MY EXCITING ENCOUNTER WITH A FRENCH PUSSY - MARVEILLEUX

Osso, I think the plans we have for the barns are pretty much pipe dreams at the mo, unless we win the lottery of course.

If we convert the barns, it will be done very sympathetically. We would leave as many beams exposed as possible, and have big vaulted ceilings wherever we can.
The trouble with bringing French architects into the frame is, well, they are French.
We have noticed time and time again, that a really old place, be it a barn or not, has been "converted" to a restaurant/auberge in what the French see as "stylish".
Take an old bar/restaurant for instance. They will rip out all the old furniture and fittings, cover up the old architrave or wooden beams with a plastic (and more recently, mirrored plastic) ceiling, put in some nondescript boring tables and chairs and call it the "Modern bar" or something as equally tasteless.

In the UK, most old buildings have a preservation order on them and are called "listed" buildings, which prevent any alterations, unless they are fully approved by planners with a heritage focus.
That doesn't seem to be the case in France (as far as I can see, going by some of the tear inducing "renovations" that take place) and many old places are being changed for the worse.

Another interesting fact I discovered whilst there, is that French law is causing many of these wonderful old houses to be left empty, and eventually fall into ruin.
My sister in law (French) explained (and I think I understood this correctly) that it is against the law in France, to disinherit anyone from a part of your estate when you die.
For instance.....a man has two sons, but only wants to give his estate to one of them, as the other one is a bad lot who disappeared years ago after causing major family discord.
He hasn't heard from the bad son in over thirty years, and neither has any other family member.
In the UK, he would be able to draw up a will, leaving his estate to whomsoever he wished.
In france, he can't, by law, deny the bad son an equal portion of his estate, so when the time comes, bad son owns half of the family house.

He can then prevent good son from selling the house or doing any alterations. He can also deny good son full access to the house, meaning that good son can only use half of the house and garden.

Consequently, the house usually just gets left empty, and if it is in a remote rural area, usually just falls into ruin.

Now...this is a simple scenario....just imagine the further complications if a few more sons, daughters and various grandchildren come into the frame.

I have a photo....I'll post it soon, of a whole group of houses just left empty because of this type of family feud. The houses are about four hundred yards down the road from our place in france, and to see them just gradually falling into decay brings a tear to the eye.


Anyway....don't worry Osso, if we EVER get round to seriously renovating the barns, it will be done with the utmost care. Well....certainly more care than the average French "renovator" would take, anyway....IMO.

There y'go......

A group of at least five houses/potential houses, all left empty. The nearest house on the left has lost about half of its roof....it all fell in last year and hasn't been touched since we last saw it.

What a great little place this would be if they were all renovated properly.
If this lot came on the market tomorrow in its present condition, it would probably sell for about the equivalent of $80K.


What a shame......it's about time they changed their law, but as my brother says, The French require revolution to get anything changed...as opposed to evolution, like the rest of Europe.

Now, to please all the ladies, I'll now move onto the interior shots so that you can see all of our sumptuous fixtures and fittings (Hah!).

I should explain that we set out from the start, to try and furnish the place at NO COST AT ALL!!

My brother, in his travels whilst at work (electrician), sees many, many instances of something that is prefectly good and usable being thrown out so that it can be replaced with new stuff.

he has a large van and is not shy in asking whether he can "rescue" the old stuff, and promptly brings it down to the farmhouse when his garage at home gets too full.

So far, he has "rescued" a full set of kitchen cupboards, complete with dishwasher (bosch, virtually new), two white (ugh!) leather sofas (almost new and very comfortable) , a very old wooden spiral staircase, a wooden kitchen table and six chairs, perfectly usable....various old light switches, light fittings and door handles, all to be fitted eventually....various bathroom pieces, including a brand new, unused toilet, sink and bath, rejected by yhe purchaser of a new house because they were the wrong colour (White! you try to figure it out...some people have more money than taste...apparently they replaced the white with a salmon pink suite)...and my favourite...an old wartime chaise longue, which came from a large house in Gex (near where my brother lives, on the swiss border) . This house was used by german Officers during WW2, so we have affectionately named the couch "Herman", and reckon that many a jackboot was rested on it during the early forties. Beds and mattresses have been provided from various French family members, and there are now three very large wardrobes and several bedside cupboards...all scrounged from various houses around the Jura region.

In addition to this, evereyone who comes to stay always brings a car load of excess stuff with them, so we have stacks of cutlery, piles of plates and cups, most with 70's design, and at least 60 glasses of varying sizes and shapes. Hi fi's are almost in every room, an old swiss radio still sounds great, and there are now a total of 5 TV's.

So far, we have spent about 20 euros in total, on a set of good carving knives and a wooden chopping board, but have a house full of stuff.

None of it matches mind you, so we just tell people that we are going for the "eclectic" look.

So.....I'll start with the flat (apartment) that is at the top of the external set of steps at the right hand side of the main house.....



You can see what I mean about French "Style" now, to a certain degree. The previous owner was supposed to be a builder, who renovated old properties.
He did all the "renovations" in this flat, starting by painting the lovely old oak beams a lovely shade of pink, and then putting down a pine, laminate floor over some ancient floorboards, without levelling it up properly.
As a consequence, you feel like you are being projected towards the back wall as you walk thorugh the room.

(please note the very tasteful red leather sofa....it was free, so we're not complaining)

The flat has a lovely old fireplace.



When it was originally built, the farmworker's accomodation was just this flat, with another farmworker living in about the same space, directly below on the ground floor.
The rest of the building was for the animals and storage of hay.

LE, I'm very, very pleased you bought this nice place in France and renovated it along the traditional line, avoiding the ugly moves that some French are doing (but less and less).

Now, for the intent of the law, it's not that simple.

Just another scenario: Let it be an owner, who was a bad alcoholic, who had two sons. One was an unruly drug addict and left the house early. The other one, while doing proper studies, took care of his alcoholic father despite all his wrong doings and despicable conduct. The father never acknowledged the efforts of his son. After his death the other son came back and....you see?

Not so simple....

Anyway, I would like to visit, when you are living there permanently...

Ah, but you would surely agree that the way it is at the moment leads to the likelihood of family dispute, which ends up with a lovely old house going to rack and ruin.

I agree that there are two sides to the coin, but surely a person has the right to leave whatever estate he/she has, to whoever he/she wishes?

How many old, derelict houses have you seen whilst on your travels thorugh France, Francis? I see them time and time again, but have only ever seen maybe ten or so like that, in the UK.

There MUST be some way that the law over there can be "tweaked", in order to prevent this from happening.
My idea would be for the local council to have the power to step in, say after three years of a house being empty, and forcibly selling the place at a fair market price and splitting the proceeds between all relevant family members. No?


Of course you are welcome to visit, Francis. You can sit and smile at the Borgogne accents in the local bar, as my sister in law does.
Quite distinctive, their accent....even I pick it up.

La Clayette (small nearby village) = La Clette.
Genelard = Genlar

It's like me trying to understand someone from North Yorkshire, or Glasgow.

Not so sure. What about a man leaving, by the end of his life, all his estate to a twisted mistress he only knew for three month, instead leaving it to his sons/daughters who supported him during his old age?



You are right on this: I've seen thousands and thousands of them. But I've good hopes for them as the English, the Dutch, the Americans and the Russians are buying a lot... :wink:





Thank you, LE. I'm quite used to accents...

In extreme cases of injustice, such as this, we have an appeal procedure that is considered by a Judge who specialises in such matters. They happen, but they're pretty rare.




Funny you should mention that, Francis, as we originally made enquiries about a beautiful, although semi derelict, house in the Jura mountains, only to find that it had been locked in a family inheritance dispute for the past ten years. That's how I first came to learn about the law there, regarding family estate.

Mind you, the estate agents in Charolles are now displaying all their houses for sale, using English wording, as so many Dutch (mainly) English and Germans are looking there.
In our little commune alone (twenty or so farmhouses?) there are three Dutch owners, one Belgian, one French townie from Lyon and us. So "foreigners" now account for about 25% of the immediate local population.

Let remind you of a German saying: "Leben wie Gott in Frankreich" or "Glücklich wie Gott in Frankreich" which translates in French as "Heureux comme dieu en France".

If you don't have such saying in UK, you will soon understand its real meaning. :wink:

Now, I'm trying to translate.......I KNOW the third word is referring to Zinadine Zidane, and the last word is obviously France.

Does heureux mean to head butt someone?

I think the place is just wonderful, Ellpus! How exciting! I adore old, abandoned buildings, too! They're a lot of work, but definitely worth it.












(I have read the thread twice, though, and am still wondering about the "French pussy.")

Eva, Ellpus threw that black pussy in his well.

Don't you know your nursery rhymes?

No! No! No!

I don't believe Ellpus would do that! I don't!!!

Well, I'm enjoying this thread also...its great.

I just wish that carpenter that had lived in the apartment hadn't painted over anything...it should be left natural...lol

Pussy had totally slipped my mind!

Well....there's a first time for everything, I suppose.

When we arrived on the first day, there was a Dutch friend of ours already there, with her teenage daughter. They were staying for a week on their way through to visit some other friends in the South, and, as the Mum ("M") is very good at painting, she is encouraged to come and stay as often as possible.
Two or three days before the English contingent arrived, she and daughter were rubbing down the front gates, when they heard a plaintive "Le Meow" and realised that it was a French kitten (they could tell by the accent) sitting out in the road.
They took it in, fed it some salmon pate and gave it a bowl of milk.

Enquiries with the neighbours drew a blank, which was a bit of a mystery, as the cat was in no way ferral in it's ways, loved humans and more surprisingly, loved M's dog (a Cairn terrier, who had been raised with a house full of cats, so therefore the feelings were mutual).

The kitten followed us around all the time, loved sleeping under someone's sweater, and sounded like a Harley Davidson when it purred, which was often.

The Dutch daughter decided to call it "Cafe Noir" as it was black, but when the Brits got there, we soon named it something far less pretentious, so it was called "Monkey", because it was one, really. It got into all sorts of mischief, and we had to put a metal grid over the well as it very nearly fell in on several occasions.

Will the kitten be given a good home?...or will it be all alone and abandoned as the humans disappear one by one, at the end of the vacation?

Find out later, in the final episode of "Who wants Monkey?"


Le Chatte (female)




and the Dog called Pepper.....

Oh! They're as wonderful as le petit chateau!

Re: MY EXCITING ENCOUNTER WITH A FRENCH PUSSY - MARVEILLEUX


Back to the interior shots........

As you can see, the very large entrance on the left is where the hay cart used to be taken in and stored, when it was a working farm.
It's now the entrance to the living room, which looks like this, on the inside.......



(Note "Herman" the chaise longue, on the right).....you will also note that, despite having several tons of local stone just lying around, our previous owner decided to build the fireplace, using the cheapest bricks available and for some reason, using black mortar to bed them in place.
Highly tasteful and in keeping with the character of the house, methinks.

Gasp!! NO!!

You can't leave me in kitty suspense like this, it's too cruel!

...although I can't believe our own Lord Ellpus would ever abandon a good pussy...




P.S. Also more indoor pics, please!

I've got loads more pics, cypher, but I'm just off to bed at the mo, with a raging stomach ache. I've taken my "special" painkillers, so I would probably post the wrong stuff if I tried to do it now, I think.

I'll try do some more over the weekend, I promise.

(The cat ends up OK, by the way)

G'night.

That fireplace could be gorgeous....
well, I presume it was before perv, no, prev owner got ahold of it.
What a knucklehead.

Much of my time and money at my new tiny house has gone to undoing what a helpful neighbor did as a favor to the previous owner - installed an unsturdy and ugly sort of roof thing, poured concrete draining in the wrong direction, on and on.

Monkey is wonderful! The Cairn is wonderful! Reminds me of Jack. a neighbor's Cairn, who ceaselessly chased after a ball. Hours could go by...