Furnishing a house......

[Blue Shutters]

Sorry Pete, it may be because my PC goes directly to the UK version of the site, this is the link to the .fr bed

As the other link works for me I have no idea what else to try and link to, but it's a wrought iron 4 poster bed for E249 if you're really intrigued, maison de monde.

Tady, what colour blue did you use for your shutters, and brand of paint?

[J&J]

I would definitely go for the iron bed frames. They are very pretty, but more than that they are easy to move to clean round. We made the mistake of buying those heavy wooden Breton sleigh beds. Although they looked very rustic and French, they were impossible to move and a pain to make.

Judih

[Giddy Goat]

Wow Blue Shutters, I missed the news that you had found another property now! How exciting, and is it even nicer than the one you lost? It often works that way doesn't it! Congrats.

There are still lots of brocantes down our way, but that's a bit of a hike! I find all old stuff pretty expensive though. Has anyone mentioned Emmaus to you?

http://www.emmaus-france.org/contacts/index.php

[Blue Shutters]

Well the one we didn't get, we then got two weeks later as the higher offer pulled out. Sorted out all the mortgage etc (a bit of a pain with two self employed incomes to prove, we photocopied for days!!) and then found that the owner didn't want to sgn the compromis yet, so we thought they were probably holding out for a higher offer with us as a back up if nothing by the end of the summer. So then we think some more, and casually browse and something else came up that's far more sensible (ie cheaper!). Another trip out in one weekend and our offer was accepted straight away (we have only actually viewed three places). Valuation was done yesterday, so we secured the pre rate increase by the skin of our teeth, survey next week once the roof is finished, and then hopefully a signed compromis so we are then reasonably safe to plan properly for when it is ours. The first houses would have been furnished, but these ones are not, more fun in some ways!

You didn't miss it GG, I never posted! But the shutters are not blue..
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yet!

Are Emmaus a charity shop chain, I think I've seen one locally here, or am I going woolly in the head?

[Giddy Goat]

Hi BS and thanks for filling us in - goes to show, he who hesitates for a higher offer is lost! Glad it's worked out so well for you and I hope the deal goes through; shaping up that way anyhow! Please post pics when it's yours, I still get a great kick out of hearing about others' purchases!

Yes, Emmaus is a very worthwhile chain of shops/charity and though I haven't checked them out personally yet, one of the things they do is sell on pieces of 'previously loved' furniture etc which the people they help restore and paint etc. I have seen some of their work in the UK (in a different shop) and it was super - though I read that you love to do up things yourself. It's just another option to consider ...

[Blue Shutters]

I have no problem with other people's "done up" furniture (I have great ideas but always seem to run out of time!) , I will take a closer look at our local emmaus, unfortunately the furniture recycling place shut down. I'm used to charity shops being good sources of clothes and books, didn't realise they did more than bric a brac! It sounds as if they have a good philosophy of employing people too.

Just missed an oak dresser that didn't sell, serves me right for bidding £30 in the dying seconds (no other bids) and then finding my number lock was off!

[Blue Shutters]

Just an update, I am trying not to plan too much, still no signed compromis as various technical difficulies have come up (don't they always?), hopefully solved now but I just don't want to tempt fate too much!

Thank you for all the great suggestions though......

[Moon Dog]

Blue Shutters: you obviously have great taste... our shutters are exactly the same shade! (Marine Blue from Le Roy Merlin.)

We negotiated to include a lot of furniture in our house purchase. The lady we bought the house from was more than happy as she was moving into rented flats and moves a lot with work. It was all cash in the bank for her and eliminated a lot of time and hassle for us.

I was shocked to find out just how much bed linen costs and how much seems to have been "lost" by tenants. Happily I came across a half-price clearance sale in Carrefour when we were last there.

[Tocanepauli]

We arrived in france from NZ with 2 kids and 8 suitcases of clothes, a favourite cheese knife and some soft toys.

Almost 3 years on we have a 6 bedroom house and 4 chambre d'hote suites full of gorgeous stuff and mostly thanks to the wonderful Vide Greniers in our region.

Of course we did the Ikea thing when we arrived(a novelty for us as no Ikea in NZ) great for beds and bedding, love our kitchen and accessories and the red leather couches do go great with the old dressers we have now.

All our visitors, guests and friends love looking at all our collections of beautiful things, sure some things needed a bit of work but that too is huge fun.......a few bits have come from the Auction houses or private sales, but most of it is from the vide grenier and we never pay too much for anything.

But apart from being able to furnish our house, our regular outings each sunday with family (2 dogs now as well) and friends, has given us good knowledge of our region and I think a great insight into the culture.......we love taking guests to vide grenier and alot of them find fabulous souvineirs to take home that they would not find in a regular tourist shop.

We are just finishing off the suites now and I am getting a great thrill distributing the different pieces of furniture, paintings, tapestries, and mirrors, seeing them in their rightful places and giving our suites an original look.

Our village will have its own vide grenier in Sept ,just outside our door and we will be selling off some of our access stuff, for the same bargainous prices we bought it for.

Another tip too is that all the locals knew we were setting up a chambe d'hote, so a number of them contacted us when they knew of someone with furniture to sell......Et voilà!

And will we stop buying treasures,? I don't think so, its too much fun, we find great stuff and we get to have a good look around

Happy furnishing
Janice

[Giddy Goat]

Hi Janice - welcome to LMH - good to have another Kiwi on board! Well, actually I was born in Oz of Kiwi parents. What a fantastic life change and it sounds as if you're very happily settled. Vide greniers are a great source of stuff as you and Martha both mentioned. I always seem to miss the local VGs when we come over by a frustrating couple of days!

We're a fan of the latest red leather sofa from IKEA (wonder if it's the same as yours?) and have one on order - it was the result of a tip-off from another LMH member.

A mine of info this!

[Tocanepauli]

Thanks for the welcome, not many Kiwis in these parts GG, tho we have had half of NZ come and visit us.......thats partly why we decided to get into this game (chambre d'hote) as we love having visitors in our house, it's just now we would like to have the paying kind! The other part was because we bought a house, centre ville, next to a restaurant bar, with a courtyard out the back with an even older empty building that needed love and inhabitants. A gite owner friend put us on to LMH and I guess now I am hooked, getting some great advice, thanks folks!

[Giddy Goat]

I hope you're getting some PGs now Janice, after three years. How are the bookings going?

[Blue Shutters]

Great tips from every body, thank you

We are down in the dumps as we were FINALLY about to sign the compromis on Tuesday but....(you know what's coming)

Long story, house was being re roofed by the owners (already planned) which they started immediately after we viewed at the beginning of July, we obviously could not sign a compromis until we knew the roof was done, and wanted a quick survey just to be sure everything else as well was as we had been told (rewired, new boiler/heating system and plumbing, conforming fosse, newish pool). The night before the survey the owners said they would refuse to let the surveyor in, they were so worried about their illegal wiring! We knew it had been rewired but a classic case of DIY rewiring 12 years ago with ring mains and UK cable....they were worried they would be condemed and have their electricity shut off. We forgot to ask "to French standards?" when we were viewing.....

Immediately we were offered a E5 000 reduction to pay fior the rewire, BUT we had secured a fixed rate by the skin of our teeth and revising the mortgage would mean we would lose that amount in higher payments over three years, and the owners will have lost E5k. So we suggested that if rewiring cost E5 000 that the vendors get it rewired as they have contacts being in the plumbing trade and we don't, eventually a devi was lodged with the notaire last Friday, that the vendors were very pleased with (we assume way less than 5K) for the work to be done in September after completion. Notaire to withhold the payment and pay electrician directly.

So the notaire was writing that arrangement into the compromis and our solicitor was checking it on Monday afternoon when she received it. She was about to go back and say that no suspensive clause was required for the roof, all we needed was a quick check by a roofer recommended by the notaire. We were prepared to forgo the survey, and if all else failed we were going to dash out this weekend and check there was a roof on the house ourselves (before cooling off was up.)

2pm Tuesday afternoon I received an email from the notaire, did I know the vendors were now selling to someone else who were coming into the office that afternoon to sign the compromis? No we did not. We have waited whilst vendors (English family relocating to Spain) had a week in Spain to sort out their holiday house that they are moving to at the end of this month. So the roof was delayed, then last week the weather was too hot/stormy so still not finished, and then they were in the UK this weekend for a wedding, so even though we were about to sign we still hadn't had notice the roof was finished after 4 weeks.

Apparantly we delayed signing, and the other buyers are cash buyers, they sent a curt email Tuesday late afternoon. The notaire was shocked at the vendors actions (he had all the approved mortgage docs so knew we were as good as cash buyers now), the mortgage suspensive clasue can only be used if the mortgage can't be obtained and we already have that approved from the previous house, and it had been swapped to this one, and valuation done. We just wanted to know if there was a waterproof roof on the house as we would have been there 1 week at the end of August and then not until October. The vendor is a plumber/heating engineer not a roofer (or an electrician!) All along they were desparate for a 25th Aug completion so they were in Spain for the start of a new school year.

All through this the house is still on several agents books (as well as the private ad we saw) They reduced the price a couple of weeks ago to what we had offered + E5k so we presume they had agreed a rate cut with agents to E5k. Fair enough if we backed out but we didn't.

We are in such shock at how nasty "perfectly nice" people have turned out to be, the only comfort is that hopefully they were covering up far more and that we are best out of this, they think a survey is such an unreasonable request, fine if you are there, we are not, and are not building experts either. The thought of starting again is so depressing, as now we have lost our "week" break this summer too, we are not spending the children's holiday house hunting. Never mind £1O00s wasted on travelling, mortgage application fees and solicitors fees (fixed thank goodness) and to boot the same mortgage will now be at least 1% higher.........

So we are still dreaming.......are we the only buyers that nobody will sell to? Supposedly there are no buyers out there! We must be the only people who, even though we are perfectly procedurable with no chain, to get gazumped in the current market for little if no extra money.

Back to square one for the third time.................sorry about the long post!