So, I finally figured out how to blog...only took me two years. I posted my last entry, which had actually been written as a 'comment' on houseblogs.net, not realizing this isn't how you blog. So...a year later, and a little wiser. Our great adventure of the last summer was marked by tragedy...our crew of 9 became 8 when my best friend (age 26) fell ill just before we were scheduled to depart...her illness turned out to be a terrible type of cancer and she succombed to it within months of her diagnosis, dying in November of last year (2007). We're all still reeling from her loss. At the time of our trip, however, we didn't realize quite how serious her illness was, so we completed the trip as planned.
We accomplished much. Prior to our arrival, my husband Patrick and I had one of the local contractors install the basics...plumbing to the house, electricity, a shower, a tiny washroom sink (which served as our only sink throughout the stay), a toilet....and that's about it. The rest of the house looked remarkably just like we had left it, with the exception of a few key appliances purchased through http://www.ebay.fr/ and delivered for a fee by the kind sellers - a fridge, a stove, a washing machine and dryer (both of which are painfully slow and hold so little compared to their American counterparts...but at least they're functional and came at a great price). Other new additions to the house included some furniture kindly donated by a French relation who lives nearby, and other friends of my grandparents. It wasn't the Ritz, but it suited us just fine.
We tackled the scraping and painting of the main entrance room, kitchen, and upstairs bedrooms...all that nasty lead paint came off in chunks and was quickly sealed over with cheap primer from Leroy Merlin. We scraped wallpaper and plumbed the other two bathrooms (and when I say 'we,' I really mean dear hubby Patrick and his Dad). All was going fine until my mother-in-law and I were beginning the wallpaper removal in the master bedroom, when suddenly millions of tiny little biting gnats poured from the wallpaper. We didn't even realize they had emerged until we looked at our arms and felt little stinging sensations from the black dirt that seemed to have covered us...it didn't take long before the entire house was taken over by these little monsters. We all jumped in the van and raced up to my grandparents house to quickly jump in the pool, clothes and all. An hour or so later, much wetter, itchier, and a bit grumpier at having lost an entire day of work, we headed off for the local hardware store to inquire about bug killing options. The girl at the counter just laughed at our story and nodded knowingly, saying yes, there are definitely little gnats, but she insisted they didn't bite "ils ne piquent pas"...ok....tell that to my arms...and legs...and face. Then she handed us a can of ant killer and wished us good luck with that....
Another trip to LeRoy Merlin for bug bombs....and that was pretty much the end of our working on the house, only 1 week into our 2 week stay, since none of us wanted to be in the house with that insecticide wafting everywhere. Did I mention I was 3 months pregnant at the time? Bug bomb and lead paint, definite no-no's. Good thing we had the grandparents' house to stay at.
In the meantime, we're planning a trip back for September '08. A little trickier now that we have 4 month old baby Marc to consider, but we'll figure it out I'm sure.
We accomplished much. Prior to our arrival, my husband Patrick and I had one of the local contractors install the basics...plumbing to the house, electricity, a shower, a tiny washroom sink (which served as our only sink throughout the stay), a toilet....and that's about it. The rest of the house looked remarkably just like we had left it, with the exception of a few key appliances purchased through http://www.ebay.fr/ and delivered for a fee by the kind sellers - a fridge, a stove, a washing machine and dryer (both of which are painfully slow and hold so little compared to their American counterparts...but at least they're functional and came at a great price). Other new additions to the house included some furniture kindly donated by a French relation who lives nearby, and other friends of my grandparents. It wasn't the Ritz, but it suited us just fine.
We tackled the scraping and painting of the main entrance room, kitchen, and upstairs bedrooms...all that nasty lead paint came off in chunks and was quickly sealed over with cheap primer from Leroy Merlin. We scraped wallpaper and plumbed the other two bathrooms (and when I say 'we,' I really mean dear hubby Patrick and his Dad). All was going fine until my mother-in-law and I were beginning the wallpaper removal in the master bedroom, when suddenly millions of tiny little biting gnats poured from the wallpaper. We didn't even realize they had emerged until we looked at our arms and felt little stinging sensations from the black dirt that seemed to have covered us...it didn't take long before the entire house was taken over by these little monsters. We all jumped in the van and raced up to my grandparents house to quickly jump in the pool, clothes and all. An hour or so later, much wetter, itchier, and a bit grumpier at having lost an entire day of work, we headed off for the local hardware store to inquire about bug killing options. The girl at the counter just laughed at our story and nodded knowingly, saying yes, there are definitely little gnats, but she insisted they didn't bite "ils ne piquent pas"...ok....tell that to my arms...and legs...and face. Then she handed us a can of ant killer and wished us good luck with that....
Another trip to LeRoy Merlin for bug bombs....and that was pretty much the end of our working on the house, only 1 week into our 2 week stay, since none of us wanted to be in the house with that insecticide wafting everywhere. Did I mention I was 3 months pregnant at the time? Bug bomb and lead paint, definite no-no's. Good thing we had the grandparents' house to stay at.
In the meantime, we're planning a trip back for September '08. A little trickier now that we have 4 month old baby Marc to consider, but we'll figure it out I'm sure.
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