FULL TOUR of this 1900's DREAM CHATEAU in France's famous Loire Valley!

[Music] I am so excited about this week's video because I've been longing to come to your Chateau for so long I'm here with Vivian and this is the Chateau Boise which is a spectacular Art Nouveau Chateau and that's very rare isn't it it is indeed yes so you are in for an absolute treat it's the most perfect home we're staying here at the moment so I can really vouch for how lovely it is here would you mind showing everyone around this is the first time that I will be publicly giving a tour of La cuabwas we used to live in a much larger Chateau we were there for 18 years we raised our daughter there but it was time to part with that one we just needed to find something that was more manageable for ourselves but we had the Chateau bug so we found this beautiful Village of a thousand inhabitants nestled in the Loire Valley exactly equidistant between them all and tour so when we feel like we need to go to a bigger castle if we're not going to descend on you we have the laundry and Hussein Sheena and shenon so and all of the grand castles of the Lower Valley right here at Dorset and we do also have to commute to Paris and so it's an interesting location and a beautiful part of France I think you have everything here as you say Paris and and the town walking to the bakery and unfortunately that means that there have been a lot of pastries here which is why I'm wearing something very loose today one of the things we loved about this Chateau is as you said it is a bell Epoch Chateau it's built at the end of the 1800s it was finished around 1905. it has all these wonderful elements of art nouveau but also like a lot of 19th century Chateau it has elements from other epochs as well and that suits me to the ground because I don't like having just one style of furniture or things from one place it's a home it's a chateau where two sometimes three people live but also we're hoping where up to 16 people can stay so you have the best of both worlds you can have party weekends with all of your friends but it doesn't feel too overwhelming exactly given its size it has a lot of Chateau style and a very small space well I could be wrong and let me know in the comments what you think but I suspect that this is probably most people's dreams oh it's a chateau that still feels warm and homely but has all of the Grandeur that you could possibly want why don't we start right where we are right now we're in the entrance hall we have a mix of a lot of different types of art that we've collected in various Furniture pieces one of the things though that we loved is that we have this tapestry which is a reproduction of a 16th century tapestry that's found in the Clooney Museum which I think might be one of my favorite small museums in Paris I love decorating with birds anything to do with a bird theme you're going to see as you walk around there's a lot of this going on in our house I do collect Sev biscuit porcelain scattered around the house I've got little pieces of this and I find it very beautiful in its Simplicity but sub porcelain was much more common in the 18th century over here we have a couple of Chippendale chairs we have a set of ten that we've been taking with us from place to place because Simon is English it's great to be able to have certain English pieces as well because it does reflect Our Heritage you're not just mixing different periods you're mixing different countries absolutely I think it's part of what makes a house feel very homeless we learn about you and Simon and Isabella as we walk around and it makes the rich tapestry of life and I think that's one of the reasons I love tapestries because if anybody has studied how they're made all of the different pieces and the threads that go through are so interesting and it makes for a story all of our lives are our own little story that we love to share with other people and we're just so happy that you're here and that we can share it with all of you with such a beautiful way of putting it let's go into what was the original entrance of the Chateau I should explain this is a chateau of two faces so the rear of the Chateau looks very Napoleon the third but the front front of the Chateau is this complete fantasy of Art Nouveau Renaissance there's a turret there are all sorts of very weird and wonderful and bizarre carvings and even Stripes made of brick and tufo stone so this is actually the original entrance of the Chateau it faces the village and this room is original to when the Chateau was built we call it the arandre because we put orange plant in here I can see an orange there is an orange and we were really inspired by Chateau where the erosuri is also in the front of the Chateau built in exactly this same shape but this is a very Bell epic room you can see the tufo stone and the brickwork of the outside of the Chateau up close in here which is really interesting the floors are original encaustic Stone floor so everybody's seen these kinds of floors everywhere in stores and things like that but this is how they originally looked and their cement and they're about this thick when we moved in it was a huge renovation job because most of the panes of glass were missing and so the first thing to do is to make this room airtight and it was a big project to stabilize the floors and then of course to decorate and create a space that would be warm and inviting but because we no longer use the entrance which is back here we decided to have a comfortable sofa we put up a mirror I love what you've done because you're still letting the light in with the very thin wall curtains and the mirror is a stroke of Genius and a bit like left side because we have two mirrors bouncing off of each other six of myself it adds a lot of extra light and so especially in the winter months to have something that's nice and light and bright and warm and cheery when it's cold and gloomy then we have this warm luscious space my favorite recent acquisition is this rug I saw it as soon as we arrived it's actually a needlepoint rug someone has done this by hand and it's marvelous it's got people riding on elephants and palm trees and it's got all these wonderful colors in it as well it makes me very very happy it did as soon as I walked in I built there's not enough elephants in my life absolutely not here we have a Louis XV display cabinet that actually suffered some damage in our move it had rounded glass on the front and a mirror that as you can see was broken but we're going to have it repaired but some of it yes we had an extraordinary Adventure earlier which we went and met what we believe is France's oldest Pottery painter he Paints in the style of delft we found so many wonderful Treasures I will put a link to our visit there we bought the best tortoise didn't we filler all covered with the most perfect paintings but I have to say that you got such treasures and you've made a whole video about him yes it's incredible to watch the processes of these Artisans yes who still practice the way they've been working for 70 years at least it was a privilege I couldn't believe it Vivian said oh this is a very old Pottery painter and I didn't realize you meant the man himself he was very old and he showed us his Atelier his home all of the works that he'd been making throughout his life it was the most fascinating thing and I really recommend watching it on Vivian's channel can you explain what it is that we're looking at so believe it or not there are two wig stands and in the middle we have a reproduction of a game that was played in the court of Louis the 14th and it's all about the pathways that love can take either dice are rolled and depending on where one lands on the different trajectories we see whether someone's going to fall into the dangerous sea or the lake of indifference or they might find tenderness or obedience and so um the most terrifying one has got to be the lake of indifference if you're in love that's got to be the one negligence is in there too yeah it's not that's not a great one but gentleness is lovely and uh probity haven't heard that word from not for a very long time so this giant mirror here was actually original and there are two entrances on both sides one that takes us into the entrance hall where we just were and on the other side is going to take us into the room that we now use as the music room and the Heart oh my goodness it's so perfect this is one of the most shadowy things that you could possibly ever have in the Chateau it is glorious thank you our daughter plays the harp she plays it beautifully and of course she does is there anything that Isabella can't do um she's very accomplished and we're very proud of her we are all amateur musicians we love music we love to sing in here we've got the harp Simon plays the guitar and we have over here the little baby grand piano which was the first item of furniture that my husband and I ever bought together we had no chairs we had no bed we had nothing to our names and so we went out shopping to try to buy some things secondhand that we thought we could use things like a young couple absolutely and we emerged with a 15th century Flemish statue a baby grand piano and some stained glass windows I like the way you roll yes yes so we're on the floor at this point I think it was an air mattress we still have all of those things all of these years later maybe this is strange how the things that you need the most urgently are not the things that you keep for a lifetime not the things that you take from home to home with you things that bring bring you Joy yes another very interesting thing about this room is that it looks like we have wood paneling and wood moldings it's not wood it's painted it's a faux no paint finish everywhere it's very well done it's so well done I would never have it see it's such a light fresh finish to the room with the pale wood and the pale green the rug beneath our feet is an original obasan carpet my goodness and it's not that easy to vacuum but it's pretty it's very pretty it's very pale as well so you might recognize the chairs some of these are in the arrangerie I like to have large sets of things and so this room can be converted into a dining room if we bring the other chairs in we Source them in Brussels and we found eight for 400 euros 50 euros a chair and they're each individually handled pointed and the paintings are my paintings so I used to exhibit professionally years ago in Paris and we still have a few of my pieces floating around it's extraordinary I didn't realize they were yours you are incredibly talented you're so kind and I love the colors they're such life and movement whilst I haven't seen Vivian's paintings before I have seen other things that she has painted which you will see later on which are jaw-droppingly impressive but that's a little secret till later it would not be a chateau with a lot of retro Vibes if we didn't have an authentic His Master's Voice gramophone let me see if I can get it to oh it's turning hold on oh this is a Hawaiian wolf in the music room we should how do you how do you do a Hawaiian wall trivia news one two three one two three one two three one two three I'm loving the music man you're wearing the right dresses for it [Music] we thought it got damaged in the move it's amazingly it's working and we have to play it later because we've got some great music definitely here we've got our little baby grand it is bur Walnut in the style of Queen Anne it's a very old piano but it actually does still play but the reason I wanted to bring you over here is that Stephanie you might recognize these lamps we have the same bedside table lamps Philip has that one on his side and I have this one on my side so I look at this one every morning and every evening you can believe it is so safe knowing that I looked it up thinking that they were Asian probably from the 40s or 50s but underneath if you look they're actually Italian from a company called Santini and we don't have the label underneath you wouldn't think they're Italian classic figure made in Italy yep well I've discovered something new today so it reminds us of our travels to Italy together you see there's always a connection and now we're going to walk into the library now this is not the original Library when we moved into the Chateau this was actually the kitchen believe it or not oh see so you've swapped it round we have and we're about to show you the kitchen but the kitchen is now in what was the billiard room oh and this was the kitchen but the original kitchens would have been downstairs which is where the spa is so this was the second kitchen yeah something probably from the 60s or 70s and we thought it was so Charming when we saw it but then we realized it was actually very small because of all the doors and windows and it was forgive us of cool so I'm looking around realizing how many that oh why do you put any of the units exactly we turned this into a library we did paint the walls black I really like the black especially with these paintings against it it worked so well and it also makes it feel very snug and cozy I spent a lot of time in this room this afternoon actually and you have such good books it's a great work oh thank you you know I wanted you to tell a lot about a person in their books I spent a long time pouring through all of their shelves and the only downside is that in our last Chateau we had a much larger library with many more shelves and so we have boxes and boxes full of books to pull out assignment has become since we've lived here a very gifted Carpenter and he's planning on building wall-to-wall shelves you want it's going to be beautiful obviously we have a lot of different books and and we kind of pick a side of where we put our books but when Stephanie and I were in the door Donya we went to a wonderful bookstore and I found the world of Downton Abbey you think that that is not Simon's book I think it's made its way to the side but it's Anonymous yes exactly the Alcove behind you this is not the original Alcove there would have been tall doors but when the last owners put the kitchen in they dropped the ceiling and they created this Alcove presumably to pass food through because also what is now our music room was the dining room Straight Ahead you'll see that we're creating a little bit of a cinema and so Simon also spotted that up there yes he put in a projector and we're going to create a casing for the screen I'm going to change the curtains there are lots of changes that are going to happen in here and so I'll be excited to share those this is where we should have watched the Vlog last night because Vivian made a really great Vlog of our trip to Egypt together there were a group of us on a little boat going around Lake NASA in between Egypt and Sudan and we were so isolated out there visiting these ancient temples and you made a murder mystery and it's so funny and so we're watching it together but we watched on this because that's what we do vloggers get together and we watch vlogs that's so tragic but we do have this wonderful little Nook which you've discovered for working looking into there I was just working here the ceiling was painted with this lovely little sky and I thought it was so cheery and fun and decided to keep it and that also reminds me of another story to tell you this little leather Bonnet was actually not black it was green one day I thought well leather can be stained I'm going to go ahead and stain it and make it match the rest of the room rather than have to have it recovered this is my brilliant idea and I went and got the leather stain and spent the day staining it and it worked out beautifully and I had to hurry because we were on our way to a party and then when I went to wash my hands I realized that I had not worn gloves and skin is basic Ally together so for about a week my hands and arms were black and then they were like purple and I looked I mean they looked like they were about to fall off from gangrene it was the same so that's my story of the black bonquette I run upstairs to give you a quick sneak peek of our bedroom that you'll be seeing more of later it is absolutely perfect insanely comfortable and there is only one tiny little change that I'm making to the bed and that is because I brought along my own pillow which seems incredibly weird when let's face it the bedding here is so luxurious but as somebody who has a very big age Gap with her boyfriend I have to start thinking about wrinkles and that is why I use the Omnia sleep and glow pillow and I'm very lucky because sleeping Globe have offered to sponsor this video with a quick ad I've been using this pillow for months I will not go anywhere without it it makes a huge difference to the way I look when I wake up because there's a difference between wrinkles that are formed with age over time and those that are formed because of sleep they're called sleep wrinkles and they tend to be more vertical whereas the Aging ones are horizontal and you could throw all of the Botox and face creams in the world at your face and they'll do nothing against sleep wrinkles they're formed on your face is pressed again change the pillow at night and just keeps doing this so you end up with puffiness around your eyes wrinkles around your eyes and your nose and your lips and anyone who is under 40 won't know what I'm talking about but there comes a time when you wake up in the morning and the imprint of your pillow stays on your cheek but this pillow is absolutely ingenious it has this unique 3D design I've never seen anything like it which means that your face is floating over the pillow at night completely wrinkle free I'll show you it's it's great so with a normal pillow my face is like this my whole life I've had pillows like this all squished up and with the Omnia pillow my face is floating and yet I'm incredibly supported it's so comfortable and I have to say that since I started using this pillow I've also been getting less neck and back pain it even comes with its own little pillowcase to fit the Contours and it's made of tinkle fabric which is made out of Australian eucalyptus wood I overcome extremely addicted to using this pillow that's why it comes everywhere with me if you'd like to try it for yourself then click the link in the description box below they even have a 30 night sleep trial with a money back guarantee but I'm definitely not going to be sending mine back let's carry on touring this beautiful Chateau okay now we're going to walk into the salon gloves because of course it is laviano's this is a very cozy room that can actually be turned into a much larger room next door we have these doors that open all the way into the dining room completely open thank you it is a cozy room as you see we filled it with modern sofas comfy sofas comfy sofas but we are a family who has lots of friends and we want people to be surrounded by Beauty but also to be surrounded by Comfort there are a couple of interesting features this room is actually not painted pink it is a marble marmarino finish and so it has this wonderful kind of Sheen when you see it in person it probably doesn't show up very well in the on the film it gives a lovely Rich depth to the walls it's not just a flat color exactly changing in the light exactly and then you might remember the Gold Club who could ever forget this clock so Stephanie and I and a number of our friends were in the door Dona visiting some other friends we went to a marvelous brokant and my husband signed and I spotted this us and it was completely over the top but why own a chateau if you can't buy things that are slightly over I think it's probably one of the main reasons I think you have to have a little bit of a theatrical Flair to want to live in a Chateau in the first place because the work is endless so at least you can have fun with things like this exactly and he's actually just in painting and all of the different paintings he's an Ironside I love this about him he's an artist he's holding his paintbrush he's painting it's gorgeous there's even a little palette and the box of paints and brushes and that's the great thing about old things you know we can't walk into Ikea and buy this we can we can buy other things that are useful and necessary but we can't buy things like this and so it makes it a lot of fun to have them and to to save them really because how many people are happy to have something like this in their house he looks a little shiny I don't remember him being this shiny when we were in the ball come on he's happy blowing from within yes exactly he found his home and then also in here we have some interesting moldings on the ceilings they're actually oak leaves and acorns which is an unusual Motif for sealing roses and for ceiling ornamentation but it falls into that natural Bell Epoch Art Nouveau era of bringing nature in which we really like and you've brought in the roses from the garden yes because the front of the house is covered in piertoonsa roses and it's spectacular the moment you arrive it's immediately just puts you into the right frame of mind for the whole shatter you have that pink and green Chateau with pink and cream roses in front and then you I do love roses there's plural shirts as well okay even though there are other things in here I could talk about the things that I love the most are actually two needlepoints that my grandmother did many many years ago and their depictions are very famous paintings called Bluebird and Pinky it's so touching that your grandmother made them they're not at all typical of the era or of historical France in particular they do have that fun kind of 18th century Vibe and they're part of our family story and so they bring me joy now this is on the other side of the salon hose so here you see we also still have the doors that open up completely thinking of one big room for parts exactly the thing I love the most in this room is the thing that you're responsible for because you painted the place yes yes I did I did I have just mind-blowingly talented thank you so much I love birds and I also love figurative painting as you saw next door so anything with a face an expression a character personality really brings me joy and I do really love birds and I grew up looking at this beautiful book called audubon's birds of America that my family owns it's beautiful and actually last week my father gave me that book The Family book so these these are actually Garden birds of Europe so not of America because we are here in France but I love the idea of being able to see these beautiful creatures that we are surrounded by here in our garden I've spent the last 10 years learning the techniques of painting in the style of Sev and limosh and I have some lovely very old ladies who have been helping you through this process one of whom actually did train with self and so it's goodness you're the best time it's a slow process some of these plates take up to 10 or 12 firings for all of the layers of color and how long does it take you to paint aside from the firing so how along with the whole thing I might do one day of painting you know backgrounds or just flowers and then each bit has to be masked off uh for it to be fired for other areas like the gold has to be one firing the outside has to be a different firing the background has to be different firing and then there are layers of color because a bit like watercolor the way it works is that the light layers go on First and they must be fired because you can never paint porcelain a thick coat of paint or it just flakes off and so it actually etches its way into the glaze so unlike the pottery that we saw that's made in the style of Dell where it's painted before it gets glazed and then and then the glazed base some painting this is glazed and then painted so it gives a completely different effect and that's why things like FiOS and pottery look totally different to fine porcelain in China you are an extremely patient woman and so artistic how many plates have you made so far ah there are six on the table and we have eight more so that is 14 so far and I would be happy to show you all of them I keep forgetting the names of the birds and so on the back this is the golden Oriole so it's got the Latin name the English name and obviously hand painted my signature and I use plates from Limoges and this is what used to happen in the past with several certainly with pasta the artist always wrote the name of the birds under me yes and you're just carrying on that gorgeous tradition and I do love Seth so much I love the Beast Reserve like the items on the table but also when it's glazed and painted each one has its own unique beauty so it's it really is a passion I have many passions yeah unfortunately I love many things you know like you oh yeah that our dining chairs are the chip and nail chairs they're from the same set that we showed you in the entrance hall in the entrance hall we have two Ivory colored armchairs the tapestry a little point on the chair covers is different on each single chair they feature these incredible lovely 18th century birds and some of them are light brown some are dark brown some are ivory and it's really fun even though we sit on them ultimately to appreciate how much work went into them one of my favorite things about this room is the tapestry we were really lucky to be able to find tapestries to fit these big walls here and in the entrance hall this one is also a 19th century reproduction of a famous tapestry called the Marche Del guazo or the burn Market again with the bird theme and I just love it because if you look closely at it the characters are really funny they have so much character so many Expressions the original of this tapestry dates back to 1775. it's actually bringing back very lovely memories because I used to go to Hong Kong a lot as a child because my best friend moved there and I remember back then this is I mean obviously many many decades ago there was a huge bird market at the time which now I think is either tiny or has disappeared altogether it wasn't quite as romantic as this but I have to say that it's a very fond memory to me because I feel that I saw something that's that's being lost completely forever and here we have what it was in the 18th century yes and the 18th century fascination with travel with the Orient with the sounds and the smells and the spices and I feel like this tapestry really brings all of that to life I love to Guild and restore old mirrors old picture frames sometimes Furnishings I add a little a little bit of bling to as well this mirror here actually is one that I rescued it was in a charity shop and I completely re-guilded it and saved the moldings and so I'm quite proud of this and then below that I have more little biscuit of Sev figurines I love figurines I know they're not everybody's taste I think that they're really sweet and fun and these particular ones are holding little birds in cages and so that that makes me happy and a bird laugh of course it's as though they've just stepped out of the tapestry so the dining room is another work in progress It's absolutely not finished it has beautiful silk wall coverings I'm making some gorgeous damask curtains that are going to match the ones in the salon Ojos so when it opens up it'll work together my mid-century buffet in the style of Louis XVI is not fine quality but it was just the right size I think I can make it look much more authentic with a little bit of a very artistic paint job and so wait to see what you do because that sounds that so it's made for the room yes and the other thing that I'm still working with in this room is that I do love 18th Century Furniture and the Chip and Dale Furniture is 18th century so time period is appropriate but the Styles and the types of wood don't always go together exactly so we're going to be changing and finding the perfect dining table hopefully a little bit bigger because I do want to be able to see at least 14 people in here my husband and I have a disagreement about this lovely piece of furniture behind me it's very lovely but this might not be the space for it we're on our way into what might be my favorite room in the house I think mine too possibly but also I changed my mind about my favorite room in the house all the time we're in the kitchen which used to be the billiard room this room when we moved in had green shag carpet it had orange striped wallpaper would you bring yourself to changes I know it was delicious it really was as we were pulling up the green shag carpet we found this beautiful original terracotta floor underneath and that was it that was a sign that we needed and it is beautiful it has such depth to the color and such shine that you've managed to create and you can see that every single tile is handmade and that uneven texture just gives it even more of a Sheen as it captures the light and I really wanted a big kitchen we want a kitchen that two people can cook in simultaneously because I strongly believe that's the key to marital Harmony and also being able to have something that catering can use or large groups of people where everybody can be in together sitting working talking and so I kind of had all of these criteria in mind and mostly to be able to look out onto the garden and have nature surrounding us and light coming in this room all times of the day and you can step just just like straight into the garden exactly it's in a Dillard kitchen oh thank you it's light and whilst we've been here it's been the heart of the home yes the thing that a lot of people don't know about this kitchen is that Simon and I installed it ourselves I did all of the design I did it on architectural software we ordered the cabinets from a company in the UK but then he actually created them installed them did all of the moldings all of the carpentry and we were so lucky I cannot believe he suddenly become this incredible well at the time we had just moved out of our other house and he did get another job soon after that but he took me he took a little sabbatical yes and told himself carpentry he got a photography degree as well and and we we worked and then of course we had the pandemic and so we had all the Time in the World to work we hadn't started the Vlog yet so sadly we weren't able to Chronicle this which was our biggest project we are I would have loved to have done something more rustic more traditional and have more freestanding units but the problem with that was that this is our only kitchen we don't have an Avia Cuisine or lots of big Pantry rooms to walk into and so all of the storage has to be in here everything you have to make the most of every single inch of yes like most people and what I love the most is your layout which is ingenious you've completely done away with the idea of this holy triangle of the cooker the sink and the fridge and you've done something much much better are you going to tell everybody how you did this because honestly it's the most usable kitchen it was important to be able to have multiple work zones so there are two sinks two dishwashers two ovens two cooktops one halogen and one gas and this is for two people marital Harmony sometimes one of us will be cooking over here the other one will be cooking over here because I love to make nibbles I love to bake things I also love to cook things that take a lot of ingredients and cook all day long Simon can whip up anything in the space a 15 minutes flat he used to own a restaurant in Ireland and he's just incredible and so he likes to do things quickly and over on the big stove I'll do things over here and then also because we all know that things in Chateau get a lot of hard use and they break down all the time if you don't want to be really caught out two dishwashers two ovens two sinks and it works out really well it does it's also extremely practical because if one person's washing up another person can be making tea and coffee with the other things exactly there's always a freezing to go and wash your hands before dinner it's ingenious and I love the fact that they both have bins next to them and there's one dishwasher next to each sink it's not two dishwashers together which is what we have at La Land they're spaced out yes so that two people can be loading yes and working we really wanted lighting inside the glass cupboards and I also wanted a sense of depth and reflection and so I lined the back of each of the wall cupboards with mirror and I couldn't figure out how to make it stick and so I actually used double-sided Velcro okay wool units it's also in the open shelving it makes such a difference this play of life exactly and also it makes it look like we have 500 glasses actually we probably probably only have 200. we could not decide if you wanted an island or a table so in the end we put in both and then for the worktops again we were debating do we want to go with the wood do we want to go with tile Granite is the hardest Stone but I don't love always how granite looks with all the little Speckles and so the the goal was to find a hardness of granite that looks like marble with the big veins and we actually found this which believe it or not is actually not black it's dark blue and it has hints of terracotta in it and little blue flecks also plus the big veining yes it picks up the floor I want it to have a focal feature in most Chateau the cooker like yours is inside an ancient SHINee an instant fireplace so the key was to create this focal point and when we spoke to Kitchen companies they could not envisage what I was talking about and they have very cookie cutter type products that they offer and that's when we ultimately decided to do all of it ourselves and in the end that worked out really well because otherwise we would have had to wait the whole pandemic out without a kitchen so we grew impatient and on eBay of all things I was able to find this fireplace which was coming out of a Chateau in the south of France and so we brought it here we installed it it was painted to match the rest of the kitchen and honestly this is a stroke of Genius because Alex has always been um and that I installed the Mosaic which is behind the oven and this particular Mosaic is exactly like the Mosaic that I installed in our last Chateau about 21 years ago with one exception our daughter said well you've got you've got the two lovers you've got the two lovebird peacocks but there's no baby peacock can you at least put the baby peacock into this one and baby thoughts are not very beautiful but I did put the baby peacock in anyway so it reminds us of homes so this room's also not finished I've got pelmets to go in we're redoing the whole ceiling we're getting rid of this not original ceiling Rose so I've got some wonderful Fabrics again some more artwork a whole collection of copper pots and other things that we're still working on in this space so earlier I mentioned that when Simon and I first got together in our first little place in Edinburgh uh we went shopping and we bought three very useless items one of which was the 15th century Flemish carving and it's now in our kitchen above the fridge so I believe that any kind of art can go anywhere and this is proof and now I shall telling you about the story of the crazy chairs first of all these chairs are French but we bought them when we lived in England so they've been back and forth across the channel quite a few times we fell madly in love with them they're probably from Brittany but each one has a different scene we have unicorn dragons sword fighting we have lover dragons we have dragons in a castle these ones I think are winged dragons they're like Pega dragons what would you call this flying dragons oh these ones are sharing a sword oh but these ones have mermaid tails Fish Tales so they're all so fun and these ones are learning those ones [Laughter] and so you know these things if you look at them just kind of on the surface they seem really somber but if you look more closely there's so much humor in old things and we obviously don't take ourselves very seriously and so it's fun to be surrounded by things that um that are a little bit a little bit beautiful and a little bit silly this really is the most beautiful Chateau it's just delightful and with the Pierre de ronsa roses outside it's incredibly romantic I can't imagine Vivian living in another house of course she was going to live in the most romantic Chateau in France [Music] oh [Music] excitement is just about ready for dinner you have a very well trained and pleasant husband don't you dude he's busy in their cooking but I did want to show you at least a sneak peek of some of the bedrooms because you haven't seen them all yet no no there's someone we're in which let's go here we are in the Joan of arkhambra it's so romantic the bagged thank you everything in here was inspired by Jonah bark because she is a prominent figure in this part of France and also a lot of the imagery of Joan of Arc became very popular in the Bel Epoch which is of course the era of the Chateau we wanted the some rooms to reflect that time period and she became a sign of resistance against oppression in the country and she was a secret sign so there were a lot of books and pottery and things made of Joan of Arc and it was kind of like a secret sign that you know they would not let themselves be invaded by the Germans or they would stand against depression and then of course in other countries like in America she's used as a symbol of a feminine power a lot of places a lot of people have different connections with Joan of Arc we love the idea of her as a historical figure from this region so this whole room was actually inspired by these images these actually come from a rare book that dates to 1903 I believe the book was falling apart but the images were so beautiful and the colors were so beautiful that I thought it would make an amazing Gallery wall for the room it does I love the mirrored frames that you've chosen I love the play of light you get from it and the fact that it's 1903 so perfect bellapoxter exactly and I'll tell you a funny story about the mirrored frames so this was not my intention but one of the viewers on my channel actually wrote and said I love the way your frames are a symbol of Joan of arc's armor and so now now I'm like yes they are yes this is a really good idea that we did that on purpose exactly and then the real treasure of this room is behind you here and this is a very rare lithograph by the artist Albert Lynch this is from 1894 and it predates it's a very similar image he did for the fecalo magazine in 1904 and this is the only one of its kind we have looked and looked and looked and looked and looked oh my goodness and there it is and so um it's a real treasure and we hope to be able to to share this with people coming soon she is Splendid just those eyes it's mesmerizing she really is she's she's beautiful and it again it's a very Bell epic image with Notre Dame in the background and uh surrounded by the lilies exactly the chandelier is 19th century tall and again we thought that it was kind of evocative of the spirit of the happy the lilies and the flowers it has a sense of the Purity that you get from the white lilies exactly exactly I love your banner it must be from a conception from a church actually this is a very interesting story so I found that at one of the antique stores that we went to in LA chat it was lined with the most wonderful silk and this monogram that you see hanging slightly off your at one point we weren't sure if it was Ave Maria but it is Marie Antoinette it was completely falling apart and I really wanted to save the monogram and so I created that it's such a good idea because you'd never be able to see both sides at once anyway exactly well you might have to find out more about where it came from which church but her robes just it's so beautifully made it is it is and I feel like she's sort of wishing happier dreams on whomever is sleeping beneath on this floor which is the first floor which Americans would call the second floor um we have four bedrooms all ensuite we have the Champions which you've just seen the room that you're sleeping I love it this one it is so gorgeous we've been sleeping so well haven't we for that lovely it's important it's a very small room but it's extremely romantic I mean the tapestries they're just making love everywhere you look and I don't know if you noticed but the old etching yeah and then here we have a room that we're almost finished with this is the Empire betermeyer inspired bedroom I can't wait to see what you do with that almost everything in our Chateau is quite feminine quite pale quite pastel so we need a few very masculine rooms to ground things and on the top floor we just recently did a red bedroom and so that also feels quite cozy and Clubby it's inspired by Venice Carnival for when we all went together but this room is going to be extremely masculine Simon loves Empire with strong lines lots of black and gold and taupe and wood and we can't wait to show you that it's gonna be such fun to do and then our bedroom is a huge work in progress as well the master bedroom we've already done the master bathroom but the master bedroom is being completely redone and I'm up cycling Furniture we're redoing walls everything is going to be translated all of that will be seen on your channel absolutely anyone is interested in that to check out Vivian's Channel and then in addition to This Magnificent raspberry red bedroom which we've recently renovated and showed on our Channel there are three more bedrooms upstairs and some bathroom Renovations going on as well soon to be revealed lots of work is happening and it's very exciting now it's just so fun to be at the stage when you can plan all the love really paint colors and wallpaper exactly and we're really hoping to get it done by next year because what we would love to be able to do is to have a certain select number of groups that will come and stay with us and we can show them around the Loire Valley and the antique stores of course or they can just stay here and just have a complete Spa break reading about Joan of Arc it's looking at the Roses we haven't had a chance to show you but I will do a complete Tour on my channel of absolutely everything coming very soon I've been promising people for a long time but I really wanted you to have the first tour thank you so much we've loved it and you'll be showing people there for the spa the swimming pool you've got Vineyards yeah a beautiful garden gorgeous our buildings out buildings but also the greatest statue in your garden the most gorgeous site yes with a big story as well yeah so so much to show on your channel as some of you who've been following our Channel know from the very beginning we would not have gone public on YouTube If it hadn't been for Stephanie's encouragement and the Chateau Diaries and here we are two years later great friends many fabulous memories later we've been on holiday to some extraordinary places there's been a joint we're just delighted put us together exactly and everybody out there as well yeah it is incredible to encourages us grown up around a love of Chateau shared Love Of Shadows whether you are sitting in America watching us from there or whether you're owning a chateau here it's just something we have in common a love of History Beauty culture France yes fun and home speaking to share with friends absolutely not only have we had the most beautiful tour around this Chateau we now get to have dinner in the Glorious dining room cooked by Simon and by candlelight thank you so much for having us oh you're welcome pleasure hopefully the first visit of many I have to say I feel guilty eating off this plate are you sure it won't subscribe I feel so privileged to be using these plates it's the hupu you said right yes the African it's my favorite one everything can be functional and beautiful there's no reason why it can't be and nothing that we own should not be used so it's a pleasure to share them Magpie very very nice we're switching plates for cheese I have a goldfinch who's adorable blue tip with an attitude they have to have it they have after

Channel: Stephanie's Grand Tour of Europe

Views: 138,299

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Id: jESTgEwOGBw

Length: 46min 22sec (2782 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 31 2023