Yesterday was a big day. After eight weeks in transit, our shipment arrived by truck in Le Grand-Pressigny. As we watched all of our things being unloaded from the container, I realized how big a milestone it was.
In the span of just one year, we visited France a few times, decided to move, bought a house, started wading through the bureaucracy to get French visas, sold our California house and cars and many of our things, and took a one-way flight to France. Once here, we found an architect and builder and began the waiting process for the approval for the renovations on the exterior of our house, which we still have not received. In a way, our possessions being taken out of that shipping container marked the start of our life here. We can now blend our California life with our French life, and the carefully curated inventory of possessions will be adapted for use here. Well, some things weren’t so carefully curated. In our exhaustion, we got to the point in our packing-up process when we said, “let’s just take that thing and see how it goes,” rather than having to deal with getting rid of it. So, our giant Weber barbecue now sits in the yard of our rental house, waiting for us to figure out how to adapt the gas line to work with the French tanks. And our silly fake Christmas tree with remote-controlled lights will be put up to mark our first French Christmas. Tonight, we will happily be sleeping in our own big bed because we found the box containing our sheets. (We like our big California bed so we decided to bring our beds and enough sets of sheets to last us for years.)
It all went very well, with only one little casualty during transit, a small plastic bin of papers was crushed. Of course, almost everything is yet to be unpacked and examined, but none of the boxes showed any damage. The unloading crew was young, friendly and efficient, and we hope to be able to use the same guys in a year to move our things into the house when it’s ready. We also had two French-speaking friends there to help with the translations and that is always a good idea.
We found a great storage facility recently built in an old furniture factory. 
The container was only about 2/3 full.
The little van used to bring a few things from storage to the house wasn’t big enough for the mattress, so they just put it on top and drove v-e-r-y slowly.
And work continues at the house.
A gorgeous fireplace was uncovered in our kitchen. 
I like seeing snippets of the old wallpaper uncovered here and there. This one had been put on upside-down.
Bye bye plaster. 
Love the stone walls but only some will be kept that way.
This is the bedroom that had been divided into two (with 11 children, probably a good idea). We are making it into a multi-purpose room and hope to use that old cupboard opening as an entry into the upper level of the cave (storeroom) that runs along the backside of the house.
Oh boy, it’s all happening now, sledgehammering and chipping and lots of noise and dust and piles of debris. I love every bit of it, as it’s the sound of the bones of this great house being revealed. I can imagine the stone walls taking in a big gulp of fresh air as the decades of plaster and gunk are being chipped away. When you have stone walls that are 19″ thick, there is no place for electrical or plumbing, so back when electrical and plumbing were added to an old house, a thin wall was built in front of the stone that served as a channel for the necessary wiring and such. I was surprised to learn that more recently, thick styrofoam was used as insulation in these walls. All these “false walls” are now being taken out, and some will be replaced. I’m sure there is a technical word for these little walls, but I’m new here in France demo-land.
The kitchen demo begins 
A beautiful stone wall revealed 
We can’t keep it all like this, but hopefully we can leave some of it exposed
This gorgeous cupboard in our dining area will be removed for safekeeping while the really rough part of the demo happens, and then carefully repositioned.
Wonderful corner stones have been exposed around the window and door openings.
In the living room, the dividing wall is gone, revealing the toilet that was tucked next to the former kitchen. 
The toilet is now gone, and the floor has been lowered to the level of the room.
Upstairs, the little bathroom is gone… 
…and it looks better already.
In the guestroom, the fireplace is exposed, and it looks like it used to be quite a bit larger, as that blackened stone on the left is from soot from the older fireplace. 
It turns out there was previously a door from the bedroom into the bathroom, and it’s right where we were going to put a doorway, so we will open that up again.
That’s the update for now. Things keep moving on and it’s fun to pop in every day and see what has changed. I will post more soon.
I walked through the house recently to get “before” pictures from every corner in every room, imagining that someday, the “
The time has finally come, and things started
So, here is what everybody has been asking to see. Here are photos of the house before the construction starts. Keep in mind that ALL surfaces will be redone in some way: walls, floors, ceilings, doors, windows, roof (and, of course, all new electrical, plumbing, heating). But being “redone” doesn’t mean that we are taking away the charm of the 300+ yr old house. Back then, it was common to paint over oak woodwork and paint or even cover up the ceiling beams. We hope to restore as much of the original wood as possible, blasting the paint off the beams, installing appropriate hardwood flooring to replace the hodgepodge of tile, and stripping and refinishing those painted doors and the stairway.
The house looks big but it is surprisingly small.
The front door is in sad shape and must be replaced. But we hope to keep the same style.
The entry area, with doors into living room on right, and kitchen on left. That is a narrow closet straight ahead. 
Entry closet and stairs. We plan to move the closet door back about 3 feet to open up the stairway a bit at the bottom.
This will be our kitchen.
That partial wall will be gone soon.
Looking back from within the kitchen toward the door to the entry.
Across the entry hall, this was their kitchen, but it will be our living room.
We hope to restore the fireplace that is behind that wall on the left. 
The back wall will be removed to expand the room a bit.
Through that door up the steps in the back of the living room is what we call the cave. 
We will make this cave into a combination pantry, laundry, and guest bath. It’s a long room that goes across the back of the house, so it will be accessed from both the kitchen and living room.
At the top of the stairs is a dinky bathroom. 
To the left, a nice-sized guestroom with the only working fireplace in the house. 
To the right, a large bedroom that had been divided into two rooms.
The stairs continue up to the attic. It’s spooky up there now. 
The attic is spacious and will become a large guest suite. 
When the roof is replaced, some of the supporting beams will have to be removed. We hope to keep as many as possible.
What I can’t show you is what doesn’t exist yet. We plan to build a perpendicular addition onto the house, which will become our master bedroom and bath. Fortunately, there is plenty of room for it as the backyard is massive.
The addition is shown on the plans, and here you can see how the cave goes across the back of the house. It already has an entry from the living room, so we will add a door from the kitchen so it can be used as a pantry and laundry.
So, that’s it. Now that work has begun, things are changing quickly. I will try to post often as changes are made.
Le Grand-Pressigny may be a village of only about 950 people, but it’s a busy place. Last weekend was the “La Nature
As we’d been eager to get involved in the community as much as possible, we were happy to be asked to help out with this event. On Saturday, we were part of the team that set up the booths and tents in the yard of the Gothic-style church in the village square. We considered working in the booth selling drinks, but we’re still not so quick with counting Euro coins and didn’t want to inflict our ignorance on the patrons.
The weather cooperated on Nature Day, and everyone seemed pleased with the attendance. We enjoyed catching up with our new friends and neighbors as we strolled through the assortment of crafts and plants for sale (three tomato plants went home with us). In a side tent, there were lectures on various subjects such as area wildlife, and a local man presented an interesting slide show of his travels to Antarctica. At mid-day, it was time for a wine reception and lunch from a man in a wooden caravan selling “fouées,” delicious little pita
One woman had some interesting medallion necklaces for sale. When she said something about them in French to me, I apologized and asked if she spoke any English. She smiled and said “George Clooney!” and pointed to the necklaces. It took me a minute, but I realized she was saying that the necklaces were made from recycled Nespresso coffee pods. You would never know it by looking at them – they were quite pretty. (Sorry, I’m kicking myself now for not getting a photo of them.)
Things I learned this week:
- The word “pet” in French is “animal de compagnie.” Isn’t that perfect?
- Northern France has the distinction of having towns with the longest name (Saint-Remy-en-Bouzemont-Saint-Genest-et-Isson) and the shortest name (Y).
- The entire country of France would fit in the state of Texas.
Update on renovations:
- Work is scheduled to begin on May 20th. Hallelujah!
In between opening accounts, getting established with the local doctor and filling prescriptions, joining the gym in a nearby village, navigating the country roads to explore the gorgeous area surrounding us, and meeting the locals, we have been getting to know the village that is now our home.
Château du Grand-Pressigny and its Museum of Prehistory.
Our house is on the right edge of this photo. Can you find it?
The Château du Grand-Pressigny overlooks the village and houses the Museum of Prehistory. The first château on the site was built in the 12th century and completed in the 15th and 16th centuries. The museum was built within the remains of the château and contains an extensive exhibition that emphasizes what made the region so unique during the prehistoric period, the famous Le Grand-Pressigny flint.
The new and the old were merged in the construction of the museum.
We stopped by the tourist office to pick up some maps and hiking info and happened to be walking by the pharmacy when they rolled up their metal security doors (they close from 12:15 to 2:30 for lunch). Since we were the only customers in the usually busy place, we took the opportunity to chat with the pharmacist about our medications and their availability in France. She noted what we take, and looked up the medications on her computer. She frowned apologetically and said my migraine medication was a bit expensive — it comes in packages of ten pills for €14. My dumbfounded expression needed an explanation, and I told her the same medication in the US is $65 (€58) for six pills.
Le Grand-Pressigny is a lively and active community and we are eager to become involved. We have joined the Randonées, a group of local folks who seem to easily manage a 12 km (7 mi) hike every Thursday. Bob has already been on several hikes with the group, which can be as many as 30 people, but I have to work up the stamina (and courage) to join them.
We’re anxiously awaiting the arrival of our shipment, and I have been monitoring the movement of the ship carrying our container. Today I received a notice that the ship has left the Panama Canal and is headed for Cartagena, Columbia. It is scheduled to arrive in the port of Le Havre, France, on May 22, then our container will be loaded onto a truck and driven to our wee village. We have made arrangements to use storage units recently built in a former furniture factory just down the street from the house we are renting.
