▢▢□□▣ fenetres

 I've lost count of the amount of times

people ask me

"how's the decorating going?"

I feel like saying "hows yours?"

who renovates their house within a year?

exactement!

at the top of my little house

is a superb space

potential studio  

two openings on one side 

and three on the other

as you can see there are no windows 

in those apertures

and all my winter heat goes out those gaps

but I want to preserve the ancient wood frames

hopefully by next month

these beauties will replace the plastic 

corrugated iron and gaps

and my house will be cosier 

++ if you want to know the things we see

the "Dread Room"

has gradually been transformed

the lower section of the wall 

had been painted in a very old

oil and earth mix

which proved problematic when painted

as it kept bleeding through

we scrubbed it with a solution of this

then carefully rolled a thin coat

of oil based matt paint

and prayed

it worked!

then the task of scraping off years of paint

from conduit and sockets

and finding a match for the skirtings and doors

it pains me to tosh over these beauties

on top of all the really bad paint already on them

but time and budget won't allow for now

all I need now is furniture 

and a lovely light fitting to replace this pathetic bulb!

now it's The White Room

like that scene in Bruce Almighty 

when he meets God

"we spin, we turn, watch and wait
as the world just creeps on by"

"" changing rooms

 how's the decorating going?

lots have asked

slowly is the answer

the stripped walls have been sanded

but are still incredibly lumpy and bumpy

you can't buy lining paper in France

stuck in the 80's when it comes to

all things interior design

yep anaglypta and something called

toile de verre are the wallpaper choices

we have been told to use this

stuff on our walls to cover the cracks

meanwhile the ceiling has been painted

after we borrowed a tower to reach it!

12ft is a long way up

we've used up this massive tin of paint already

paint here is expensive and not very good

you can buy Dulux but at a premium

so it's a challenge indeed

- - colour me

 so we started stripping the red bedroom

at first it was a painterly thing

revealing old walls

these ceilings are over 12ft high

and the walls are really bad

hundreds of years of filler

it is taking forever

as the paper only comes off in tiny pieces

and the steamer is a no-no

but we will get there