Post by kerouac on Aug 20, 2010 8:40:32 GMT -5
Some friends of mine have been trying to sell their village house in Burgundy due to, er, irreconciliable differences, and I had actually never been there, so I volunteered to drive a bit more than 200 km each way from Paris to take a friend to a real estate rendez-vous today.
The market has been so slow, that he had not even been to the house for 3 1/2 months and everything was completely overgrown. He had to hack the luxuriant vegetation away from the doors and windows, while I went on cobweb patrol inside the house, and wow, the spiders can really create an eerie mess in these old unoccupied houses.
It was built in the 18th century and is really not impressive at all from the outside.
It is on this village street, with a closed well right out in front.
There was a gate, but once it had been opened, I drove in.
I parked the car up against the wall to make he courtyard look bigger to the visitors.
This was the view from the back garden.
The swimming pool remained under its protective tarp.
There were a number of entrances to the house, but this is the view from the main entrance, with grape vines on the railing. It faced one of the several outbuildings, a traditional Burgundy round bread oven. This building was being used just for storage of garden equipment but could easily be transformed into a (small) guesthouse.
The grapes were not ripe yet.
The ivy was becoming invasive.
There was also lavender in the garden, and it smelled sensational.
I found the inside to be much more impressive than the outside. For one thing, it looked much bigger than I expected.
As in any old French house, the kitchen is the very first room that you enter. After all, it is the most important room of the house.
The kitchen table was simple and quite adequate for ordinary family meals.
The living/dining room was lovely, even if it is not my personal style of living room. This one was "magazine quality" or at least the kind in which tidying is often done. I am more of a "use the living room and who cares if it is messy" person. Poor me.
Anyway, the last room on the ground floor is the master bedroom, which did not seem too shabby to me either.
Upstairs, there were three other bedrooms plus a library/TV room.
The third bedroom was the little girl's bedroom, but I didn't manage to get a picture of it. There was also a very nice additional bathroom.
Well, the people arrived, they took a look around, and they hated it. In their defense, they were elderly and wanted everything on the same floor. It was all finished in 10 minutes. I had spent far longer slapping down spiderwebs with my kitchen towel.
I guess Burgundy is just ugly.
The market has been so slow, that he had not even been to the house for 3 1/2 months and everything was completely overgrown. He had to hack the luxuriant vegetation away from the doors and windows, while I went on cobweb patrol inside the house, and wow, the spiders can really create an eerie mess in these old unoccupied houses.
It was built in the 18th century and is really not impressive at all from the outside.
It is on this village street, with a closed well right out in front.
There was a gate, but once it had been opened, I drove in.
I parked the car up against the wall to make he courtyard look bigger to the visitors.
This was the view from the back garden.
The swimming pool remained under its protective tarp.
There were a number of entrances to the house, but this is the view from the main entrance, with grape vines on the railing. It faced one of the several outbuildings, a traditional Burgundy round bread oven. This building was being used just for storage of garden equipment but could easily be transformed into a (small) guesthouse.
The grapes were not ripe yet.
The ivy was becoming invasive.
There was also lavender in the garden, and it smelled sensational.
I found the inside to be much more impressive than the outside. For one thing, it looked much bigger than I expected.
As in any old French house, the kitchen is the very first room that you enter. After all, it is the most important room of the house.
The kitchen table was simple and quite adequate for ordinary family meals.
The living/dining room was lovely, even if it is not my personal style of living room. This one was "magazine quality" or at least the kind in which tidying is often done. I am more of a "use the living room and who cares if it is messy" person. Poor me.
Anyway, the last room on the ground floor is the master bedroom, which did not seem too shabby to me either.
Upstairs, there were three other bedrooms plus a library/TV room.
The third bedroom was the little girl's bedroom, but I didn't manage to get a picture of it. There was also a very nice additional bathroom.
Well, the people arrived, they took a look around, and they hated it. In their defense, they were elderly and wanted everything on the same floor. It was all finished in 10 minutes. I had spent far longer slapping down spiderwebs with my kitchen towel.
I guess Burgundy is just ugly.
, but I dislike those upstairs rooms with the low slanted ceilings because I'm claustrophobic. 
Let the riot begin! LOL - 
hahahha