The last time I was over in France to work on the house I had the extreme fortune to meet the local town historian who I will refer to as Mme. L. She was most gracious, offering to me the use of power via an extension chord, showing me the place she had just restored across the street, and even invited my and my compatriot into her house (work filth and all) to sit down, have a glass of tea and pick her brain about the town (and my house's in particular) history. I will delve into that in greater detail later, but as we were going back to my place a strange thing occurred.
I had always noticed that no matter what time of year it was, a single lone smokestack always belched out a thin-whispy line of smoke. It was a small smokestack among many others on top of a row of houses, and it always struck me as odd that only this one smoked. Even in the dead-air heat of summer it puffed away. I thought it a curiosity and nothing more. But as we walked down the street, just before we turned from her street onto mine, an ancient wooden back door opened and an old, dirty, wrinkled hand emerged. It reached down to a little seau bois wooden bucket, and retrieved scraps of what looked to be extra crown moulding and bits of angled wood. Things you usually see piled next to a table saw. I noticed that some of the angled pieces looked like ones I myself had cut and left out front of my house not that morning.
Mme. L greeted the phantom hand with a 'Bonjour Madame!'. The door closed quickly, but I did catch a return 'Bonjour' from the disembodied hand, and more importantly a brief glimpse of the madame. She had the shapeless form that comes with extreme old age. her hair, if she still had any, was wrapped up tightly in a scarf. She wore a long faded black dress, but if the streaks of soot on her face were any indication it could've been white originally. Mme L and I walked on. When we arrived at my place and Mme L was sure we were out of earshot she pulled me aside and told me very politely that I mustn't leave any more wood outside even for just an hour.
"But why, Madame?" I asked.
"Because she will take it. All of it. She is old now, and her eyesight is not so good. She cannot see nails on the wood anymore. We leave her wood in that basket, but only if it is safe, do you understand?" I nodded.
"Why does she take wood, surely she can't be cold." I asked.
In typical gallic acceptance, she responded "why does anybody do anything? Why does a man cheat?" I had no answer. Sensing perhaps that this was an unacceptable answer to an American used to answers she tried to fill in the details.
"We call her 'Madame de Feu' (The Fire lady). I am not young- no, no it is no insult to admit the truth- but I am not old, either; but she, she is old. I was born here and grew up here, and as long as i can remember, she has lived in there, burning wood. All night, all day, do you understand? And she has always been old. I was told that once she was the most beautiful woman in the village. Perhaps the most beautiful woman in the whole area. She had many beaus, but it is told she loved one and they were to be married. They never did."
"What happened? Was it the war?"
"This is possible, but I am afraid she is so old, nobody knows. She has outlived all who knew."
"Is this why she burns things?"
Mme L just shrugged her shoulders. "Some things we will never know. It is better this way, n'est pas? We just let her burn." She looked down the street to the little chimney, a black puff of smoke burst forth from it and quickly dissipated against the backdrop of the hills. She sighed and looking back at me with an earnest gaze spoke. "I know one day I shall wake up and open my windows to take in the morning air and there will be no scent of smoke in it. One day the chimney will cease. I know this must happen, but i have never lived in a world without it. Wherever I have gone i have returned here, to my home, yes? And her flame has always been there. I do not know what I will do when it is gone."
We stood in silence, staring for a while at the smoke, enjoying its constancy, the way it put 'clothes on the wind' until she took a few pieces of scrap from my pile that she deemed safe, bid me good day and made her way to madame's bucket.
A Primer on French Music
French music is often maligned as being all accordions and berets, Maurice Chevalier circa Gigi, or 30 years behind us, but that's a bit unfair. While it's true that alot of French music can be comical in its gallicness (the aforementioned Chevalier) or well behind the times (see Mylene Farmer), there's a lot that is good. Here's just a few I have in heavy rotation.
For old school stuff, nothing beats Serge Gainsbourg's 'Ballad of Melody Nelson', which sounds a lot like an old lusty frenchman doing spoken word while eating moules and drinking wine, if that Frenchman happened to have P-funk as his dinner companions.
For slightly more modern faire, try the following three one-man bands, who run the gamut from 80's new wave retro sounds (m83), to rave music (Anoraak) to flat-out cool techno-pop with a hint of gallic humor and real sexuality (Sebastien Tellier).
For old school stuff, nothing beats Serge Gainsbourg's 'Ballad of Melody Nelson', which sounds a lot like an old lusty frenchman doing spoken word while eating moules and drinking wine, if that Frenchman happened to have P-funk as his dinner companions.
Serge Gainsbourg - "Melody".
For slightly more modern faire, try the following three one-man bands, who run the gamut from 80's new wave retro sounds (m83), to rave music (Anoraak) to flat-out cool techno-pop with a hint of gallic humor and real sexuality (Sebastien Tellier).
Anoraak - “The Wizzard”
M83 – Skin of The NightSebastian Tellier - La Ritournelle (Mr. Dan magic wand mix)
two weeks to go!
Two weeks to go before I'm at the house with mes amis!
After checking to make sure the weather/termites/biblical conflagrations haven't taken my home down to the foundation, this is the (Highly ambitious) plan of attack. I will provide great before and after pictures when I return, of course.
Wednesday night
1. overnight flight arriving in Barcelona at 8:45 am Thursday.
Thursday 17
1. Pick up car and hit the road by 10am.
2. 5 hours on the road, gathering supplies along the way.
3. unpack, run by the house to show it, take stock of what we need to buy and
discuss the order of work.
Friday 18
1. go to Mr. Bricolage. get gloves, etc.
2. pull back boards in attic.
3. take down ceiling tiles in 3f back room.
4. clean up 3f.
6. make runs to dechetterie.
Saturday 19
1. mason work on the crack on the 3rd floor.
2. disassemble 2f poele.
3. reassemble poele on 1f.
4. dechetterie.
Sunday 20
1. Fix attic flooring. Make it stable
2. fix attic hole.
3. dechetterie.
monday 21
1. Shut down house for winter.
4. take the last of the junk to the dechetterie
Tuesday 22
Check out and head for Barcelona.
Big celebration dinner in Barcelona!
After checking to make sure the weather/termites/biblical conflagrations haven't taken my home down to the foundation, this is the (Highly ambitious) plan of attack. I will provide great before and after pictures when I return, of course.
Wednesday night
1. overnight flight arriving in Barcelona at 8:45 am Thursday.
Thursday 17
1. Pick up car and hit the road by 10am.
2. 5 hours on the road, gathering supplies along the way.
3. unpack, run by the house to show it, take stock of what we need to buy and
discuss the order of work.
Friday 18
1. go to Mr. Bricolage. get gloves, etc.
2. pull back boards in attic.
3. take down ceiling tiles in 3f back room.
4. clean up 3f.
6. make runs to dechetterie.
Saturday 19
1. mason work on the crack on the 3rd floor.
2. disassemble 2f poele.
3. reassemble poele on 1f.
4. dechetterie.
Sunday 20
1. Fix attic flooring. Make it stable
2. fix attic hole.
3. dechetterie.
monday 21
1. Shut down house for winter.
4. take the last of the junk to the dechetterie
Tuesday 22
Check out and head for Barcelona.
Big celebration dinner in Barcelona!
It's the little things...
I love history. I love anything older than me, especially if it's exceptionally well-made. For me, there will never be a better design than the self-winding watch. Granted, quartz watches are far more accurate, but something about a watch that will simply work for a very long time and can be fixed by human hands when it doesn't is appealing to me. I love the old and well-crafted so much that I can't just have these things, I must know their history. This makes me quite useful at trivial pursuit and quite boring the rest of the time.
That's why I love the key to my house. It's a giant skeleton key. It's efficient, effective, very durable (more so than modern pin locks which suffer from spring compression and snapped key necks). Sure, it's not as safe as a modern lock, but for the purposes of rural France, it's safe enough. A heavy warded lock (warded because it has blocks or 'wards' that only the special cut of your key can slide past) is not very easy to pick and quite frankly, if someone wants into your house, they'll kick in the door or window. They'll do this no matter what key your door has. So why bother with a new lock? Especially when it denies you the satisfying sound and feel of tumbling a lock with a 4-inch long brass key. It's simply a cherry on the antique sundae that is your little maison.
The key, or en français, le Clé.
That's why I love the key to my house. It's a giant skeleton key. It's efficient, effective, very durable (more so than modern pin locks which suffer from spring compression and snapped key necks). Sure, it's not as safe as a modern lock, but for the purposes of rural France, it's safe enough. A heavy warded lock (warded because it has blocks or 'wards' that only the special cut of your key can slide past) is not very easy to pick and quite frankly, if someone wants into your house, they'll kick in the door or window. They'll do this no matter what key your door has. So why bother with a new lock? Especially when it denies you the satisfying sound and feel of tumbling a lock with a 4-inch long brass key. It's simply a cherry on the antique sundae that is your little maison.
The key, or en français, le Clé.
Victor of Aveyron
The region I bought in France is so rustic even the average Frenchman doesn't know where it is. The two things it's famous for are excellent knives and cheese matured in caves full of mold. But the crowning proof of how rustic the Aveyron is is the true story of Victor of Aveyron, a boy who lived completely alone in the wild until he was captured at the assumed age of 10.
A Bit of Regional History - Pt 1
In honor of my upcoming trip to France, I thought I'd give some interesting regional history.
It can get dark and scary some nights in rural France. Even worse are the nights eerily lit up by a full mistral moon. Valley pathways are illuminated, while the thick underbrush is not. The tall plateau prairies glow white and black under the moon, and you can swear you see shadows darting in the distance from scrub-brush to scrub-brush. Careful, you might just be right. For it was only a scant 240 years ago that something roamed the hills and valleys around here, picking off villager after villager. Was it a lion escaped from a zoo? A pack of wolves? What haunted the Abbeys and farms for years before it was killed? Some still swear it was the Loup-garou, better known as werewolf. Read about it here.
2nd floor work
So when the house was purchased, the second and third floors were partitioned out into several small, dark rooms. On the second floor in particular, the partitions were terribly laid out and cut the floor into a small kitchen a small dining room and a small bedroom. Space was poorly used and worse, the wallpaper was hideous. Let's review:
The kitchen:
That's the cantou on the right, a partition wall on the left. That's the only window for the room. And yes, that's a linoleum floor.
The dining room:
Only the wall on the right is a load bearing wall. That's clapboard attached to the beams for the ceiling. That wallpaper!
The other view:
Again, the only window in the room.
So this floor was a mess. The big front balcony with floor to ceiling windows felt removed and detached from the rooms because it spanned the kitchen and the dining room. No breezes coud get through because there were walls everywhere. The staircases seemed isolated and a colossal waste of space. And the back room was a place you would go to die. Dark, one window, dank, and cold all day long. There was only one answer. Total destruction.
Luckily the walls were just plank board and wallpaper. The ceilings capboard and paint. I took a crowbar and sledgehammer to them all. Well, first I disconnected the power and ripped out all of the old wiring and fixtures. The house would have to be rewired anyway and the old cloth-wrapped wiring was an enourmous fire hazard. The hardest part was the freaking linoleum. But I got it too, and when I removed all of the detritus, this is what I had:
this is the kitchen by the front window. look at all the light and gorgeous space! Light streamed into the place now. The cantou looked like the rightful centerpiece of the room, and a wonderful breeze flowed right through the place. I wish I had better pictures but the 2nd floor is wide open. It's one big room, and that's how it will stay. It'll be a wonderful place to cook, dine, relax and hopefully cuddle around a raging fire in the winter.
I still have to remove the wooden backing from the cantou. I also have to disassemble the cast iron stove and reassemble itdownstairs, where it will provide heat for the guest bedroom eventually going in there. Just a reminder of how big the cantou is, that's a full-sized iron stove inside the cantou.
the cantou:
The kitchen:
That's the cantou on the right, a partition wall on the left. That's the only window for the room. And yes, that's a linoleum floor.
The dining room:
Only the wall on the right is a load bearing wall. That's clapboard attached to the beams for the ceiling. That wallpaper!
The other view:
Again, the only window in the room.
So this floor was a mess. The big front balcony with floor to ceiling windows felt removed and detached from the rooms because it spanned the kitchen and the dining room. No breezes coud get through because there were walls everywhere. The staircases seemed isolated and a colossal waste of space. And the back room was a place you would go to die. Dark, one window, dank, and cold all day long. There was only one answer. Total destruction.
Luckily the walls were just plank board and wallpaper. The ceilings capboard and paint. I took a crowbar and sledgehammer to them all. Well, first I disconnected the power and ripped out all of the old wiring and fixtures. The house would have to be rewired anyway and the old cloth-wrapped wiring was an enourmous fire hazard. The hardest part was the freaking linoleum. But I got it too, and when I removed all of the detritus, this is what I had:
this is the kitchen by the front window. look at all the light and gorgeous space! Light streamed into the place now. The cantou looked like the rightful centerpiece of the room, and a wonderful breeze flowed right through the place. I wish I had better pictures but the 2nd floor is wide open. It's one big room, and that's how it will stay. It'll be a wonderful place to cook, dine, relax and hopefully cuddle around a raging fire in the winter.
I still have to remove the wooden backing from the cantou. I also have to disassemble the cast iron stove and reassemble itdownstairs, where it will provide heat for the guest bedroom eventually going in there. Just a reminder of how big the cantou is, that's a full-sized iron stove inside the cantou.
the cantou:
Video of the destruction
this is the third floor after we'd taken down all the plaster, horsehay and junk. Al that dirt, pollen and hay gave my house the nickname 'Chez Claritin'.
Enjoy!
Enjoy!
The September Work Trip!
I'm starting to get very excited about the work trip. It's only 70 days away and everything is arranged! 4 guys for one whole week! Even working just 4-5 hours a day stil winds up being over 100 man-hours of work put in, which is a lot.
Some details.
1. We're in the south of France, so Barcelona is actually the closest single-stop airport, Not Paris-CDG or Geneva-Cointrin. I use Kayak for my ticket needs. It allows you to better plan for the lowest rate. this time I got round trip, non-stop flights NYC-BAR for 282 dollars. That's total, not each way. By going mid-September I an still travelling in summer, but off peak.
2. I rented a car through Sixt, which seems to be trying to break into the US market and offered the best rates by far.
3. I rented a gite rural, which is essentially a standalone holiday home. This one comes with bbq grill, coffee machine, 4 beds, washer/dryer, full kitchen and petanque court. Its view is spectacular and it cost me a grand total of 50 euros a day. I found it through clevacances.
4. if you have an iphone get a translator app, there are a lot of good free ones, they all have french, and it could save your bacon if you have to say something like 'No, Officer, my friends are all blind drunk but I have stayed sober because your French country roads scare the shit out of me'*.
*Mais non, Monsieur Gendarme, mes amis sont tout des abat-jour ivres mais je suis resté sobre parce que vos routes de campagne françaises effrayent la merde hors de moi!
Now, some pix from the area we'll be travelling:
Conques
Estaing
Belcastel
Some details.
1. We're in the south of France, so Barcelona is actually the closest single-stop airport, Not Paris-CDG or Geneva-Cointrin. I use Kayak for my ticket needs. It allows you to better plan for the lowest rate. this time I got round trip, non-stop flights NYC-BAR for 282 dollars. That's total, not each way. By going mid-September I an still travelling in summer, but off peak.
2. I rented a car through Sixt, which seems to be trying to break into the US market and offered the best rates by far.
3. I rented a gite rural, which is essentially a standalone holiday home. This one comes with bbq grill, coffee machine, 4 beds, washer/dryer, full kitchen and petanque court. Its view is spectacular and it cost me a grand total of 50 euros a day. I found it through clevacances.
4. if you have an iphone get a translator app, there are a lot of good free ones, they all have french, and it could save your bacon if you have to say something like 'No, Officer, my friends are all blind drunk but I have stayed sober because your French country roads scare the shit out of me'*.
*Mais non, Monsieur Gendarme, mes amis sont tout des abat-jour ivres mais je suis resté sobre parce que vos routes de campagne françaises effrayent la merde hors de moi!
Now, some pix from the area we'll be travelling:
Conques
Estaing
Belcastel
Why friends and old homes are good
the Bastide gate leading into my town.
Fixing a house is no easy task, and you'd think the older the home, the more difficult. But, there are advantages to a really old house.
1. if it's still sturdy after 300 years and you've had it checked out, with a little common maintenance, you've got another 300 easy. You won't be there for that, but neither will any of the prefab Acme brick homes you grew up in in the US.
2. Apart from plumbing and electrics, there's nothing you can't do to repair it. You may think you're unskilled but everything built in your house was put in there by unskilled labor. The 17th century stonemason knew a few more things than you about mortar and rock, but his tools were simple, and luckily, he's left you instructions: when you repair his work, just use the layout of the rocks as a example. And the plasterer is only better than you because he's done it before. There's nothing tricky about plaster.
3. Your friends can rampage through the destruction phase with minimal guidance and not risk bringing the house down around you. Leave beams, stairs, wires, pipes and load-bearing walls alone. Everything else is fair game. Everything critical/important in an old house is build to last and your pal the lawyer does no have the strengh, experise or cunning to take it out. Friends are great, too, because they will work like dogs for 4 or 5 hours a day and be happy to do it. They're invested in your investment. They know that as long as you have it, they can come to France. It's win-win. They're cheaper than paying for itinerant labor, they speak your native tongue, and the locals will not be mad you didn't hire them to do the work when you do it with friends. Trust me, fixing up a place with cheap labor that aren't friends is the quickest way to alienate your new french neighbors.
News!
Three of my dearest friends (who also happen to have strong backs) have all agreed and purchased tix (the true sign of commitment) and are coming with me for a week in September to do some serious work! More details to follow, like where we'll stay (A 'gite', I have lots of useful info on that which can save you money and get you a great place) and what we hope to accomplish (mortar and mason work, using traditional materials). Details to follow.
House insurance
It's important to insure your little treasure against all sorts of things, because in France, you never know what might happen.
I chose these guys, but there are many choices. Many of them speak English.
I chose these guys, but there are many choices. Many of them speak English.
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