January 27, 2012

Many people have commented on the picture of the beautiful gardens at our house.  Well the photo was taken when the owners lived here and not the current state of affairs.  Jean-Luc, who owns the house, is actually on a foreign assignment in the USA at the SKF in Flowery Branch.  Yes, I know it seems to makes no sense that he left here and went to Georgia while Ross left Georgia to come here!  Anyway, he and his wife worked hard to make the gardens beautiful when they lived here.  There was a renter in the house for a year and he did not touch the yard at all and then the house sat vacant for a few months.  So, in doing our lease, we asked for garden care to be part of our rent as Ross doesn’t do yard work and I have a BLACK THUMB…..my children refer to any plants I may get as being on “Death Row”.  This week the man is coming to hack away, trim, tidy, and make it nice again.  Hopefully with my limited French vocabulary and hand gestures I can communicate with him. 

The house itself is not big, but perfect for our needs.  We have a small living room, a dining area, kitchen, laundry room, bathroom (the room with the sink and shower), a WC (the room with a toilet), and bedroom all on the first floor.  We will mainly use this floor as our living space.  Upstairs there are four bedrooms and a bathroom, plus a WC.  We will furnish two of the upstairs bedrooms for guests (hint, hint).  The bedroom downstairs is small, room for a bed and two nightstands.  It does have one wall with a built in wardrobe closet which Ross will use. Fortunately across from the bedroom is the laundry room which goes into what used to be the attached garage.  It is small, really no car should have ever gone in it!  It has been converted into a studio where Jean-Luc’s wife painted.  BUT, I will make it my walk in closet and dressing room J  I will use one area of it for storage of suitcases, etc., but other than that, it’s my little space.   I’m attaching some photos of inside, we won’t have our own things for a while, but they show the kitchen and the size of my “mini” fridge and stove. 

A couple funny things about the house……

1.     The WC (toilet room) is actually in the hallway at the front entry. 
I find it odd that the sink is around the corner, down the hall in the bathroom.  Guess I’ll be sanitizing doorknobs!!  I’ve been so spoiled by having a master bathroom, that it seems really funny getting up to use the toilet during the night, and you leave the bedroom, go down the hall, turn into the entry to get there!  Plus, the toile right in the entry off the living room is hysterical.  If you leave the door open, you can visit while using!

2.    The flooring: It is funny to me too.  Each bedroom has hardwoods, which is fine, but the living room, kitchen and bathroom are all tiles. Now they’re not the same tiles, but different sizes and shapes and patterns, even though they all butt up to each other,  YET, all are different multi colored browns.  Our furniture and tables are all black, so that should be interesting.

3.    The shutters:  Every window has outside shutters and several of the windows are really floor to ceiling French door type things.  Every house in France it seems shuts the shutters at night and opens them all in the morning.  So, I go around twice a day, open the windows and doors, and then open or shut the shutters.  They latch to the house outside so the wind doesn’t blow them, so some of them it involves going outside to fix or unhook.  The windows have no screens and they all open in, so it’s not hard, just a funny little routine.  It lets the light in during the day and it makes it nice and dark for sleeping. 

4.    The heat system:  Each room has an electric radiator in it.  When we arrived, it was cold and dreary out so Ross went to turn them all up.  They had been set low in the empty house.  There are two knobs on each, one with pictures that make it go red or green; the other with numbers 1-6.  We got the 1-6 thing, and thought we had the other until I was just freezing after several hours.  Apparently, when the light is red, the heat is on and when it’s green there is no heat.  It was exactly the opposite of what we thought.  No A/C here, so when it gets hot that should be interesting.  People said they just open windows and hope for a breeze……but, with no screens, I’m not to keep on critters and bugs visiting, so we’ll see how that goes.

5.    The tv:  We got a package but we only get four English speaking channels, all news so that is kind of sad.  At night sometimes they run an old Leno or
Friends episode in English-whoopee!  Once we learn the language, the others will make more sense, but even then it is NOT television like we’re used to in the US. Any American shows are ancient and in French.  Nothing like Walker, Texas Ranger or Urgence (ER) in French to pass the time.    Guess we won’t watch much tv which is a probably a good thing, but how will I know who wins American Idol or The Sing Off?  J