The House That Fought Back!

I love our new house in Cognac but this last week it has been testing my patience.  I often think of old houses as having rather quirky and sometimes temperamental personalities and this one is obviously no exception.  I think it's fair to say the honeymoon period is well and truly over and that it's time to get going with the renovations in earnest.  

The first "incident" occurred on Christmas Eve at about 9.30pm while we were enjoying a yummy supper lovingly cooked by my chef husband, Spike.   The slightly dodgy table centre that I had cobbled together with the trimmings from the Christmas tree and some bay branches from the yard was lit (thankfully Spike bought some red roses which improved my rather bedraggled offering).  We had the radio playing in the background and were feeling very smug that we had managed such a nice meal considering our limited kitchen facilities.

My woefully inadequate table centre

We were half way through the meal when the power box by the front door started making some terrible knocking noises so we rushed around the house turning off the computer and other electrical appliances before shutting down the power completely.  With torches in hand and thankfully candles already lit (being Christmas) we went around the house unplugging everything and turning off the switches of the numerous ancient Bakelite junction boxes that are to be found dotted liberally around the house.  Spike then tried to turn the power back on... nothing!

From a mobile phone we managed to get through to someone at EDF who said they would send someone round on Christmas morning to sort it out.  

Obviously by this time our dinner was somewhat congealed but in spite of everything we spent a lovely candlelit evening together in an eerily quiet house before retiring to bed.

A taste of the house's 19th century roots

Watching the little Christmas trees spinning around isn't as entertaining
as the TV but beggars can't be choosers!

After a restless night worrying that the electrics might be completely condemned by EDF coupled with a rather chilly start to the day due to our heating being off the lovely EDF man arrived and thankfully rescued us... ahhhh!  

With the heating roaring away and everything right with the world again we took the dogs out for a walk along the river and visited some friends for Christmas lunch (which was delicious).  

Boxing Day was blissfully uneventful and take-two of our Christmas Eve supper (thankfully Spike made enough for two meals) was a success and everything seemed to be back on track but the very next day we realised by the afternoon that the house seemed to be getting a bit cold.  Having inspected the oil tank we saw to our horror that it had run down to nothing. We'd only checked it a couple of weeks back but obviously our old boiler is a pretty hungry beast. Luckily we have second tank with oil in reserve so it was just a matter of transferring the oil over and voila we'd be back in business in no time... well apparently the boiler had other ideas!

The monster in the basement just refused to fire up again and we had to call out an emergency heating engineer.  Unfortunately he spent an hour poking around and looking bemused and finally whilst scratching his head in obvious confusion he said he'd come back with some spare parts in the morning.

That was a few hours ago now and it was while I wrote this post that a distant "woo hoo" emanating from the basement reached my ears so I knew to my immense relief that Spike has managed to get the old girl going (yes boiler's are female in France... talk about stereotyping!) so it looks like we are not going to freeze after all (hooray!).

The look of a triumphant
(or should that be slightly smug?) man!

These last few day illustrate my theory that houses are living breathing things.  The electrics are the veins, the water pipes the arteries and the boiler is the very heart and although as with people it gets harder to accept change as you get older I do hope that we can gently coax our dear old house into the 21st century without any more crises and that with a few carefully planned operations she'll (temperamental old houses are also female in France!!!) be as good as new.

A Trick of the Light

We are heading for the shortest day of the year and as the Winter Solstice and Christmas approach it's time to enjoy a little light to get us through the darkest days.

The Place du Solonçon in our quarter of Cognac by lamplight

The other evening we took the dogs out for a stroll around the centre of Cognac to look at the Christmas lights.  They were rather low-key compared with somewhere like the Champs-Elysées in Paris, but after living in the countryside for several years, where there was little sign when the festive season was upon us, they were simply magical to me.

On the way to the centre of town via the old medieval quarter of Cognac

Place François 1er in the heart of Cognac

The elegant bridge over the River Charente that leads us home 

Usually on returning home from a Winter evenings walk we would all snuggle up in front of a fire but this year we sadly don't have that luxury.  Having recently moved I discovered to my dismay that my dream of a roaring open fire this Christmas was not to be because the flue of our fireplace was already being used by our monster of a 1970's boiler.

So until we update the heating system I've had to improvise by putting some red tinsel in the fire basket along with some pine cones and twinkly lights.  I also placed a mirror behind it to reflect back the light and was genuinely surprised at how effective this was. So with my makeshift fire and a few lit candles placed around the room we couldn't be cosier.

You could argue that the fireguard is unnecessary but our electrics are
so ancient it's possibly not as mad as it looks

The pinnacle of bringing light into the home though is, of course, the good old Christmas tree.  This year for the first time we bought a cut tree.  Normally we buy a small tree with roots and attempt to plant it out in the garden in the New Year but because we are now in town and only have a courtyard I broke with traditional and bought what I like to think of as a massive cut flower to ease my guilty conscience.  

Our Christmas tree - The masking tape on the walls is a little odd I'll
grant you but it is marking out where we plan to open up the walls

The upside to the terrible guilt I felt at buying a dead tree is that I could have a much larger one than ever before (woo hoo!).  Spike stopped me from buying a floor to ceiling tree because we don't have much space in the corner of the room at the moment but next year, once the walls have been opened up and the room has been decorated, I have promised myself a tree that touches the ceiling (I seem to have somehow overcome that crippling feeling of guilt)

We buy each other a new bauble every year
which helps gives the tree individuality

OK I bought this one for myself

Oh and this one from a brocante in the Summer

One idea that I saw on TV and would like to try next year is to use vintage pocket watch cases as Christmas tree decorations.  They took the cases of broken pocket watches, with no intrinsic value, and removed the inner workings (which are too heavy for a tree although beautiful in their own right).  They then replaced the innards with photos of loved ones or Christmas scenes.  You could of course put whatever you want in them which is what makes the idea so charming and personal.

In order to be able to do this I will need to get to an auction in England and buy a job lot but I think the idea is wonderful and hope to sell them in the shop I am planning to have open by next Christmas. I am also toying with the idea of using vintage brooches as tree decorations because these little works of art are very undervalued at the moment and can be quite beautiful.

A super way to add a vintage feel to your Christmas tree

It only remains for me to wish you a joyful, light-filled Christmas

Interiors, Eau de Nil and the Big Screen

The other morning I curled up on the sofa with Spike and spent a happy few hours watching the classic film noir 'The Third Man'.  There is nothing dreamier on a cold winter's day than to escape into a misty world of intrigue and scrutinise the wonderful vintage interiors of this glamorous, dark and shadowy world.

Old films have always held a special fascination for me and I am planning to use some ideas from the many mid twentieth century films I have devoured over the years to decorate our new home.

A classic Hitchcock film set for the 1948 film 'Rope'

One particular film that I have seen several times and never get bored of is the wonderful tongue in cheek 'Hitchcockian' style film 'Charade'.  This Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant film, set in Paris, first captured my imagination as a child and ever since I have longed for 'eau de nil' interiors and chintzy wallpaper set in wooden panelling.  As I look around the townhouse we have recently purchased I know that I am finally getting nearer to that deeply cherished desire and the home of my dreams.

A charming room with stunning Art Nouveau lamp and of course
the stunning Audrey Hepburn

 

The wonderful Peter Sellers in one of his most celebrated roles as
Inspector Clouseau in the process, with the help of Cato,
of wrecking his beautiful Parisian apartment

Because the previous owners of our house hadn't updated the decor since the 1960's virtually every interior door has been wallpapered in the centre of the panels and the woodwork is painted in different colours rather than white.  I am determined during the renovation process not to neutralise the decor to such a degree that the house becomes bland and loses it's charming traditional French feel.   

Our first floor landing with Raoul doing his best impression of 'Pyewacket'
from the 1958 film Bell, Book and Candle

The corner of our living room ready for it's close up
aside from the upside down wallpaper

Although I will be changing the colours and the wallpaper (unfortunately most of it is too far gone and the wall paper in the living room, aside from being very dark and stained, has been hung upside down) I will attempt to retain the feeling of a Parisian hotel room or apartment from the early to mid twentieth century.

The wonderful thing about this house is that I am, for the first time, not worrying about what other people like or the resale potential so I am completely free to style it to suit us. I am very lucky that Spike trusts me and lets me make most of the aesthetic decisions and so far hasn't had cause to complain (although I may be pushing his tolerance levels this time!)

So while Spike tackles the serious business of making sure the fabric of the building is sound I have been painting tester paints on lining wallpaper and sticking them around the house to see how they look in each room. By painting a large area like that it means you get a good idea of the colour and you can also try it on all the walls of a room because it's surprising what different light can do.  I am particularly colour sensitive and if I feel it's not right I will not rest.   I painted the master bedroom of one house we owned at least five times before I had doctored the colour to my satisfaction but it was worth it because the room always pleased me and started the day on a positive note.

Could the cupboard in the background be painted the allusive 'eau de nil'
 I am looking for?

This last couple of weeks I have been on a search for the ultimate 'eau de nil' paint for our bedroom and having tried various shades of sludgy green I haven't found it yet.  I have also been looking at chintzy wallpaper samples online for inside the panelling I would like in our bedroom and the two little attic guest bedrooms.  

Although we are a long way off getting to the cosmetic side of the build I find that I am more motivated during the renovation process when I have a good clear vision of the finished result.  I can hardly wait to wake up in a bedroom worthy of a glamorous classic film but I think I will pass on the murder, espionage and attacking manservants!  

     

Bonjour Bordeaux!

Last week I stumbled across an advertisement in an interior design magazine for a large brocante that was being held in Bordeaux over two weeks and with it being only around and hour and twenty minutes away from us in Cognac we decided it would be good to have a day out and buy a bit of stock at the same time.

Perhaps naively we also thought that we would take the opportunity to pop into IKEA while we were there because we wanted to buy some magnetic knife strips and and few other bits for the house. Unfortunately we were led astray by our sat. nav. and that completely set the tone to the day of running late for everything.  Having escaped the tempting clutches or that well known Scandinavian store and resisting the allure of buying stuff that looks vintage but obviously isn't we finally made tracks for the Quinconces quarter of Bordeaux for the market.  

Finding the market wasn't our biggest problem this time it was finding a free parking space that proved to be an issue.  We were in our little Renault Trafic van, Piggy, and having set off down into an underground car park we quickly realised that the the lower down we went into the depths of the earth the lower the ceilings became.  I have to say it was quite hair-raising as the aerial on the roof scrapped on all the concrete beams. To say that we were flustered when we finally emerged into daylight is an understatement but we did at least find that allusive parking spot.  

Of course by then we were running late for lunch.  I had set my heart on an Art Nouveau bistrot called Le Bistrot des Quinconces and was relieved when they said they were still serving.  It was truly beautiful but having had our order taken we waited a good half and hour before our food arrived and by the end of the meal (which was very tasty) it was well past 3pm. Bearing in mind that we have a little beagle at home that gets an attack of the vapours if he is not fed by 6pm we knew we were really cutting it fine.  

Stunning Art Nouveau windows that would be virtually impossible to replicate today

There is nothing quite as elegant as a mirrored interior, an opulent chandelier mounted on a glamorous moulded ceiling and crisp white linen tablecloths

It was wonderful to see a beautiful original mosaic floor in such good condition

By the time we finally began to shop for trucs it was a matter of scanning the stalls before diving in to the odd few that looked as though there might be something promising on offer.  The market was wonderful but the prices were very steep (no doubt the vendors were trying to recuperate the outlay for their pitches) but there were a few things I would have loved for our new house had we been further along with the renovation.

I briefly toyed with the idea of buying a little velvet fringed boudoir chair that I thought would be ideal for our proposed dressing room.  The vendor enthused about how comfortable it was and urged me to try it but having plonked myself down I was sorry to inform her that I felt that the seat was flat and lumpy.  With a raised eyebrow she sat down herself and stated that there was nothing wrong with the seat and went on to conclude that it must be that I have a lumpy petit derrière (well really!!!)

So frustrating that we didn't allow ourselves enough time for a leisurely browse

As for finding stock we bought a couple of things that I am yet to clean up but it isn't an ideal venue to buy to sell on

As dusk fell we rushed back to Piggy and caught an all too brief glimpse of the elegant city of Bordeaux

This impressive brocante and antiques fair is held every Spring and Autumn so we are already planning a visit to the one in the Spring of next year with the intention of finding a few treasures for the house and allowing ourselves more time to enjoy all that it has to offer.