le buffet Henri II

in this picture the buffet is missing the top...when we can put the top on this thing will be massive and tower over the dinner guests!

Like I have said all along there is no shortage of furniture in the old house here and we have been putting much of it out in the trash in the hopes that someone will salvage it, rescue it, adopt it. Someone nearly always does. We're happy that someone can make use of our old stuff. We hear a truck roll to a stop, a man or woman jumps out and voila! more stuff gone. If we didn't already have a truck of furniture coming maybe we'd be the ones garbage picking but we already have our hands full. I have found some great furniture in the trash in the past.

One piece I definitely won't scrap is the buffet. The buffet has a story to go with it. The buffet a deux corps is the entire reason why I wanted the previous owners to leave the furniture. I have been wanting a buffet for years and I have never been able to get Seb interested in looking for one, mainly because they are so big and heavy and also because we move so much. There was also the incident with Seb's grandmother's buffet that was up for sale but when we offered to buy it to keep it in the family everyone got all weird about it and they didn't want to sell it to us. It's not the first time that's happened and I know it has to do with the whole étrangère (being American)* thing so I have been even more determined to find my own buffet after that. Poo on them! I was so excited when I saw the one in the pictures of the house that I told Seb over the phone from the States, "ask them if we buy the house will they leave the furniture!" When we toured the house with the p.o. I said that the dining room set was something we needed and emphasized that the buffet was something I really, really needed, not wanted but needed so as not to sound too interested in it as beautiful piece but more as a functional piece. I've learned from the incident with Seb's family not to admire too much. He and his wife made a sort of "Oh that old thing" face and he said "okay, bon,...cadeau" Then when we toured the rest of the house I saw that the upper part of the buffet was in the attic in poor condition but from a glance it seemed even more amazing than the lower part with big oval doors and a dragon's head eating fruit carved on it! A buffet a deux corps! The p.o. explained to us that the upper part was there because it didn't fit in the room since the ceiling weren't high enough, --puzzling to me and Seb because the house has those big umpteen foot high ceilings like you have in these old houses. So I just said "Oh dommage" because I wanted to get him to ignore the buffet all together anyway, ...ahem

Finally last month the p.o's spent their last night in the house and the next day I ran to verify that the buffet was still there just after they'd left. It was! They didn't take it with them. Finally I could clean it and remove all the knick knacks from it. The thing was a huge mess and has taken me hours of cleaning with an oily rag to get it in shape. Over the years of abuse there were drinks spilled on it, wine rings embedded from glasses left lying about, and strange lingering smells because the contact paper glued and hammered all over the inside had absorbed all the funny smells of the house. Seb wanted nothing to do with it and told me several times that he'd "agree to keep it until we found something better." Meanwhile I just kept oiling it cleaning out the inside. Then Seb's friend came for lunch last week and kept admiring it, "They left you THAT?". Seb cleared his throat and avoided my eyes "yeah, isn't that incredible?"

Now Seb is all for the buffet and he even helped me carry the upper part downstairs from the attic (no easy feat!). I was sad because we can't use the upper part yet. We are missing the posts that will hold it up and we might have to make them or have them made. I'm really excited to have a place for my Mexican dishes though! I put these blue plates which are similar to my Mexican ones in the middle display rack (also found in the attic) so I could see what it might look like with mine. I'm really pleased that the p.o.'s didn't see the merit in this piece of furniture because I finally have my buffet. Yay!

*you must go and see the movie Le Divorce to laugh about why I will never be the recipient of any family heirlooms....it makes good light of how the French think when it comes to marrying Americans.