Lots of people asked me how my cat was adjusting to his new life. Just fine!!! He just loves the new house, mostly because he spends most of the time in the garden, but also because there's a staircase, which is just wonderful to play his usual morning hide-and-seek.
De nombreuses personnes se sont inquiétées de mon chat: il s'adapte très bien à sa nouvelle maison. Il adore surtout le jardin dans lequel il passe le plus clair de son temps et il raffole de l'escalier qui rend les parties de cache-cache du matin follement intéressantes.
Climbing is so much fun, especially now that I don't need Mistress to get down (the getting down part was tricky at the beginning!). I took brid-watching to an other level!
Comme vous pouvez le constater, j'observe maintenant les oiseaux de très près. J'en profite car Maîtresse veut se débarasser de ce mimosa. Je ne comprends pas pourquoi...
Busy sunbathing...
Trop dur, cet été!
I kept my good habit: drinking tap water... directly from the tap!
Même avec un nouvel évier, je garde mes bonnes habitudes: boire de l'eau fraîche!
Even if it rains, the porch is great to keep bird-wathcing.
Et s'il pleut, je m'installe dans la véranda (je la trouve parfaite, moi!).
A good nap, dreaming about birds...
Enfin, toute cette activité me fatigue parfois et je retrouve mon coussin.
Here is project #2 completed. Upstairs, the floor was just chaos! There was a fake woodfloor in the guest room and in the bathroom (but not the same, of course!), navy blue carpet in the main bedroom, a blueish thing in the toilets and an Arlequin-style yellow and orange carpet in the corridor. You don't believe me, do you? The proof is in the pictures!
Blue carpet in the main room...
Like, the floor is the only problem!!!
According to the previous owner, it was cheerful!!!
Of course, I dreamed, and still dream, of hardwood floor... But it's way beyond what I can pay right now. Still, I just couldn't adjust to all the colors and I decided to go for a cheap makeover for now.
Here is the corridor now:
It's a natural product (just learned from the blog A Perfect Gray that it's called seagrass!), meaning color will slightly change with time, which is an idea I like. Also, I chose not to glue it to the floor, so it will be easier to remove when I have money for my dream hardwood floor! The glue is also highly chemical and then, what's the benefit of choosing a natural floor?
The atmsophere upstairs is just so much more peaceful already, even if the walls remain very, very, very colorful!
A friend asked me recently if I had done anything with the house yet or rather as she put it if I had "undone" anything. It's a work in progress and I need time... But, even before I had my bed in the room, I needed to undo something. This was my very first (and "very number one") project. Have you guessed? Do you remember that wall?
I had never held a brush or anything before, but I thought "What the ...? I can't do worse, now, can I?"
So here I am at work...
Mylène, if you read that post, these are the old jeans you wanted me to throw away. They are actually very useful!!!
I chose to have that wall white because a) the room is already very colorful (pink, grey and yellow, yeah, I know, yuck!) and b) there was no way I would find the exact same yellow or same grey...
So, this is my first before/after:
Tadam!
I shouldn't say it really, but actually, it's not as perfect as the picture shows it: you can still slightly see the green leaves... But, I will redo it when I know what I'll do with the room.
The cottage style is slowly creeping in the Little White House, regardless of the awful previous owners paintings...
Sorry for all English-only speaking folks, but this post was a request from French-speaking friends. Anyway no one who speaks English actually needs this recipe!
A la demande quasi-générale (j'exagère comme toujours), voici la recette du cheesecake. Un aperçu pour vous faire envie:
Tout d'abord, il vous faire une croûte: au choix biscuits écrasés et mélangés avec du beurre fondu (environ 200g de biscuits et 90g de beurre font l'affaire), ou une pâte brisée maison ou achetée toute faite (on en trouve même des bio maintenant). Si vous choisissez l'option pâte brisée maison ou commerce, il faut la faire précuire 10 minutes dans un four à 200°C.
La garniture maintenant:
750g de fromage blanc
1 tasse de sucre (250 mL)
1/4 de tasse de farine
un peu de zeste d'orange et de citron râpé
4 oeufs
150 mL de crème (environ, moi, c'est toujours à la louche!)
Ajoutez les ingrédients dans l'ordre dans la terrine, en battant au fouet pour que ce soit lisse. Versez dans la pâte précuite et cuire environ 1 heure à 180°C.
C'est simple comme bonjour. Le tout pour que ça fasse chic, c'est d'accompagner de fruits de saison et d'un petit coulis (ici un coulis de groseilles du jardin! les prunes, elles, viennent du jardin de ma Maman).
Bon appétit!
Little White House xxx
PS: The blog might be on hold for a little while as I did find a job (I'm a substitue teacher), but it's in txwo different schools (not good for me who doesn't like driving) and it's as a French teacher (and I haven't taught French for 8 years now, so it's a lot of work - it's kind of challenge, though, so of course I enjoy it). I'll be posting as soon as I feel my lessons are ready for the week coming...
I suffer right now from a very severe furniture shortage. So my mom brought me everything she could, meaning two awful kitchen stool that used to belong to my father's mother. Here they are:
one green:
and one orange (did I already mention I hate orange?):
I had never painted a piece of furniture before, but I couldn't stand to put those in my already too colorful house. So I bought paint, brush and I rolled up my sleeves. And here is what they look like now.
And by the way, this is not a stool anymore: it got upgraded to "under-the-printer" table... So the printer isn't on the floor anymore!
For the second one, I got bolder and painted roses to hide a stain that wouldn't go away after three coats of white! It's now a bedside table for the guest bedroom which actually still doesn't have a proper bed, but none of the friends who visited this summer dared to complain!
I don't have many friends, but I have wonderful friends. Two of my highschool friends came and visited me last May and they brought a table (and chairs) for my then-future garden! It was great because as soon as I got the keys, I had nothing in the house, but their gift!!!
I wanted to thank them through the blog and I hope everybody will enjoy some pictures I had fun taking since we had a wonderfully sunny summer.
The bare table before I even settled in. And yes, one ear of the cat is on the picture!
First teatime with friends in the Little White House.
And as a treat and because it was requested (which means that people do visit the blog, yeah!), the first glimpse of the outside of the Little White House.
Do you consider the house ugly because you read my last post? Actually, the house has "potential". It's my favorite word to describe a house I visit: it either as "potential" or it's hopeless. So here are my own seven wonders.
1) Stone walls
The house is made of stones. None are showing right now except in the guest bedroom (aka the East room).
2) Beams
You can see the ceiling beams in the dining-room and in the kitchen. They are concealed in the living-room, but I intend to have them restaured one day...
3) Beams again!
I just love those beams upstairs! Here are the ones in the corridor. There are the same in the guest room and also some in the main bedroom, but those last ones are concealed under an awful fake ceiling... What were they thinking????
4) The stairs.
They are the original stairs of the house. They need a little work but I love them as they are!
5) The well
I know it's cheating because I already posted a picture of it. But, it's definitely one of the wonders! It's still out of work, though. Given that when I arrived I didn't have the telephone and that I still don't have TV in the house (I have the set, but nothing on it!!), the well didn't seem a priority!
6) The view at the back of the garden.
The houses of this block are the last before the fields, for now at least... Which is just great! You can wander in your pajamas and nobody can tell!
7) Just because.
The cottage vibe is here. It just needs to be uncovered...
So I tried to knock on heaven's door, but I actually walked in a Little Shop of Horrors.
First, one of my favorite item: the kitchen's walls!!!
It doesn't really show on the picture, it's not smooth at all. I guess it was made with the kind of spatula you use to put glue on tiles! And the real treat are the orange seagulls painted on it!!! I'm a long way from my ideal cottage kitchen!
Second best is the floor in the main bedroom.
It's a navy blue carpet. You think it can't get worse. See what's under the carpet. The previous owner had told me it was hardwood floor... Well surprise!
It's a very dirty and very 1950's linoleum...
Speaking of the main bedroom. Can you believe there is a wonderful painting on the wall next to where I'm suppose to sleep???
I'm pretty sure you can only have nightmares when this is the last thing you see before closing your eyes!
Then, in case you hadn't notice the house is very colorful... There's even an "Arlequin" floor in the corridor:
And I saved the best for the end!!! The dining-room door. Doesn't it make you scream?
This was just to make your mouth water... There are lots more!!!
Now, you are thinking I was crazy to choose the house. Don't deny it. I can hear you from here.
So just wait for the next article, you'll be surprised!!!
I've been so busy and so tired in the evening that I didn't take the time to write. Hopefully rainy days are coming (am I really writing that? - see how ewhausted I am!) and it will give me some time to write. So I will soon be opening for you the door of the Little White House.
It took a long time (or so it seemed to me) but at last, I have the keys! The front door key looks so much like an old key: I absolutely love it!
The problems actually begin when you use that wondeful key to open the door... The previous owner had a very peculiar taste when it comes to house decoration... It's like walking in the "Little Shop of Horror", litteraly. When I described it to my Mom, she nearly died because she was laughing so hard, she thought I was making things up... But when she came to visit for the first time yesterday, she said I had even let some things out and that it was worse than what I had described!
I know, everyone is dying to see pictures now...and it'll come. I'm such a long way from being chosen as "Cottage of The Month" by Jennifer!
So, I have the keys and the house is officially mine (yeah!) but I still have some roommates. I agreed to keep them while their owner is building a new househen for them. Bonus: I get free eggs in the meanwhile!
Here are the girls:
Now I need to pack everything ... Only a few more days before the official removal. But I've got help, so I can't complain!
I've been looking for a house for some time now... And I think I found it! The thing is it needs a lot of work to be transformed from a house to "my" home. I've been looking for ideas on everybody's blogs, so i thought I could begin one of my own...
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