A lot can happen in a week and this past one has been one we will remember all our lives. We became the new owners of this huge house in the Aude as the sun began to set last Friday. We are buying it from the Church and the priest shook our hands warmly as the transaction took place. Our lovely agent presented us with a bottle of local wine and the notaire thrust the large key into our hands. We were off to our new home!
I talked about life’s moments last week and next came one of those to cherish: my husband opened the huge front door and sitting in the grand tiled hallway was a bottle of Dom Perignon champagne, beribboned in red white and blue along with two glasses. Yes, he had secretly arranged with the priest to have this ready and waiting for our first entrance. We drank a toast to ourselves, our new French house and our future life in France.
Our rented van stood outside, filled to the brim with many of our worldly goods. Where to start, we thought? The future months will mean a lot of hard toil but first things first, we lit a fire in one of our marble fireplaces and sat in front of it to start planning. I opened out the handy worksheets I had brought with me from my France Buying Guide and decided that the best thing is to take things in stages. We needed to make the house at least temporarily into a comfortable living space whilst we worked out our plans for renovation.
Tired but happy, we decided to leave unloading our van until the next day and made our way across the road in our little village to the lovely chambre d’hote that we had booked for one night. Bright and early the next morning my husband and super stepson Jack unloaded the van whilst I went off to the local Carrefour supermarket to buy brooms, cleaning materials and the like. The rest of the day was spent cleaning up, clearing up and swinging between thoughts of how much we have to do and great excitement at the very idea of it.
In about 3 weeks we will be driving down to our house to stay there for several months. Our puppy Cocker spaniels, Eddie & Alfie will be coming with us once they have their passports. Details of how to go about this, amongst many many other things, as well as those incredibly handy worksheets I was talking about can be found in my France Buying Guide here: www.francebuyingguide.com/guide.htm
I leave you with a picture of this grand house, the sheer scale of it really takes one’s breath away.
Watch this space for more on our progress, the work is about to begin.
I talked about life’s moments last week and next came one of those to cherish: my husband opened the huge front door and sitting in the grand tiled hallway was a bottle of Dom Perignon champagne, beribboned in red white and blue along with two glasses. Yes, he had secretly arranged with the priest to have this ready and waiting for our first entrance. We drank a toast to ourselves, our new French house and our future life in France.
Our rented van stood outside, filled to the brim with many of our worldly goods. Where to start, we thought? The future months will mean a lot of hard toil but first things first, we lit a fire in one of our marble fireplaces and sat in front of it to start planning. I opened out the handy worksheets I had brought with me from my France Buying Guide and decided that the best thing is to take things in stages. We needed to make the house at least temporarily into a comfortable living space whilst we worked out our plans for renovation.
Tired but happy, we decided to leave unloading our van until the next day and made our way across the road in our little village to the lovely chambre d’hote that we had booked for one night. Bright and early the next morning my husband and super stepson Jack unloaded the van whilst I went off to the local Carrefour supermarket to buy brooms, cleaning materials and the like. The rest of the day was spent cleaning up, clearing up and swinging between thoughts of how much we have to do and great excitement at the very idea of it.
In about 3 weeks we will be driving down to our house to stay there for several months. Our puppy Cocker spaniels, Eddie & Alfie will be coming with us once they have their passports. Details of how to go about this, amongst many many other things, as well as those incredibly handy worksheets I was talking about can be found in my France Buying Guide here: www.francebuyingguide.com/guide.htm
I leave you with a picture of this grand house, the sheer scale of it really takes one’s breath away.
Watch this space for more on our progress, the work is about to begin.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteOn my goodness, what an incredibly beautiful house! Thanks for the picture, look forward to the next post!
Michelle