- Welcome, we made it!
I'm so excited to show you guys the after.
We've been very busy for the last few days,
getting it ready.
So, sorry this upload has taken
a little bit of time,
but I think you'll be pretty amazed
by the results after all that construction.
Now, if you're just joining this tour,
you can see the before of this house
and I'll link to it below.
This will be part of a playlist
of all of my videos in France,
and then you can get caught up.
Okay, so let's start with the entry.
So, my idea here is to have an entry
that has all of these market baskets
hung on the wall.
So, I'm still looking for
some sort of like hat rack,
something antique that I can put here.
So we're gonna be shopping the brocants tomorrow
and see if we can find something.
But these are the different baskets that I found in town
that I thought would be so cool to hang here,
so that when people went out the house,
they have baskets to do the market.
because you definitely need a big basket.
This one is one of my favorites.
Look at this, isn't this fabulous.
So great, and then there's this little one.
If you just have small things to buy,
and then this one is really cute.
This one actually comes with its own change purse.
Isn't that cute?
So, you've got your wallet,
you got your market basket and then off you go.
And coming here,
this is my favorite part, the kitchen.
So, we spent a lot of time thinking through this kitchen.
I remember we had that little kitchen
where we just totally reconfigured.
We knocked out the wall into the dining room,
expanded the house out six feet,
and then added a really nice large sized living room.
So, over here is sort of the bread station.
We have a party that we're planning tonight
for friends that have really helped us with the house.
So, it's sort of our first dinner party.
So, my husband went this morning
to get a bunch of baguettes.
Then I wanted all the dishes
that people use for breakfast right in plain sight.
So, we've got the coffee cups,
juice cups, cereal bowls,
bigger glasses, toast plates,
the kettle so that it's really easy to find.
So, if people are renting this house,
you wake up in the first morning.
I didn't want people looking through cabinets,
trying to find stuff.
It's all here to get them on their way.
So, the fridge is really small and compact
compared to our American refrigerators,
but that's okay because that means
you get to go to the market every few days,
which believe me is so much fun.
And then for all the storage,
we did really deep drawers
so that you can get a lot of pots
and pans in here, which I think really helps.
And then the oven is here and this is a little,
they're telling me it's a combination oven microwave,
which I haven't really figured out yet.
So, I've gotta read the manual on that.
But when I heard microwave,
I thought that was kind of strange
with all of the metal inside,
but that's what they're telling me.
(metal rattling)
But that's what they're telling me
so we'll figure it out.
And then we did an induction cook top, here.
And then, this is a really beautiful
collection of serving pieces.
So I'll show you a little clip of that.
This morning's making project was unwrapping
all of this beautiful china that was given to us
by a friend of Philippe's.
His grandmother died and they were emptying the house.
And so this china came with it,
and what it was wrapped in, was not newspaper.
It was wrapped in
all of this gorgeous antique linen.
(Woman chuckles)
So, we're sorting it now
and we're putting it into different piles.
So like, this is a pile of ones
that are kind of damaged
that I need to see if I can repair.
See, they're sort of stained here.
So, this is the try to fix pile.
This is the sort of random
cute little doily pile.
(Woman laughs)
Maybe we could do something with these.
I think they might be fun on a tray,
like for cocktails or if you're doing like,
maybe a little tea party.
And then, these are the gorgeous cocktail napkins.
See how cute are these?
And over here, this is the
not sure we're gonna keep pile
'cause they're pretty colorful.
Not sure, I'm gonna see if maybe we can give these
to some friends.
And this pile is my, oh, it's so pretty pile.
(Woman laughs)
Look at this.
I thought this could be nice
for like a little tea table in the garden.
Look at it all embroidered in beautiful roses.
Isn't that gorgeous?
And then this one is also really pretty,
which I thought could be great on a tray
out in the garden, like,
with some champagne glasses
and a big champagne bucket.
(Woman laughs)
And then this is really gorgeous, look at this.
This is an antique Euro Sham.
See, so it's a pillow case,
and I thought it would be really great
in my daughter's room,
but we gotta find another one.
So, we're gonna to look through this heap
and see if maybe there's another one.
(Woman chuckles)
So we will see.
Then, the other thing
we were unwrapping this morning,
are these gorgeous oyster plates.
I wanna hang them up here.
So, I think maybe something like this
or do a pattern, could be cool.
So we're not exactly sure where,
but we'll figure it out and show you.
And then another thing that came with all the china set
were all of these beautiful serving pieces.
So, look at this,
I thought they made such a great display
on the top shelf.
See, so there's like the little sauce boat,
and just look at the detail.
It's all the empire style.
And I love just the subtle hint
of green and gold.
I think it's so pretty.
So there are cover casseroles,
and little like, fruit bowls,
and compotes that you can put things in,
which I thought was so great.
And ironically, there is like just enough
to fill that whole shelf.
And this one I love because
it has a covered little top to it.
We have to wash these all,
but I just wanted to get them out of the way
so no one broke them, because we're expecting
a bunch of workmen here in a minute.
So we thought we'd just get them out of the way,
but it's coming together!
So, one of the things that I have realized
about renting homes in France
when you have a lot of people in the house,
is that you can have serious bottlenecks that happen,
especially around mealtime.
And the bottlenecks happen in three areas.
It's the food prepping in the kitchen,
the table setting, and the drink mixing.
So, anytime we get ready for
what is called the apéritif
in France, which is taken very seriously.
Which is at least an hour or two
of a cocktail hour,
we have a lot of people descending into the kitchen,
grabbing glasses, grabbing snacks.
It's just sort of like chaos when you're in there
trying to prep the food.
So to alleviate that,
I came up with my three quadrants.
So here, we have the kitchen.
This is where all the food prep will be.
And there's a nice big island.
So you can have people prepping on this side,
people prepping on this side,
and somebody prepping vegetables
and washing dishes over there.
Then, to set the table,
we have this dining room here,
and you can see,
we went with a really long dining table
because at any one time
we can have 12 to 14 people.
So, I think the table will really seat about 16,
which is perfect.
And then we did a very big buffet that can hold
all the dishes and serving platters.
So like in here, we have
all the knives ready to go.
And then we have all of the plates,
there's some candles in here you can see.
You can see we have all the plates,
the serving platters, sorry,
we still need to kinda clean this up.
But everything is here,
so whoever is setting the table,
they don't need to come into the kitchen,
which I think is just really helpful.
Then to help with all of the drink making,
I came up with this idea,
which I think is gonna work really well.
We found this old chest online.
There's this really great website
called leboncoin, I think it's leboncoin,
or Selency, one or the other,
where you can get these wonderful antiques.
Really, I think it's all over Europe.
And we found this one for a real steal,
and this is gonna be my bar.
So in here, you have all the glasses,
everything you need for apéritif,
the cocktail napkins,
the drinks will be here.
And then we'll put all of the kind of
little gateau, apéritif
snacks in here.
I'm looking for a tray that we can put here,
and some great painting that I need
to find at a local brocanter flea market.
Then we did find this little piece,
which I think is fun.
This is an old chest.
I'm not really sure what it was used for,
but we're gonna be using it for the pool towels.
And this is kind of funny.
This was given to us by the pool company,
after the pool was installed,
they gave us these little towels and sunglasses.
(Woman laughs) So cute.
All right, now let's go to
the main living area of the house.
So we went with an open floor plan.
You remember, we knocked down all of these walls
so we can have one big room.
So, we got rid of the fireplace, which was here.
And then we extended the house about six feet out
so that you can see it's a lot more spacious.
So the concept with the furniture
was to keep everything low,
so that you could see
the view outside to the pool.
So we kept the sofa backs low,
we kept the chairs low,
we put a mirror here,
so you could reflect the outside,
so that you really get a sense
that you're almost outside because it's so open,
which I think is really fun.
And then because you see the kitchen
from the dining room,
I mean, it's really part of the same room.
I didn't want it to feel like a kitchen.
So that's why we did not have any upper cabinets.
I really would love to do this torre LA house
to be perfectly honest,
just get rid of the upper cabinets
and just have shelving.
And then we kind of used
turned legs for the island.
So again, it looks like a piece of furniture.
We're waiting for some stools,
they're sort of lost in transit.
We don't actually know where they are
or when they're coming,
but hopefully they're coming soon.
And then, the floors are all of this
kind of matte concrete,
which I just thought was gonna be so much easier
for a beach house with people coming in,
sandy feet, you just vacuum it up.
It just was a lot more cost-effective
to do that throughout the whole house
than to actually try to do tile or wood.
And then, these are these sweet little chairs
that a friend of ours gave us.
If you follow the Maison Coli Instagram,
you'll see that these chairs had this
really kind of old and tired fabric on it.
And we went with something
just a clean, crisp stripe,
which I think is really nice,
just a little punch of soft color
against all of the wood.
We went with this ginormous cocktail table which,
because there's nothing on it looks really big,
but we will be putting lots of beautiful like,
cocktail table books of the area.
We just have one to begin,
but there'll be more to come.
But I love a generous sized cocktail table
because of how the French entertain.
One of the things that I really love
about how the French entertain,
especially during the cocktail hour
is that they typically have lots of glasses
and little snacks,
saucisson sec that they're cutting,
and it's really nice to have this room
so that everybody can kind of reach things.
And I don't know, I just think
it's a really lovely way
to have a nice cocktail hour.
So we're gonna fill the table up
so it doesn't look like a stage.
Although my little daughter
has been sitting on this thing, dancing on it.
So.
(Woman laughs)
Maybe it will be a stage at some point.
And then we have two little chairs
on either side of the armoire which,
unfortunately this armoire needs
to be moved about six centimeters
so that this is not butting up to the radiator.
So we're waiting until we have a big party
and we've got a couple of strong men
that can just push that thing.
(Woman laughs)
You can see from the tippy top,
it just fits.
(Woman laughs)
So I think it was meant to be,
but what's nice about this armoire
is it came from a family friend,
his mom was clearing out his house,
and he said do you want this armoire?
And the way that they moved it
is they took it all apart.
Apparently that's what they did back in the day
to move these large pieces from place to place.
It just kind of broke down
and then they put it back together again.
And what we use it for is to put a TV!
Especially this summer because
it's the European Cup.
And my husband, his brothers and friends
are like glued to the TV,
rooting on France.
(Woman laughs)
So I put the TV in here
and then we also put -
sorry, it's kinda messy.
But then we also put games
and stuff for the kids.
So, it's really functional as well as decorative.
(indistinct) with two large sofas,
just because this is the type of house
you really want to be comfortable in.
And so they're really great,
they're the kind of sofa
that just sort of swallows you up.
And you can relax.
And I think what's nice is that
you get a good view from either position.
So when you're sitting here,
you get to see the kitchen
and talk with people who are in the kitchen.
And when you're sitting over here,
you get to see the outside, which is really nice.
But really the best part of this room
are the sliding glass doors.
Let me show you what I mean.
So right now they're closed, which is fine,
they give you a nice view.
So you can slide these all the way into the wall.
There!
So then the whole thing is open.
And there's so many wonderful breezes
that come in and out.
And then the outdoor seating is also
equally important for a house like this, I think,
because we constantly are eating outside
as well as inside.
So we have enough room for 12, which is great,
and we can always pull up
a few more chairs if we need to.
And then you can see the pool that we put in
and we'll go check that out in a second.
But I also wanted to show you the pergola.
So we put in this pergola,
just to sort of provide shade.
Ideally, we're gonna have these grape vines
growing up it like this,
but they're still young.
Although, I think we see a few grapes,
check that out, that's promising.
And they're gonna be yellow grapes,
which I think will be really interesting.
So until they grow,
up,
we have actually put in what they call cannes,
which you can kind of see
is sort of that bamboo-y looking stuff,
which adds a nice shade.
And then yesterday, my husband
was on this little ladder,
hanging all of these little bulbs
because he loves that sort of look
when it's all lit and you're sort of
sitting under it.
I think that'll be really fun for tonight.
And then we've got that barbecue there.
And I think in typical French fashion
during the summer,
we're just gonna be doing lots of Merguez,
and sausages, to keep it simple.
I'll probably put together a couscous salad,
cheese, dessert,
and it will be really fun.
And then over here,
we're doing like a little seating area.
I think we need two more chairs,
but these chairs are super comfy
because they're low slung.
And so they really support your back.
And then you can see the side
we put in these little planters
and then this is gonna be a planter
just like for drinks, with ice.
And then, we put this pool in,
which is a saltwater pool.
So it's really nice on your skin.
Right now we have the little robot
trying to clean it.
And then I put these lanterns out here
because these lanterns - if they could talk!
We bought these probably about 10 years ago
for my husband's 50th birthday party,
and every rental house that
we have rented in France,
they've been coming with us
because my brother-in-law stores
them in his garage.
There's seven of them.
And then we put them on the other side of the pergola too.
So I think he was all too happy
to give them back to us.
(Woman laughs)
For their permanent resting spot,
here at our house now.
So that'll be fun. We'll light those tonight.
And then if you remember,
oh, and then this is this beautiful
Weeping willow tree.
We're sort of testing the lights
to see where we want to put them.
And I think they'll probably go right there,
so that they'll light the tree at night.
And then unfortunately we had to rebuild
this whole little pool cabin,
because it was just falling down.
But we're going to be planting some Hydrangeas here,
some blue Hydrangeas,
they're in there.
But if you remember what that view
looked like before,
and this is what it looks like now,
I think it's definitely coming together!
Alright you guys, so this is part one
of probably a two-part video tour,
but as soon as we get the bedrooms together,
I'm still kind of working on those,
I'll show you the bedrooms, the bathrooms,
and sort of the front of the house.
We've planted some really beautiful
Espalier trees.
All right, until then, bye!