Day One: La Bonne Etape

It is official. I own a house (with two barns) in Burgundy.

We did the final signing last night, which took two hours. Part of the process for the final signing was initialing every single page of the 20 page document which outlines the rules for making ANY cosmetic changes to my house. The village of Noyers sur Serein is one of France's 100 most beautiful villages and must remain unchanged, especially as it is a medieval village that holds historical significance. And since my house is located smack dab in the village's center, I am told that I will be required to observe an additional set of rules governing the visible part of my house. I have not read through the whole document yet, but I already know that it includes things like repainting my house/gate/shutters (even if it is the exact same color), planting flowers around the exterior of the house, etc.

There are some things that do not require the Marie's (governing office for the village) approval, which my friends and I have already begun tackling with fervor.

• Wallpaper removal
• Carpet removal
• Sanding of the pine hardwood floors underneath the carpet
• Linoleum tile removal in the hallways, bathroom, and WC.
• exposing interior beams

When tackling such a big job, it is important to pick one room and focus. We started with one of the four smaller bedrooms upstairs:

I purchased the house with all of its contents, like furniture, family photos left hanging on the walls, dishes, old broken tv's, and even clothes in the closets (including a fur coat). Don;t get me started on the contents of the barns.

The window opens up to the garden and a view of the village rooftops. In the distance you can see the location of the village's chateau.

This wall paper was exceptionally thick, requiring a whole lot of elbow grease to remove it. So you can imagine our frustration to find an additional layer of wallpaper to be removed underneath it.

There is even wall paper in the closet, that once removed, revealed stone walls.

Hand protection from the wall paper removal chemicals. This was all we could find in the house. I have since bought a box of 100 latex gloves.

It is an overwhelming task to buy a house that is hundreds of years old and requires so much work to make it ready to move into.

But my friends have helped to make this process manageable and fun, and our discoveries such as the stone walls in the closet and the pine wood floors under the carpet bring about a sensation of satisfaction and possibilities that make it so worthwhile.

Buh-bye yellow carpet.

Hello hardwood floors!

Thank God for RDW's saint-like patience. He palm sanded every square inch of the floor to remove the white glue. Now we are ready to wash and stain.

We couldn't wait to see what was beneath the plywood, suspecting it was a hardwood beam.

Once the boys began demolishing, I got nervous. What if it is a nightmare beneath the plywood? Afraid that it might add one more item to my list of things to fix.

To our delight, it was just as the boys suspected-- a large wood beam. Whew! 

Now I need to enlist a professional to sandblast it, which means two things:

1. they should sandblast everything that needs it throughout the house. Sandblasting is a VERY dusty affair, you should only do it once.

2. We will wait to polish floors and paint until then. But this could mean a long wait as the contractor who does the sandblasting is very busy this season.

Until then, we will continue the removal process throughout the house. This journey has only just begun.