Restoration - bringing back to a former position or condition, reconstruction of the original form.
Renovation - making to look like new.
(Meriam Webster dictionary)
It feels like it has been forever - living in one bedroom, waking up early before the workers arrive (because who wants to parade in front of some guys in a towel turban and a bathrobe?), doing involuntary gymnastics when cooking over a one burner electric stove. You can call it camping but I was never fond of camping, and even if charming, the fun of it wears off quickly.
But enough of complaining. The work is progressing, even if at this stage the changes are not momentous. Slowly and meticulously layers of plaster are put on preparing the walls for painting. The cabinetry is getting prepped off site. The new bathroom is getting the necessary treatment before the shower is put in, floors are getting ordered and will be arriving soon...For my own benefit I divided the work into three parts - demolition, reconstruction, and "beautification". After the last stage, the decorating stage will arrive, which is very exciting to think about.
According to this very unprofessional assessment we are in the middle part of this madness - reconstruction (yey!), and looking at how its various elements are approached, it is becoming clearer what our goal was - we are closer to the restoration idea (or "rehabilitation" as they say in French) that renovation. Which was always our intention, given our attitude and lifestyle.
If you have been following me either here on my blog or on Instagram (@myfrenchmaison), you know by now that I am not a fan of renovating. New new new is not what I am drawn to. I love patina, and objects with some history. Timeless, classic, and to be kept and loved forever. The more authentic the features of a place or an object are, the better I feel about them. I recently read an Instagram post by @chinoiserieand chintz that spoke directly to my views - why buy an old house and change it completely, removing most or all, of its original features? If one likes modern, there are more contemporary buildings that will satisfy this aesthetic.
When we were searching for a house we concentrated on the real estate over 100 years old. We wanted our home to have a soul - and maybe a ghost or two! (By the way - if there were ever any ghosts here they were scared off by all the noise and dust! In the beginning, right after we moved here, when I walked into a dark room, a couple of times I had a sensation of my hair raising on the back of my neck... but I chalk it up to my too vivid imagination).
And we wanted the original fireplaces, beams, tomettes... You get the picture. If a house had a kitchen island, it was going to a reject pile. An open living floor plan - not for me. Having said that, I am a realist. Older houses have had a few owners, so changes were inevitably made. The shortage of older houses inventory in France happened after the pandemic. Many people decamped to the country side during the COVID crisis, and the "maisons du charme" suddenly became scarce.
As far as the modifications in the houses' interiors it's the most recent change of hands that is most concerning - an old house purchased, and then the interior completely transformed into a modern cookie cutter uniformity. After seeing lots of IKEA fitted kitchens, I was disheartened. Same goes for many trendy additions - reproduction cement tiles, dark metal fixtures, etc. So this house where we are now, that we are making into our home, from the very start held a lot of promise.
My philosophy of "if it ain't broken, keep it", extended to this project. We are keeping the old sinks, the bathtub, doors, etc etc. , in some cases moving them to a different area of the house where they might fit better (as it happened with some doors). This way we give another life to these objects, and also enjoy their better quality over what one may find nowadays.
While some home owners are getting rid of older elements of their houses (not us!), there is a market for them. We had people pass by our open gate (it is almost always open now while the work is going on), asking to buy our old tomettes. Old terra cotta tiles, old parquet floors, faiance tiles, mantelpieces. These can be later found in salvage yards, flea markets, or online at Le Bon Coin, a French version of Craigslist. Some things are impossible to find, such as the paving stones that we have in our front courtyard and that we saved meticulously and reset after the said area was dug up to accommodate new pipes.
You are right - we are not renovating, we are restoring. Or at least are very close to the spirit of restoration. It does not mean that we want to live by candlelight. But it means that we are not removing any walls, not reconfiguring the layout, we are making use of the existing spaces, adapting them, only adding a toilet room, a bathroom, and a closet upstairs. We are saving the original features and materials, we are upgrading the systems such as heating, plumbing, and electric.
We are embracing the quirks - an odd entry way, a long corridor that everyone who sees it for the first time wants to get rid of, various this and thats. The changes that we did make happened because we felt that they would improve the natural flow - for example we decided to open up the passage from the entry way to the corridor and move the kitchen door to align with the entry to the dining room. While working on the said passage between the corridor and the entry way, we uncovered an original stonework around the doorway, so we scaled down the size of the work to keep this feature.
There is a fine line and it is easy to cross it unknowingly - between getting things restored to the point that they are not warped, rotting, moldy, chipped, and function properly. And getting things renovated to the point that they lose their patina, character, soul. The restoration of our staircase may be a good example here. We chose to have the layers of old paint scraped away from the wooden and metal parts, but we decided to leave the steps alone. We like the traces of use, the patina they built up over the generations that lived here. We do not mind scrapes and scratches. To us, if we remove every trace of the house's history, buffing it away, painting it over, it will scream newness too much.
I remember an article about an interior designer who, while their own house was being redone, instructed the workers to paint the corners of the rooms a little bit darker to mimic the accumulation of dust. Even if we think of this as being a little excessive, it is worthwhile to take time to think about making too many changes that might disrupt charm and character of the place.
There are things that were changed and we cannot reasonably do anything about them. We do have double paned PVC windows and doors. The decision was made to let them be. While I am not in love with them, the original windows were single paned and leaked (there are two of them left so I know). There are also some PVC doors that are very recent - we will not be changing these in a foreseeable future. What will be changed is the front entry, where there is currently no door. We will have a nice wood door fitted there, where it probably was before years ago.
Not everything needs to be revamped. Many times things just need to be freshened up a bit. Surrounding yourself with professionals that share your philosophy is ever important. Otherwise you will have to push back at every step. Our architect understands perfectly when I ask not to touch a wooden panel over a mantel, original to the house, with faded paint and cracked surface. I don't have to go into "why'. The tomettes in our bedroom will retain all the traces of lives past, adding to the patina of the space. This is our choice, and our home, and our decisions. At the end of it we expect to have a harmony of new and old here, preserving the character of the space, and re-gifting it "joie de vivre" by employing the thoughtful process of honoring the past while bringing in the necessary amenities of the 21st century.
To be continued...
xoxo
Joanna
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