Steady progress

Nancy returned from Gaulejac on Friday with complete photo coverage, and a positive report about progress on the house. There are a few challenges, to be sure, but they are generally well in hand and on the way to being solved.

For instance, there was much anxiety for a while over the exact, desirable colour for the exterior pointing (mortar). The building contractor kindly applied a number of samples on walls all around the house, but the right shade continued to elude us. Until the architect, M. Coq, suggested matching the colour of the pointing on the house next door. A simple and logical solution, and elegant as well, since the two buildings form an ensemble anyway: close together, similar in size, built in the same period, using the same stone and in the same style.

Here are some of the many photos that Nancy brought back (click on any photo to enlarge it):

Above: this wall, between the landing and our bedroom,
is one of the interior surfaces where the stone will

remain apparent. The pointing was being done while
Nancy was there, and here it is now, in its finished state. 

Right: The right end of the same wall, showing

the entrance to our bedroom.

The master bedroom, where the flooring will soon be in place.

Here are a few of those "before-and-after" shots that you all like:

The kitchen fireplace - 2009

The kitchen fireplace - 2011

The "évier" - 2009

... and now.

In the two shots above, note that the old cupboard has been moved over to the other side of the fireplace, to make room for the new doorway to the dining room, visible in the "now" picture.

The "buanderie" (little room off
the kitchen) in 2009

... and now.

I will post more photos soon.

From England with love

While Nancy is checking things out on her own at Gaulejac, I'm doing some virtual traveling, imagining that I'm there with her.

Browsing away on this Holiday Monday, I discovered another recent media piece on the Dordogne. This time, an article from the online edition of The Mail - an English newspaper. Of course, there is nothing surprising about the region receiving attention from the folks across the Channel (which, by the way, on this side of the Atlantic is usually referrd to, quite rightly, as being neither English nor French, but simply "the Channel").

More than any other group, our Brit cousins have loved and visited "Dordogneshire" again and again. For centuries, in fact. Today, many still buy land, settle and integrate there. Which is an improvement on the approach their ancestors used to take, I suppose, although if it weren't for them, we wouldn't have many of the beautiful castles that pepper the landscape to this day.

To read that online Mail article, click "France holidays: Chateaux, cheese and canoeing down the Dordogne river" for a modern English perspective on all there is to love about the region - including what Nancy is probably enjoying right now ... 

Foie gras (pronounce "fwah grah")

As to visitors from much earlier times and their lasting influence on the region, click here for another interesting find from the English online media or, for a more detailed historical account, check out the Wikipedia entry on Dordogne's most famous resident ever.

Eleanor of Aquitaine's seal