Packing it up …..

Newsletter 04.14.2024

Ginevra’s Mad Hatter Party

Bienvenue and welcome back to Musée Musings, your idiosyncratic guide to Paris and art. I have just spent an exhausting week in the Perigord getting Rousset ready for its new owners (fingers crossed). At the signing of the first sales document, two weeks ago, and even though the house is being sold ‘en l’état’ (in its present condition) and even though the buyers bargained the price down by 20%, the real estate agent a exigé (insisted, had it written into the contract) that I have a few things taken care of. A broken window pane in the grange cuisine and a window in the atelier bathroom that blows opens with any gust of wind. There’s a more serious project, which occurred at the end of February when there was a thunder storm. Water damage on the ceiling in one of the bedrooms. The first two items will be taken care of in the next week or two by an English handyman recommended by the real estate agent. The third will be taken care of by a local French carpenter recommended by the roofer who has taken care of Rousset’s traditional tile roof for as long as I have been responsible for that house.

Grange Dining Room

Farmhouse Salon

Canopy Bedroom

I have mostly avoided English handymen in the Dordogne. There are lots of them and most of them aren’t trained or licensed for whatever you hire them to do. Typically, they want to be paid in cash, don’t give you a receipt and then disappear when whatever they’ve repaired breaks again. But these two jobs seem straight forward enough that, if they need a more serious intervention, it will no longer be on my watch!

The third project is more serious and more expensive. I have worked with this French carpenter several times in the past. He has a Siret number which means that he’s a licensed professional. I sent his quote to my insurance company and they have already accepted it. He too will begin the work by mid-May.

Nicolas painted a wall, “So What If I Do”

Ginevra painted a wall, ‘Federico de Montefeltro & Wife, the Duke and Duchess of Urbino’

Alice in Wonderland Room - Ginevra directed, Nicolas painted

Finally, I had to schedule the opening of the pool with the pool guys. To confirm to the buyers that the motor works. Also written into the first sales contract. Which I had to do last year when I put the house up for sale. Which I have to do again now, 8 months later. I will wait until the last minute, right before the final purchase document is scheduled to be signed. Because of course, once the pool is opened, it has to be maintained. I haven’t told Nicolas yet, but he and I will go to the Perigord as soon as we get back from Berlin. And hopefully, he and I together will be able to get the pool water to go from slimy green to clear blue in a few days.

The most emotionally exhausting part of this whole thing (besides arguing with the woman who determines the ‘plus values’ - the capital gains tax, about which more later) was figuring out what to do with all the furniture and furnishings. The new buyers have bought a few things (for almost nothing), like the solid teak Tectona tables, chairs and chaises longues. And the Bulthaup solid stainless steel kitchen furniture. They are not paying for, but they have generously agreed to let me leave the 16 single beds - mattresses, box springs, frames, headboards and legs, as well as monogramed sheets and pillow cases - in the 8 bedrooms.

I then asked Caroline, who is my friend, who has helped me prepare Rousset for guests for the past 7 years, and at whose home I stayed while I was in the Dordogne this time, (more about that later, too) to see what she might want for her own home. All the while, we were taking stuff we didn’t think anyone would want and putting it in a pile in a corner of the atelier. Caroline and her husband will come over sometime in the next couple of weeks with their remorque to take it all to the déchetterie (dump).

And finally, I invited Guy, the artist who owns the local brocante, to come over and look through the furniture and decorations to see if he might be able to sell any of it. I didn’t have the heart or the stomach to ask him the prices he would sell anything for, nor what percentage he would take. A centime to the euro is better than no centimes at all. We put all of that stuff into the grange kitchen so that he can come get chairs and bedside tables and lamps, etc. as he sells them in his brocante.

This week, let’s forget about all this work and enjoy a post from a few years ago, about driving from the Dordogne to Paris. Bourges et Blois Enjoy.

Gros bisous, Dr. B.