We spend each afternoon in the house lately. We need to get it ready to receive our things from Mexico arriving in France on the 31st of this month. It's amazing how quickly things have come across the Atlantic from this direction without interference from Seb's company on the Mexican side!
Yesterday I worked for two hours doing the thankless job of scrubbing walls and floors. I didn't get far as each bucketful of grime had to be changed and dumped after just a few swipes. I made lots of mud but it was a good feeling to look back and see one clean wall after over four hours of work.
The previous owner was 106 years old when she died and moved to a nursing home about ten years ago or more. The home was still used from time to time as a vacation house of sorts for family visiting Paris and as a summer getaway. It isn't clear really how they could live there and cook (the kitchen is a war zone) or live in the dirt and grime, but it seems that their love of the house overshadows the muck because they stayed there two weeks ago. They're a funny little petite bourgoise family, very nice and friendly but a little bizarre as the wife talked openly to me about her recent lifting and the reason her face was so red. Her doctor was reputedly the best in Paris. He's on the Champs Elysee. I didn't know what to say but as I cleaned the buckets of dirt out of that room I could only think of how unhealthy it was for her to spend her recovery time in that awful, dusty bedroom.
We are eager to get all of the nick nacks and old furniture out of the house. We asked them to leave everything as a favor to us but our real reason was that we know it can take weeks for owners to get around to cleaning their family things out of an old house and we can do it much quicker without involving sentiment. Not much of the furniture interests us, a couple of mirrors and maybe some pottery pieces but most of it is destined for the dump or the local charity. I kind of like the dining room table and the buffet and my Mexican table is really cheap so I can always sell it for a bit of cash and keep this one which is oak.
I think we'll be selling a few of our pieces, lots of theirs and reducing everything down to near nothing. We can't afford to take on a storage unit and without the use of our storage rooms in Th*n*n we have nowhere to put everything. We seem to be inundated with stuff lately. I hate that feeling.
I hope we hear from the lender by the end of today.
4 comments:
There certainly are a lot of interesting chairs in the house! (cute baby too!) We are grappling with the question of how to furnish our alpine getaway and I am looking at those big chairs with envy. Things are moving so quickly! It's amazing how much has happened in the past few months. I have my fingers crossed for you for the papers to come through quickly.
Lots of work ahead, but it will be so charming and homey when you're done. I love those black and white floor. We had stone tile like that in our last apartment in Milan and it was so much fun.
I am totally in love with the buffet and the corner phone shelf! The house seems to have some awesome features! I am confused about the way it seems to work in France. Are you waiting on the paperwork to actually buy the house or rent it? What about the home you are renting to the other gentleman?
Lucy you can have them! Come on up and get them :)
Jennifer I only wish it was stone. it's linoleum! Ugh! We have to live with it for a little while so at least it looks nice.
B - That's not really a buffet but a weird sort of bed headboard in the living room. It has all these crumbling Victor Hugo books in it.
The story is kind of confusing. We're waiting on the final acceptance of our loan. Our initial profile was good but still you never know when you present your dossier. Anyway we will be rentera for three months then when we sign the final papers that status will change. We can't rent the house though until we're sure to have the acceptance of our loan because of course the owner doesn't want us in there as renters if we aren't able to buy the house.
Our old house in Hte. Savoie is rented for three years and the renter told us he'd like to stay for five years if he could. We have been trying not to think about our other house so much :(
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