How to spend a French Holiday

1 Nov 2011

Even though today is a Holiday in France (All Saints Day) David showed up to continue the work on the salle a manger and kitchen.  Jerry and I were there for only a few minutes re-measuring the kitchen walls and the height the boards for the library.  We had devis to seek out for cabinets.  It is past time to order them.  It will be the middle of December or later if we order them this week!

 Our first stop was The BUT Store.  Remember the “soft” sound of u….use it now when you say BUT Store.  Anyway, one of our friends suggested we visit their cabinet department to see if they had anything I liked.  Well, boy did they!!  I have found my cabinets!!!!!  They are wood and they are called Navarre Authentique.  The cabinets look like they would have been in the Ruin at sometime during its lifetime.  It took a long time to get the Devis because the store was having computer trouble.  It was very interesting to see Stephan build my kitchen via 3D.  He spoke very good English, but he would sometimes get lost in my slang and Jerry’s “builder lingo”.  We would get lost when he would start muttering French when his computer sputtered!  Finally, we have the devis…….it is more than Jerry expected so we are “thinking” about it.  As soon as we left the But Store we headed to Castorama to get another devis.  After wandering around trying to find someone to help us we were told to come back after 14:00, she had gone to lunch.  Because we had time to kill, Jerry, Jake and I headed to KFC for a quick lunch.  After lunch, we headed back to Castorama, only to find out we would have to come back tomorrow because the person who would do the devis was gone for the day!  Off we went to Conforama to pick up the devis we were promised last Saturday.    When we arrived at Conforama our contact, Marion, was off for the day.  The department manager came to help us and he also built my kitchen in 3D.  The cabinets at Conforama are not wood, they are “wood products” as is much of the cabinetry here.  Solid wood is not used much and the wood that is most common is pine.  After the manager built my kitchen with the “faux” wood and added it all up…….it was more than the But Store!!!  Jerry is still “thinking about it” but I have decided!  Jerry was muttering “the devis are so close I bet the BUT Store called ahead to Conforama to warn them we were coming!”  LOL

The kitchen

On our way home we dropped by the Ruin to see what progress had been made.  All the old plaster is off the walls in the kitchen and salle a manger, only the rocks and dirt are showing.  Most of the debris has been removed from that area as well.  Since David was the only one who worked today I would say he worked pretty hard!