Une maison en Bourgogne

After more than a year of house hunting in France, I am proud to say that I bought a house. 

A house with two barns. 

A house with two barns, in Burgundy.

Who do I think I am? And how in the hell is this going to work? These are just two, of thousands, of questions that I have surrounding this event.

However, I really want this to be an easy birth. Therefore I am choosing to lean into it vs. resisting and contracting. I am trying to manage a balance between considering the facts and fantasizing about a large, candlelit, atumn party, in the attached barn. I think this may also have something to do with this inexplicable urge to watch Hope Floats.

For now I am focusing on the next few steps:

1. Arrange for internet and phone. (It can take up to six months I’ve been told)
2. Make sure that the Notaire and bank are communicating and meeting their deadlines.
3. Go check out the house (the current owners are away on vacation and have given me access between now and the final signing) and assess the immediate needs for habitation (things like bedding, cookware, towels, lights, etc.). Also check to see what the owners might be taking/leaving when the sale is official.
4. Finish setting up my Paris apartment. I can't turn my back on my main squeeze, Paris.
5. Blog about this process so I have a digital record of how excited, inspired, confused, clear, nervous, and happy I am.
   

Day 2: buffet

I was super excited to post my accomplishment and wish I could say that everything went successfully today with the self assembly of my buffet.

The good news is that I did not have to buy pliers (pinces) because the grumpy man at the bricolage pulled my wooden wedgie things out with his own pliers when I showed him my mistakes in the support beams. Wow! Someone doing something helpful, it sort of reminded about the way things use to work back in the US.

I was eager to complete my project and quickly got back to work. I was reminded about how great I am at following directions. When something wasn't working, I stopped and tried to understand why rather than forcing it. One time, I simply walked away and returned later and the exact same difficult piece was miraculously cooperative. I thought about how frustrating it can be to assemble with a partner who approached things in a rushed, chaotic way and was sort of relieved that I was going it solo.

I realized very quickly why the instructions say that it takes 2 people to set this up. Flipping over the assembled piece was a challenge, but it was resolved with a large beach towel and a cardboard box support. I flipped it by myself and that was a small victory for me--proving that I can tackle a task on my own without having to stop and enlist reinforcement. That seems to be where a lot of my past projects were left incomplete.

I just wish that the hinges would have played nice. Those things are near impossible to tighten with just a phillips head screwdriver. And that is why I will buy a drill tomorrow. I figured I am going to be needing a drill a lot in the future and might as well get my own rather than relying on the Boys to supply my power tool needs.

Alas, we await tomorrow (Day 3) to finish the buffet assembly. More patience practicing.

Buffet

I finally found a white lacquer & wood buffet for the apartment in Paris. It was 50% off due to the July Soldes (Sales), which afforded me the extra cost associated with having it delivered and professionally assembled.

The good news is that it was delivered to my 2nd floor Paris apartment.

The bad news is that the delivery guy said he doesn't do assembly.

Since I bought it online, there isn't a contact number available so that I can debate this delivery error and demand a "spécialiste de l'assemblage" like I paid for.  But how hard could it be? I am a smart, capable lady. Yet here I am at 9:38pm blogging about this situation, and not actually finishing the assembly tonight like I had planned.

I made a fatal mistake in Etape No.1 (Step One). One that requires pliers to pull these little wooden wedgie things out of the incorrectly inserted holes.  I don't currently own any pliers, and bricolages are closed at this hour. In a desperate attempt to continue my momentum this evening, I took my Shu Uemura eyebrow tweezers to the situation. That obviously didn't work.

I will continue this incredible act of patience tomorrow.

 à demain...