- Hi guys, welcome back to my channel. Okay, part two of the French house tour. If you're just joining me
and you missed part one, I will link to it below and
then you can get caught up. But today I'm gonna show
you all of the bedrooms, all of the bathrooms. And then I realized that I
never showed you the town of Saint-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie. So if you're interested to
see what the town looks like that this house is in, stay tuned, because at the end of this video, I'll take you through a quick spin. Okay, so the first thing we
did was change all the doors. So if you remember from the before video, these doors were just
plain, white, boring doors. And the house didn't really
have much architecture, so one of the things we
thought would really help was just changing the doors. So we basically just put in oak doors. Let's see, where's a good one? I guess I'll show you this one. Just to match all the
other wood in the house. And it made such a dramatic improvement. This one I'm gonna open,
this is the powder room. So let's see, I will turn
on the light for you guys. There we go, ooh, it's
not the best lighting, but hey, you'll get a sense for it. Pretty traditional to
have the toilet separated from the bathroom in France. However, I'll show you a little
American thing I had to do when we get to the bathroom (laughs). But it's pretty funny to see
all the small, little sinks you can find in France. Look at this one, it's so cute. And then I found this mirror at a brocante for 15 Euros, looking pretty good. And then one other thing
I wanted to do was add some local vintage postcards of the area. So this is a postcard
from the Grand Plage. I think it's really fun
to see how old this was. I mean, look at this little
kid enjoying the beach. I just think it's so fun
to see how many generations have really enjoyed that beach. And then we have a postcard
of the salt marshes, a postcard of the train
station of Saint-Gilles. And when you see it
today, it's kind of funny. The structure is the same, but there's a lot more activity
that is built up around it. There's the little beach
of Boisvinet, which is fun, which is still here that
you can come and visit. And of course, look at these
ladies enjoying the beach. Gosh, can you imagine being
all dressed up like that for a day on the sand? So these are just fun. And everybody who comes
to visit the house loves to look at the pictures because
it is kind of fun to see how it used to be. And then these pictures
were my own handiwork. So I contributed some of my
own photography to the house. I had these Ikea frames and I didn't know what to put in them, so
I went down to the beach at Boisvinet, took some
photographs just with my iPhone, then went to the local Kodak
kiosk, printed them out, and a week later I got these
photographs for 13 Euros. You can see just how
stunning the clouds are in this part of France. It always makes for the best photographs. And then we totally had
to innovate the bathroom because it probably hadn't
been changed since the 1960s when this house was built. It was sort of this dated
orange color, it had a bath tub, and we just knew that we were gonna have to completely reconfigure it. So here's what it looks like now, tada! Much lighter and brighter
with a lot more space. Then here's my American touch. I had to add another toilet in this house. So this house is really the
result of so many things that we have learned from
renting houses in France. We've probably rented for
about the last 20 years, and one thing that I really learned is that you need more toilets
than you think you do, especially when you have children. Even though it's not very
traditional in France to have a toilet be part of the bathroom, while we were reconfiguring, I just said, "You know what, let's just add it." And no one has complained (laughs). And then we put in a
contemporary light fixture here. I love these old Edison bulbs. I think that they're just sort of fun. And then we went with a
mirror and a large sink. And another thing that I have learned when sharing a bathroom
with three to four people in a house like this is everybody brings their
little toiletry bag, and then the bags end
up all over the counter, all the products end up
all over the counter, and it kind of turns into a big mess. So I came up with the idea that every room would have its own basket. And then in the basket
goes all of your toiletries that you use every day, and it
has worked out so perfectly. And then we put in a shower. So we got rid of the bath
tub in favor of a shower. And we did subway tile on the walls. And then because most of the things in this bathroom are new,
I wanted to balance it out a little bit and add some
old, funky art pieces. I found these pieces at
a little thrift shop. And at first everybody was
sort of wondering like, "Really, with the knots?",
but I love the knots. And now everybody else loves the knots. They're so funny to look at. I just thought water and
the bathroom, I don't know, sailing boats, seem to
all kind of work together. And basically what it
is is it's showing you the different knots that I
guess sailors need to learn, with their names. And I kind of joked,
like, wouldn't it be funny if you had house guests and
you could have a contest who could master at least
four or five of these knots. Then we can have a prize. Now, another thing that you might notice about this bathroom is that
there are no towel racks aside from the towel warmer, which does also kind of,
I guess, serve as a rack. But I didn't want people
hanging their towels in here. Because when you have eight
to 10 people in a house and everybody has their
towel in the bathroom, and they might all be the same color, nobody remembers whose towel is whose. And then they end up using more towels because they want a new one
that they know is theirs. So I came up with a different
idea, and I'll show you what that is when we get the bedrooms. As far as the bedrooms, we
didn't really do much to them except for decoration. We ripped out the old
carpet and got rid of all of the wallpaper, but we
left all the French doors. And then basically all we did
was new furnishings and paint. And look what a difference it made, tada! See what a little paint
and new furnishings can do? Just makes a world of difference. For the beds, we just
went with basic Ikea beds. And here's the best part,
they each have drawers so that each person,
whoever is staying in here, gets their own drawer, which
I thought was really genius. And then for the side tables, we just went with these
little tiny nightstands, which there wasn't really
much room for much more, but at least it has a little drawer, if people need to put their
little things in there. There's a spot for your book. I found this cute little
whale at a local shop. I thought he was kinda cute. And then went with a big piece of art and some pillows and traditional quilts. I thought that just looked
kind of cozy and restful. Everybody loves this room. They just kind of sneak in here. Even if we don't have
anybody staying in here, I usually find my kids sitting in here with their little book or iPad relaxing. And because this house is a rental, I didn't want to put too much
furnishings in these rooms because, I don't know,
people will come kind of with their own stuff
and they're gonna want to put their own things around. And I think there's
something a little bit uneasy about coming into a house
that's too decorated. You feel like you're in
someone's real personal space. So I wanted this house
to feel like their space, at least for the week or
two that they're here. Now, another thing that I
have learned with having a lot of people in house is that the whole point of the bedrooms is to get
people out of the bathroom. Now, I know that might
sound like a strange thing, but I'm telling you, when people are stuck in that bathroom doing their
makeup, drying their hair, it just takes forever. So if people can just go in the bathroom, take their showers, and
then come into the bedroom to do everything else, it makes
everything so much smoother. And then as far as getting
people out of the bathroom, each bedroom has its own mirror. So there's a little chair here that people can set down a bag or a purse. And then there's this
cute little mirror here, which I think is good just for kind of combing hair and whatnot. This room we usually give
to male friends and families because they usually don't need
that much space to get ready as far as like hairdryers,
makeup and all that. But this little mirror
seems to do the trick. And then this room is one of the two rooms that actually does have a closet. The closets before were just
sort of these, I don't know, nothing kind of doors that
didn't have much interest. So we actually just had
the closet doors replaced with a little bit of architecture, which I think really helps. They have a good amount of space. Let's see, oh, we have our
tennis rackets in there. But there's shelving here. And then we have a
little hanging spot here for the hang things. There's my yoga equipment,
which I never took out, sadly. So it's a good amount
of space for somebody, especially for a week. Okay, and then here was
my idea for the towels. Everybody gets one of
these racks in their room. This is where everybody hangs
their own towel, right here. There's a place for their
handbag or hat or a jacket. And then each room also has
its own laundry bag or bin. They're just linen, and in
French it says "laundry to wash." So there's a small one,
and then if you're staying a little bit longer, there's a bigger one. I found those laundry bags on Etsy, and they're made by a
woman here in France. I'm not sure if she ships internationally, but I'll leave you her
information in the description if you guys want to know where to get one. And then for privacy, all of the French doors
do have these curtains. I just went with basic Ikea
curtains, to be honest. I like the white because I find
with a small room like that, if you were to put any colorful curtains, it would just make the
room feel even smaller. So we just went with white
with nautical grommets on the top. If you were in here during the day and you wanted some privacy, you could just pull those curtains shut. They do go all the way across. Or at night when it's time for bed, we just close all of the shutters. This is one of the things I love about France are the shutters,
they're just the best. You can see from the outside each French door has
its group of shutters. And you just come over
here and you undo it. And then this gets closed like that. And then you take the other side and you close it like this. Just make sure that the
little metal things line up and then you're nice and cozy in here. But I think there's something
so great when you wake up and you open the shutters and you can see what a sunny day it is. I don't know, it just feels
like part of the morning ritual that's really fun. But you do have to shut them, otherwise they'll bang against
the house all day long. Okay, now for the second guest room. This is my daughters' room. Now, if you remember from
the before, this room, again, had the dated
carpet and the wallpaper. But it did have the French doors. So we basically just, again, did paint and new furnishings, and this
is what it looks like now. Tada! They too got the Ikea beds. We went with the white version in here. And then I put a big
mirror in the center, just, I don't know, something that looked kind of beachy and natural. I love all of these natural
materials, from the wood doors to the wood little side
table that we found. We made sure that we had a drawer. That way they could put
little things in it. Let's see, I have no idea what's in here, but hopefully it's not a huge mess. Oh, we've got a laptop, okay. Then, because we're not gonna
be here to welcome guests, I really wanted to make sure there was a little floral something. I'm not a huge fan of the fabulous fakes, but these look pretty
convincing for peonies. I found this little vase at a brocante and then stuck them in there. So I don't know, from afar, right? They look kind of charming. And then the bedding actually came from my sister-in-law's parents' house. They were cleaning out their house and they had this set of quilts. And I said, "Sure, we would
take those, that's lovely." So it came with a Euro sham. And then again, because
this room is pretty tight, we didn't really have room for lamps, so we went with just
these little wall sconces, which seem to work out fine. And then if you remember
from the first video when I did the house tour
and I was showing you guys all of those linens and I found that beautiful pink Euro sham, well, I never actually found a second one, but my sister-in-law
came up with a great idea to cut it in half and
turn it into two pillows. So she's pretty handy
with the sewing machine and sewed the two shams. And then I went to a local
place and had them filled. And then as far as the art in here, we just went with something simple. My girls were so funny, they didn't want anything
old in their room. I think it sort of scares them. They feel like it's haunted. So I just went with these
little Ikea coral prints. They were super inexpensive. And the funny thing is
they were the perfect color for the bedspreads, so we just did that. And because I have one
teenager and one on the way, their mirror is a full-length mirror. Because while they're not so much into the whole makeup thing quite yet, they are definitely into the outfits. We had just enough room to
squeeze in a full-length mirror. And then we replaced their closet, again, with these closet doors. And I would open them for you, but they would probably be horrified because you should see the mess that's probably in there right now. So we will leave that shut. All right, there's their
room, room number two. It's a good thing they're not here, because this room never
looks like this (laughs). Okay, now room number three. So this is our room. We too had the dated
carpet and the wallpaper. We just took all that
off and then added paint and furnishings, and then
here's what it looks like now. Tada, nice and fresh and clean! Here's out little office area. This has sort of been
the bane of my existence, this little office area,
because, I don't know, we ordered these online. I'm not sure I love it
because it just looks so new. I kind of wanted something old, but we needed something in a hurry so we just put these here for now. I'm also still waiting for
something to put in these frames. I have a few more days
left and I'm looking for old engravings of shells. I thought that could be pretty there. And so if people come and they don't want to use these as a desk,
I've actually set up like a little dressing tables situation that they could use instead. Again, getting people out of the bathroom. So this would be a good
spot to put on some makeup or dry one's hair. And then my husband here, he
has this little home office that he has set up, so that
kind of works well there. And then we had just went
with like a soft gray for the bedding because I wanted something to match this painting. This painting was done
by the brother-in-law of a dear friend of ours. And we actually have one
in our L.A. house, too, which you've may have
seen, it's in the kitchen, and it's of Paris, so I really
wanted one for this house. I just, he's so talented. I mean, it looks like a vintage painting, but look at just the
lighting and just the figures that are in it, I just love it. Now, originally, when we were
planning this house from L.A., I kept thinking that I
would hang something big on this wall, and I found these birds. I will show you the birds. I think it's kind of a careful, because I thought they
were like antique brass, but they ended up being like
this really shiny new brass that, I don't know. They are different sizes. Going from like the
smallest to the largest. And I have five of them,
and I was thinking maybe on the wall might be kind of fun, especially since this house
is known for its birds. I mean, you guys have been hearing it. They're certainly very
chirpy, but I don't know. I showed them to my dad
and then he was saying that it's like bad luck
to put birds in a bedroom. I don't really know why, there's
some superstition about it. So then I gave up on the birds and now they're just sort of sitting here. So I don't know what to do with the birds, but maybe you guys could
let me know in the comments. Yes or no on the birds. And if it's a no, what
should I do with them? Okay, now for bedroom number four. This is my favorite room in the house. It's such a great little hideaway. It's what we call the
studio, but in my mind, it's sort of the VIP suite
because it's separate from the rest of the house. Come on, I'll show you. Okay, so you walk outside of the house, and you can see it's its own
little cottage type situation. The rest of the house is
there and it kind of goes out towards the pool, but this
little spot is a little hideaway. But this room didn't
always look like this. I think it was at one time
sort of a workshop or a studio, or could maybe have even been the garage, but it had bad linoleum
floors, a really low ceiling, and then a little ante room off of it that was kind of like a
washing machine drying room, but it did have a toilet and shower in it. So we just thought, "Well, why don't we just turn this into another guest room?" And that's exactly what we did. And here's what it looks like now. It's a cozy little guest suite. And I went with the blue and
white because it was matching some of the local art that I was finding. I really love this piece. I don't know if you guys can tell, but it's all pastel, and
it's really beautiful. It's of a local town here
called Sables-d'Olonne. So again, I wanted to make sure we were representing the area. And then we found this pine chest online at a little antique website. Went with a new mirror. I just love the combination
of the old and the new. And then we got a little boat here at the Sailor Cooperative, which
I thought was kind of cute. More of my fabulous fakes, look at those. Those look kind of real from a distance. And then I put them in like
an antique pot that I found. And then there's a little container here, which helps with the mirror. So if you wanted to put
makeup on, you could do that and get whoever out of the bathroom if you're sharing this with somebody. And this is another little
painting that we found. I got it for $40 at an antique shop here. And what's funny about it is it's of a town called Le
Croisic, which is the area that we used to rent our other house in for the last eight years. That isn't really that close to here, so it's sort of ironic that I found it. But I just have so many fond
memories of this little town, because we used to go there
for day trips all the time. So it was meant to be, I had to have that. And this is really why
it's called the VIP suite, because it has its own
bathroom, which is quite nice. So it's kind of the same
design as our other bathroom, again, with the shelving
and the little baskets to keep all your toiletries in. There is another one of these
little marvelous paintings. This one is another pastel. Nobody really knows where this one was, but it really looked
like Saint-Gilles to me, so I just snatched it up. And then there's a full shower as well. So it's a really nice
room if you're coming here with a group of people and you wanted to give someone a little extra privacy. The only thing with this
room is it doesn't have the ceiling fan because the
ceilings are a little bit lower and it just seemed a little bit dangerous to have the ceiling fan, but
it does have the French doors, and it has a window in the
bathroom where you can open that, shut the shutters at night,
and you get a nice cross breeze between this window and the French doors. And then we also made sure that this room had its little rack. I love these because these
were the ones that I found at the brocante, if you
remember that episode. I got two of these. And then they have their
laundry bags there. But it's good when you have two people because then each person
has their own racks. And then out there is our garage. It's still kind of a mess
because we are cleaning it up, getting ready to go, but
what's fun about the garage is there is a full ping-pong table in there. On the rainy days you can
have a match of ping-pong. This is another thing we
learned over the years, having a lot of people in a rental house, are the collection of
bikes that accumulate. In the old houses we would rent, everybody would have these
bikes and they would be strewn all over the lawn and the wall. We didn't really have a place to put them. So we said, "You know what,
when we have our own house, we're putting in a bike rack." And that's exactly what we
did, which is really handy because then everybody has
a spot to park their bike. And then we had these big, white walls and we wanted to add
probably some rose trees. At first we thought that
might be kind of fun. So we went to the nursery
looking for roses, looking for some hydrangeas. Instead, I saw these amazing
fruit espalier trees, which is something that we
cannot get in the States. You have to actually train them yourself. And I have had marginal
success with doing that, so when I saw these fruit
espaliers, I just said, "We have to snatch them up." So that's what we put
on these walls instead. And what's nice about them is that they're already five years old
and already trained. So they're really taking shape, and they run on both ends of the wall. One side is pear and
the other side is apple. I'll show you the apple
because we even have some apples already coming up, which is kind of unbelievable. We decided to mix the maturity dates so some of them come up in the summer and some come up in the fall and others come up in the winter. That way, whoever is staying
here is welcome to pick them. And I'm hoping that there
will be fruit for everybody. So depending on whatever season you come, you could have some
apples or pears to pick. They're all different varieties. And I think once they grow
in and fill up this wall, it's gonna look really pretty. And then around this corner
there's a line for laundry. We have some towels out
there at the moment. But this is another fun
feature to the house, a little outdoor shower,
which is very handy. When you come home from the
beach, you just come here, flip this thing on, rinse off your feet, 'cause you're all nice and sandy, pop your beach towel
there and then head off down the alley to the pool. So those are the bedrooms
and the bathrooms. If you want to know what the town of Saint-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie
is like, stick around, because I'm gonna take you
through a quick tour next. The train station of Saint-Gilles
is in the center of town and you can take a train from Paris and it's about a four-hour trip. The town of Saint-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie are actually two towns,
Saint-Gilles and Croix-de-Vie, that are connected by a bridge
crossing the La Vie River. The Saint-Gilles side is
the older part of town that has a lot of the beautiful old little streets and buildings. They also have shopping and restaurants. And Croix-de-Vie is the newer part of town that's known for its pedestrian street. This is where you'll find a lot of the different shops and boutiques. It's fun to walk along
the cobblestone streets and see what all of the
different stores have to offer. One of the things that we
love to buy are raincoats, because living in L.A., it can be hard to find a good raincoat when
we have our rainy season, usually in the winter time. But I love these raincoats
because they come in all different colors, they're lined, so they're really soft
inside, and they just make for great raincoats for kids. There's a fun old-school toy
store on the pedestrian street that my kids love to go into. You can find lots of fun
things for the beach in there. This is one of my favorite little stores. I always find little things
in here for the home. They also have a good collection
of clothing or gift ideas if you want to bring something back. La Perle is probably the
most famous place in town to get all of your sardine products. So you can bring back little
gift sets of tinned sardines. You can also find a lot of local products in the ways of jams and jellies,
little cookies and things. That's also fun to bring back. And then once you get to the
end of the pedestrian street, there's a fun place for ice cream, and this is where the bridge is. So you'll cross the bridge
over to the Saint-Gilles side, and there's all kinds of things waiting for you over there, too. In fact, the bridge was built in 1967, so relatively recently. And before that, you had to take a boat to get between the two towns. Saint-Gilles is a real walkable city. So much so that pedestrians
have the first priority, then bikes, then cars. And they've even set up a separate bridge just for walking and biking. And this is kind of nice
because it really starts to show how big the river is and
how the two cities connect. You'll see people taking
their bikes across. It's very easy to walk across. And in the morning, it's
such a beautiful walk to take to the market. So we're pretty spoiled here in that each town has its own market days. And throughout a seven-day
week in the summertime, there are five days of markets. So you can take your
pick which day you want to come to based on what
side you like to shop in. It's pretty much the same
sellers at each market, but each market is laid out differently. So as you can see here,
the Saint-Gilles market, just because it's a little
bit of an older part of town, is strewn out throughout all of the different little streets. So while it's charming
and fun to kind of meander through these streets,
it's probably not as quick or as convenient as the other
market that's in Croix-de-Vie. So if you saw my market
video that I shot early on, that will show you what
the market looks like. I'll link to it below. But there's amazing things to buy here. You can get your pastries, your cheese. You also can find a lot of
different types of seafood that's here on display. The market will kind of
meander around the church. Then once you make your
way out of the market, you can start to meander
up some of the side streets of the older part of Saint-Gilles. And this is a really charming part of town where you'll find a few different shops. I love this one, it's a shop for the home that we've bought a lot of things in. You can also find art galleries as well as little restaurants. I think there's something
so charming about some of these restaurants,
because you're literally sitting in the street having lunch,
which is a great place to kind of watch the world go by. I always think that these
must be pedestrian streets, but then I'm always kind of alarmed when I see a car come down them. So I think some are pedestrian and then some cars are allowed. So you just have to double check some of the signs to be sure. But as you can see, some of
the buildings are pretty old and really majestic and beautiful. And a lot of them have the
crisp blue and white shutters, which I think just adds
to the coastal beachy vibe of the place. I think it's so charming to
see that beautiful royal blue and the little lacy
curtains in the window. It's a fun walk in the morning because there isn't much activity. It's really a nice little quiet street. Now, apparently through the tourist office of Saint-Gilles you can
take a walking guide of the historical part of town and they'll tell you
more about the history of some of these buildings. I certainly would love to know more. I think that's something that I might try to take advantage of the
next time we're here. Then, most of these little
side streets in the old town of Saint-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie will lead out to the main thoroughfare of the town. And this is where you'll find the majority of the restaurants and the bars and kind of all of the nightlife. This is where it's all happening. It's early in the morning here. This was the best time for
me to do this little tour since I could actually
walk on these streets. But in August, at night,
these streets are packed, the bars are packed and it's
really where all the action is. Then you can make your way
back over to the bridge to the Croix-de-Vie
side and take advantage of a really beautiful
walk along the harbor. And if you don't want to walk, you can take the little train. There is a train of Saint-Gilles, which is an hour long
tour that will take you through basically both sides of town. And you can get a real
lay of the land this way. These trains are pretty popular in France, and they're a fun way
to get to see the area. There's a music pavilion, which is great. They hold little concerts
there in the summer. And you basically can
just follow this path all along the coastline
to check out the port of Saint-Gilles as well as
all the different boats. It's so fascinating to take
this walk in the morning or at sunset and really appreciate some of the beautiful scenery. The parking lot of the port
is where you can rent bikes. I highly recommend renting
bikes in the summertime, especially if you're
coming here in August, because it can be really
hard to park a car. But there's lots of bikes around and it's certainly easier
to bike around town. Then one of my favorite
little spots to go to in the parking lot of the
harbor is the Sailor's Co-Op. It's a huge building that
sells all different types of things associated with the sea. So you can find clothing, you
can find raincoats, boots, hats, anything that has to do with sailing or really this area you can find in there. There's cute fashions you can choose from as well as things for the home. This is where I found
that cute little whale and the sailboat that's in the studio. And then you just end up
right by the train station where we started. Well, thanks for sticking with me. I know this was a long video this week, but now you have a better idea
of the bedrooms, the town, and if it's a place you'd like to come to. And if so, you can join
the Maison Coli newsletter. The link is in the description. And that way, once the house is ready in the next few months or
so we will send out updates with all the details. All right, you guys, I'll
see you back here next week. Until then, bye.
