An American in Provence

Alain took two weeks off from his work in order to work on the apartment (mainly living room and hallway). He has been a busy (cranky) little beaver these past few weeks, but I am quite pleased to say that we are finished with two more rooms!

Before his break started, we spent a day clearing everything out of the two rooms, which mainly meant shoving it into the bedrooms and taking the rest over to his parents.
Us: Hi! Us again with more c*** to store in your garage!
His parents: Super! Just what we wanted!


Anyway, the first week was pretty much spent re-doing the electricity in the living room, adding more plugs. He then tried to add some "lambris" that we bought (had to look up this word in English- paneling) along the wall upon which we added the sound-proofing foam that doesn't work. (what a waste). Anyway, it looked terrible and cheap, mainly because our walls are anything but straight. We decided to forget that idea and wallpaper the entire wall. There goes another 150€. What do we do with these three packets of paneling that we decided not to use but can't return? I know! Store them in your parent's garage!

We then painted the hallway ceiling white last Sunday, then he painted the walls a light blue/grey Monday, prepared the living room for painting Tuesday, and painted it white Wednesday.
His parents came over Saturday, ready for wallpapering. Neither of us had ever wallpapered before, so they really helped us. In fact, they did most of it.

It was a bit tricky to hang because the pattern had to be lined up from one strip to another.
It took about 8 hours, but we finally got the wall papered, and the living room is officially done!
It is a light blueish/white/grey and changes depending upon the light. Sometimes if the sunlight is directly shining on the wallpaper, you can hardly even see it. It has a bit of an old-fashioned feel that goes well with the crown moulding.

It is so nice and big now, mainly because we removed the tools, extra doors leaning against the wall, clothes dressers, etc.

We will have to start inviting people over before we have no friends left.

Oh, and we installed the new light we found at Castorama, quite by accident. We had looked for a light for our living room for months and months and were unable to find anything that really interested us and was less than 500€. We found this one for 200€ and immediately pleased both of us. At any rate, it is better than the Ugliest Light Fixture Ever Invented that was hanging there before. It isn't quite centered but will do for now. And about the next three years I'm guessing.