S2, E6 "Ready or Not, a walk-through of the chateau after 1 year of work"

[Music] welcome to the chat tone delegate ready or not here they come okay so we're excited uh the students are almost here come on in bubs and uh we've been working on this house for a long time oh we should well not that long and uh and it's already at least it's ready enough for students it's obviously there's lots of work that needs to be done still but this uh we had a lovely french family that came in properly yesterday and honestly they asked us at one point how long will you be working on it and uh and i said 20 years and they laughed but it really wasn't a joke i mean this is the um this is a this is a project that takes a long time but we wanted to do a walk through and show you how far we are and what the students will expect as they arrive tomorrow and yeah and pray for them as they're coming and what each room we're going to do stuff in and all of that yeah that's some of the stuff we want to do okay here we go now this is the salon all obviously i'm working on it yeah and you will notice remember that there we go there's our beauty there's our baby you remember that leslie found the old curtains and we did put them up and are you happy with them you know they're free and uh they look not too shabby actually like they're not bad yeah as long as they sit there um you know yeah we won't mess with them we don't have enough in the middle uh this year we still has more furniture coming it does yeah but a nice little welcome leslie's done all that painting on the wall so that these malls match the others and really quite a nice match i bet you can't tell where the painting actually even begins we'll we'll give this whole little room a nice little uh full lick of paint eventually but for now at least all the walls coordinate there's at least a couple places to sit there two chairs from what's on you on robert apparently i messed up or the dog maybe [Laughter] oh sorry that's our stuff [Music] we call it the blue room uh it's blue and it will be our classroom where the students will come and do their coursework yeah we'll have classes here really looking forward to a beautiful room uh lots of beautiful things inside and out again the roof is fantastic [Music] and the trumo over the fireplace is gorgeous yeah and the tv yeah and of course some nice views out the windows too some of these windows still need to be changed but lots of time for that it's time for that oh let's walk over here to you oh i gotta talk loud i gotta remember you gotta stay close this is my view as a sit and i teach that classroom the teacher's spot so it's really quite a nice view i got the beautiful tree there and i can't see all that but here we go all right let's continue on so also on the main floor we have two bedrooms uh one with the slightly smaller twin bed or single bed um in this case it's like a day bed uh louis philippe and then down this little corridor uh with a closet and what not leads to another main floor bedroom that's a little bit bigger with wallpaper i love but will have to come down because it has a lot of problems from being up for so long so um but unfortunately i think our but it's this really good this is our staff jason danika and kellen are going to stay here and so you've got the bed looking good we've got that upholstered back to see that they were doing a bit of a project before we got the place with with the you know electrical and it didn't quite finish so so they ripped out unfortunately a bunch of this and that so that's a lovely room yeah it is a lovely room and it will be incredible uh at one point in the future so you've got one you've got light on all sides really nice you do and they also have a nice little door onto the tiaras also which is really fun yup got their own door yeah and they just put up some private security yeah they were on site i washed them one of the few that didn't fall to pieces when we washed it now this bathroom probably needs um but this bathroom probably needs a little bit of decorating but it's a functional bathroom a bit of a shower over there and this situation is great for uh our guys because they have a son who's coming with them young son and so he will have this room again this room of pretty dramatic colors here big tall maybe do some changing about this well we haven't decorated anything no but we did find this bed and it's got a mattress that fits so that's a great little room connected to his parents but still with privacy and a little closet yeah it's gonna be great it works well so there's that let's walk down the other side of the room on the other end the first time we've given you a look at the main floor i mean we've seen snatches in the city on the other end of the house is where the celemon j or the dining room is and also what we call the morning room uh or the breakfast room is what we're gonna have it sure let's do it okay here we go and we have not done much to this room but it's tremendous potential we just bought some furniture um so that it's kind of a nice little hangout area um it's gonna be where they can have breakfast in the morning and our breakfast is kind of a come and go between 8 30 and 9 45. and this way they can kind of serve themselves and we have a little breakfast kitchen over there in the corner that i think will help with holding all of our juice and our fruit and our yogurt and our cereal and of course the coffee maker and all of that kind of stuff so this will be where they spend their mornings and uh you gonna go back out that way yeah sure we go we go into the uh we generally drive in to get to the bakery every day and pick up some nice french pastries for them mm-hmm and they'll come in here kind of at their leisure it'll be really quite pleasant just you know five six seven of them there's about 20 of us together they trickle in and out yeah it'll be nice have some coffee some orange juice and apple juice juice is great in europe it is actually this way that's where we're going all right let's go to the dining room let's go to the dining room okay oh you want me to go sure please all righty then i'm also going to turn this on i can turn it on a little bit more light okay mm-hmm okay in this room so much potential but still of course lots of work to do yeah this is the room with the amazing original hand painting on the ceiling with the monograms of the original owner uh which is spectacular and i'm amazed at how incredible it still looks after all this time and the gold is still so brilliant and because we don't really have one long table for everybody we did have on-site a whole bunch of little round tables so we thought we'd go with that um and these chairs were still here so um we're using what we have and i think it's gonna work out just fine for everyone to have their own little table and we'll mix people up and change the groups so that everyone gets to know each other and have meals together with different parties every night yeah this is probably uh not commonly done nowadays but um we may have a rotating seating for some meals again breakfast is optional come sit with who you want to for lunch we may assign them just so that they get to sit with different people and get to know some different people and then of course dinner they can sit with you they wish oh we also got the mirror up might be the other way around or the other yeah i might do it at dinner where we have seating we have the mirror we do now if only we could get that side board here yeah and we need to fix that a little fabric well the ball changing the fabric will change i'm not too worried about it yet um so let's go upstairs that's good news making progress this is always fun lots of flowers lots of flowers we had leftovers from our little bouquets so original postcard okay i wish i could have seen it then eh oh man like i would have just loved seeing how they decorated and all the original things and one day we will get to the archives in whatever town yep and we will do some good hardcore research on maybe we'll find some more old photos we found a few online um which are great uh but uh i'd love to see more have you ever come up to one thing we've shown this floor so we'll just skip through it quick we call it the landing for obvious reasons uh but i think it's gonna be a really fun little hangout place for them to play games or cars at the table uh they can surf the net on their phone again we bought some more furniture and um it's just a very pleasant room to come into in the morning yeah so really quite wonderful when the windows are open that's true the breeze is lovely if we can just get some warmer temperatures let's go with the guys okay well this is the west wing west wing turn some lights on this is where we're going to have our married couple mm-hmm this year young married couple yeah so we have some students room that's nice this room will be great someday we have not done much to it no but it will be pleasant we have not largely we have pretty much all new sheets and pillows and that we do only toilets and uh and also um oh bing get down um a lot of new mattresses definitely all new bedding my favorite tile yeah my favorite challenge this bathroom will be fantastic someday you do i already have wallpaper chosen for in here that's going to tie together the cobalt and the aqua it's going to be great you can't wait good a good tub relatively good job the bidet does work i didn't try it but i turned it on i know the other one does too yeah the shower is unfortunate story running and just the shower is not the best we have changed some day tonight um but if i'm telling you when you're here alone sitting here with big wide open windows going to the bathroom is quite pleasant yeah sorry people don't get that too much too much too much information too much okay but it is pleasant having the windows open there's no question yeah we have uh then we have four four guys over here to the left yeah nice space too this will be the english bathroom someday it's not done yet yeah we're gonna call it the english of the pub guys i don't know we had some two random chairs i don't know i had to stick them somewhere i still love that the transoms are lovely this room's turned out quite nice actually it's not bad yeah we got three beds only two guys are probably gonna be in here but we could have three maybe they'll want to be in here i don't know we'll find out what is it louise louis yeah and again some good views like every new room and this bathroom is um you know it's actually not bad it's not actually the shower works great and you know what all of the all of the hardware polished up amazing like i'm really impressed with whoever bought it because a little elbow grease and it all shined up pretty amazing we will change that light over the mirror because that is unfortunate and we painted a little bit again you know we've not done much to most of these rooms we'll we'll get to it 20-year job 20 years well this summer when we have a little more time perhaps we'll get a little more here's me again and then this one has kind of a joint so you can if you want to you can close these doors and then it's all sort of one big area and then they have a second hand oh sorry i'm fixing flowers because there's some of them are popping up a little bit so and then there's this connected room it is i think this little room so and the original plans uh this was a bedroom and then this was what they called the bureau like the office so this might have been i don't know whose room but someone had a little adjoining sitting room or office off of it and i have to say i love the view out of this window when i've been in here working and i look down the lane of the driveway i think it's adorable and then also that amazing tree out here you have to stand on this side i think honestly every view from this room is great it is uh we've got the lane on this side you got that garden kind of you have the other entrance into the house you've got the topiary in the front and then you've got the facade of the house on the other side it's lovely the beautiful facade um and the roof that needs work yeah it's still beautiful originally i was thinking this is maybe not one of the better rooms because it doesn't have it's the only room without a bathroom well they don't they share it then i mean they'll share with the guys next door in some ways maybe that's better because then you've got older prizes they do they have a little more space maybe and all right and another they have their own separate doors they wish for it here as well that's good okay let's come this way eventually when we have this other bathroom on the main floor they that person could also probably scope that one out too so now the east wing is where we're having the girls this year and the first bedroom we have affectionately called the japanese room um i think the fabric in here is fantastic um the trim needs painted and whatnot but um a lot of the lights were in here which is a plus um and um we have three girls staying in here this time yeah it'll be a little cozy but everybody's got their own space and they can get in it is a little cozy but we have an ache enough plug-ins for everybody's phones and the bathroom is big enough i think for three people so we put the curtain on here i did a little bit of space they do they have a little privacy they can be in here using the sink or they can come in here and someone can shower and we'll just whoop shut the curtain yeah and then they have a little more and you can't see either it's very bathtub and shower actually super super comfortable i know it's like a really i don't know how you describe the decorating in this room but it's really specific but it's actually very comfortable it is once you get past the blue you know uh it's actually i don't i don't mind it yeah i don't mind it it is what it is it is what it is indeed they liked they liked the blue but that was a very 80s color but at least it's kind of cobalt blue makes me feel better than the and here we have a bathroom that we have not yet done at all so that's just going to stay closed it's really tiny it's kind of it's a literal closet bathroom we're only going to have two two ladies in this room it's our only only you know only double bed but it's a big one it's like it's a queen queen so that's good again i really like the fabric on the walls in here nice views and uh this little bathroom is actually our son's favorite yeah we call it the planter bathroom because there's this little nook in the floor by the shower where you can put a plant i love this so i put a plant the planter bathroom yep and uh so far you know i got a little cardboard holding that up it's uh yeah it's kind of an interesting the lighting in here is weird um these two lights do not have electricity running to them or bulbs they're just for show so the only light in the room was this little spotlight sorry guys yeah so anyways it's not the best lighting but it's you know it is a pleasant it is pleasant and very unique bathroom it is okay and we will eventually get all of these idiosyncrasies ironed out but that wasn't happening in this next these last couple weeks so this room is the one that our daughter really likes so it's called the louie room we call it amy's room sometimes we do call it amy's room and uh this is the one where we put that first little broken find of the chandelier yeah in here and uh i really like the drapes that are left in this house in this room uh it's kind of a coral velvet i think they're lovely and they're not in bad shape they're a little faded here and there but so they should be since the 80s for crying a lot oh that's fantastic yeah nice view of the side and we're gonna put three ladies in there this year yep we ended up uh we had at one point we had a lot of students come in but then we covered we lost a couple of them so we were gonna put four students in our room yeah uh and it gets a really big room but then ultimately we decided to keep our room because we lost a couple of our students and we could just do it with rain here so yeah this is a smaller bathroom but it's uh it works it's clean it does the job it does yeah no it's fine yeah it's all functional that's where i shower in the winter so that's one of the nice things they have figured out about this house is uh they have it so that there's a separate water heater that just does a couple of bathrooms and so if you don't want the whole thing up you don't need to yeah and by the way it hasn't been wonderful we booted the water up a few days ago and it has been just awesome to have warm water oh my goodness uh in the sink in the kitchen the whole oh we gotta turn lights off the whole thing really is just been a joy to have hot water it's the little things yeah so there we are we're ready for students we're going to drive to paris today and pick them up and uh yeah really excited really excited hopefully we have a good next six weeks i agree yeah it'll be a whirlwind thanks for coming along oh wait we forgot the basement we didn't take you down to the kitchen you're right let's go take a look down there you guys yeah let's go okay so a servant staircase we have painted it's still obviously rough but we have well we've painted and mopped and swapped it looks like i look forward to making this little staircase nice though yeah i hope so we're just throwing some rugs on the ground and that was not a joyful surprise thing that yeah let's put the lights on yes so where do you want to be yeah so there's just a little piece we found at a broken i think it's charming and uh it's gonna hold a variety of things um we found a little table up in a bedroom that i repainted and we found a slab of marble kicking around in the house somewhere so um i am missing marble for my kitchen so this is my my little homage to having some marble and our place for our dog it's the only place that's soft so he actually does sit in there yeah he's being treated like a baby hey now if i'm down here all the time he's got to sit somewhere yeah that's right um so because we also have um some our student deans are coming and they have a little boy uh and the wife is gonna help me do some cooking sometimes um we need a little table and chairs in here so he has a little landing zone too so we go into the dog we've got one for the little boy so that he can come and hang out with mom while she's down here helping us so that's with the little table another little bookcase to hold pots and pans extra dishes a little bit of storage for all our food i think that i hope we can get a new faucet floor at some point um and you know you already saw the saga of the whole appliance issues but we did take all the yellow or not yellow blue blue sticker stuff off of the fridges so we finally have stainless steel fridges now which is a job in itself really it really was they did it they did it very well and um and this is our blue tablecloth covered piece of plywood we uh we didn't screw it down because it was so nice we wanted to use it it's actually a very nice piece of plywood a nice piece of thin wood so it's sitting there but it has beautiful green and again we haven't done the roof so the wires are all visible from this point but we just repurposed the chandelier for this for this point it is it was one kicking around actually was the one in the foyer which we don't need now so um again couldn't find anything yet uh that is yet to come lighting range hood lots of work is going to be done in here lots of work that's for sure 30 42 days oh my goodness anyways i think we've come to the end of it so we're functional we've got 20 years of work ahead of us still but we've got enough that we're ready to go yep and we have a few other rooms on here but not necessary to see we did a little laundry room and the old cuisine is in here down here too which is fun and one day we'll show you guys all that yeah cheers bye

Channel: Chateau de la Grifferaie

Views: 15,319

Rating: 4.928287 out of 5

Keywords: French Chateau, Chateau de la Grifferaie, La Griff, LVSA, Rob Hildebrand, Leslie Hildebrand, Study Abroad, www.loirevalleystudyabroad.com, Chateau renovation

Id: BbMp2ylWrkc

Length: 21min 30sec (1290 seconds)

Published: Mon May 17 2021