tired but happy. Also, my tomatoes finally started growing and the morning-glory I planted two weeks ago has started going nuts and I had to repot about 12 small plants.