SPRING CLEANING THE CHATEAU!

[Music] hi i'm stephanie and this is my home the 16th century chateau de la land la land was owned for hundreds of years by a family of marquis who were at the heart of french royal life one of them even had the honor of being sent by king louis xv to greet marie antoinette on her arrival in france but far from being a stuffy museum this chateau is a living home i live here all the time and i'm regularly joined by my mother my family my friends and wonderful volunteers from all over the world who helped me to lovingly restore this historic home welcome to la land a chateau filled with life love and laughter good morning everyone it's a beautiful sunny day at la land and ian has really started sorting through everything that we want to send to the rubbish dump so it feels very cleansing today i actually started the day with a ginger and lemon infusion because i figured well then i'm getting into the whole cleansing spirit of the chateau let's go outside and see how ian's getting on as you can see my hair is waxed that's because annelise is coming to cut it today so i thought i'd wash it in advance what hello things are happening out here look at this the most important thing if i've just bought awesome pastry for breakfast you are a wonderful man ian a wonderful man it's my job it's your job to be wonderful absolutely do you agree so okay i'm going to get shocking everyone knows what this room used to look like so let's let's just here we go here we go on drum roll oh my goodness thank you for the drum roll here yes we found a floor this a brace of ian's ian and ian yeah yeah in the builder and ian the plasterer stripped everything out of this room except for that little pile in the middle that i've got to sort through everything out of the room of doom yesterday unfortunately we now have a pilot yeah so now we've got the pile of doom we think that most of this is going so you brought the trailer rubbish dump time and that will give us all of this space what we're going to do obviously the floor is in a bit of a state so we're going to level all that through yeah get some gravel in to bring the height up get some insulation in there a membrane reinforcement nice concrete floor and on this back wall here what we're going to do is we're going to have to order some some nice keystones yes and other lintels etcetera from the local quarry nice big little up here some large french doors something very much with the balance of the rest of the chateau coming out with this back wall so about 1.4 meters they will step up here yes because we're below ground level going up to jerry's apartment yeah and then we can use this space downstairs for another apartment that would work really really well yeah it would be fantastic you've got months of work ahead of you here actually haven't you because it's the ceiling of the stables eventually the ceiling of the coach house which next door to the stables turning that into a proper garage then this being made into a usable space and then insulating the floor of all of the upstairs attics which means that the whole house will be insulated because we don't heat the attic so we'll be insulated from that and then being able to use the attic as a clean storage space it's nice and dry up there yeah and it's pretty good all year round fantastic i'm very very excited but i feel that before we start on all of that we need a croissant i think we do so the croissants have actually turned into panda chocolate i [Music] oh this looks excellent it looks like chocolate yeah chocolate and custard i think yeah yes what an excellent idea because you know one pound chocolate would never have been enough no absolutely not how on earth could we we wouldn't survive i think i might go for a pound shake alive and i have to say that's very tempting does look quite nice it probably needs cutting into smaller pieces yeah maybe that so that i can taste it as well okay i'll grab a knife but in the meantime i will start demolishing this partial colour with a cup of tea now this is a good start to the day yes wow it is looking good out here [Applause] so yeah [Applause] there's our new concrete manhole cover and that one's going to be completely hidden and then over the top we'll have a different manhole that is visible through the grass or the gravel and here we've got our french drain in place and at the very end once all this work is finished we'll be getting some gravel in the same color as the front and finishing it off with the top layer of prettier gravel this is going to keep the building much much healthier ian hello are you up the stairs well i'll come and have a look this is the area that one day will be scott man's apartment so i'll show you around hello hello it's been a long time since we arrived here i know i'm going to come and see as well we're just talking away between us to start working out the best layout to work for downstairs and also jerry come on yes so we've tried to decide do we do a kite winder staircase do we do a straight stick yeah then it just steps off to the other side um i'm thinking [Music] great probably not a great idea the water side of things they're like the bath bathroom the kitchen this end for the drainage okay got out with two nice big velox windows yes or maybe doorbells i'd prefer a doormat yeah lovely yeah so that would be so this will make it quite a nice bathroom stepped this way a little bit we can put a shower room here yeah and then the kitchen section where it is great and it's so tall i mean look obviously you're very tall here but i mean look how much higher it goes it's insane yeah bit smaller but oh height wise yes not quite as high um so we could do a mezzanine if he's so wanted i'm not sure he'll want to mess any because he doesn't need much space so i think he'll be happy with with a bed and a sofa over there i think so i think he'd like it and keep it really open i mean i will ask him but i've got a sort of inkling that that's what he'll want i mean this is a nice this is a nice roof space so to just to clean these up yeah and detain them yeah just be able to enjoy this yes the first light is going to come straight into low photo windows and the views on this side is beautiful but it's going to be even better on the other side right in that side straight onto the chapel and over the lake when that's back if one day we ever do anything here i mean a bit of a step up at the moment but if we ever do anything here this could be a room with just the most glorious views this would be absolutely an amazing department and i think we would probably give ourselves to drop the ceiling slightly to give us a better little [Music] about half possibly because there is a lot of work to do on those beams yeah so a couple of steps up yes yeah these beams in quite a stage yes i don't think i'm going to be running around on there this is really exciting this is good so you're up here to sort of measure up start to price things we've got to get some um scale drawing done we've got downstairs measured up in the way so it's pretty much a mirror image but it's just getting access in in the first place and then we could design everything else yeah so we're going to try and get two studio apartments out of these two rooms upstairs downstairs oh yeah upstairs for now obviously on the other side in future but for now focus on those two great yeah oh jerry will be so happy good luck a happy joke we love that never seen an unhappy jerry actually no this could be our mctarten apartment and so the only way in and out of here at the moment is viola fantastic so the trailers arriving and i see ear number three the return of the ian how fantastic i'm on my way down two seconds coming down ready or not okay stephanie departs hey that sounds a bit worrying i didn't read it in quite that fashion i wasn't expecting to go exploring up there today but when i saw youtube i just i couldn't help myself naturally where you went that's exciting okay are you down safely i'm down thanks so happy to see you back oh thank you it's lovely seeing you again it got so busy again it's so busy it's insane so now winter's almost over then yeah that's it spring starting and all the work we're there it's really good so you're back you want to tell everyone what you're doing um well i've come to upgrade your wi-fi and the internet connections fantastic i know it stabilized quite well i did and i don't have to go out to upload anymore which has been great but obviously uh with people more regular here and the amount of activity that's going on the internet you need that extra capacity so yeah especially as we all work online yeah yeah so basically we currently have three very bad systems quite weak but you're gonna bond them yes there are devices which have been around for quite some time where we can link them all together and actually i want to tell you haven't told you this yet i just signed up for skylink so we can add that presumably to the system as well i still didn't want to only have one working system so i still think it's worth doing this yeah but it's not going to be out for a few months i just paid a deposit so that as soon as they do launch they'll be coming here as one of the first right so that's the uh illness that's right yeah they just got the go ahead yeah i you know after we had already sort of discussed um i even got an email through about yeah you know the availability in your area if you like that sign up um but yeah you know that can be bonded together that's what i was thinking well at the moment it's just been so bad for so long that i want to throw everything i can at this yeah yeah it's the best internet ever so you're pretty much the most popular person in the house coming to bring us internet it's like father christmas uh isolation which is why we're outside and i've still got my mask around yeah okay i'm going to go and help with this uh clearing so exciting the room of doom is no game anymore yeah so it's just uh jerry's space that's going to be we're starting to clear all of that so we can start working oh well that's a surprise for me this morning because i i was aware that it was likely to happen this year because i didn't realize that it's already happening well i haven't got the price yet to be fair but we may as well do the clearing and ian's working on a price and then we'll see when we can move ahead i'm sure i'm going to be uh questioned about the other aspects of the electricity absolutely you are yeah what a beautiful sight ian i see you've brought back up what the troops ian's friends have come to help with the trailer loads you know i've been watching this about four years so i'm actually very happy buddy no idea how happy i am i found something this nick made a request or something similar yeah he did and you know we like to recycle and nick makes almost zero requests in this house so i'm gonna get demands nick i found these welding to a couple of trees why not weld them obviously i think he needs one horizontal to pull out position because they're quite cool yeah actually they're quite cool yeah what on earth were they i think it's all kind of like bro yeah so this is stuff we're keeping yes it's nice yeah that would work really really well we found a nice set of uh taps with a mixer for a bath so we've had a few bits of pieces lovely but generally it's a lot of rubbish that's my mother's blanket she'll freak if that goes i don't know why she likes it so much i'll put it in the washing machine yeah okay we're throwing it in there with all the rubbish yeah oh that's nice i like that one yeah i'll definitely keep that i got it sorry this is a yeah this is a lovely chinese scroll i have no idea what it was doing in there would it be okay now if we get all this cleared out get it nice and level get a firm base down we'll put some insulation and then concrete this through reinforced cold weekend yeah i'm good with that because we know whatever we do we need that we've got to have a base to start with yeah isn't going to affect anything that would drain into warren because i can all go with i could and especially if we can do something around this area with some extra we need an extra power source because we direct we've drained the shirts right now because i think any new areas especially downstairs where we can concrete we should be looking at we should think about what kind of floor we can have obviously it always works better through like a clay floor i like the idea of flagstaff i thought flagstaff would work really yeah in my calculator i'll allow to sort of come in well i'm going to what i'm going to do if you can just move the drawer here yeah this door has been repaired i'd like to take that door off to the same height that i can with this one yeah that just gives me enough height then to level everything yeah and then we can we can take this with our level points so there'll be a little step coming up coming up okay great good and you've got clearly way different levels it's much higher over there i mean it's way up over there yeah and then take some sorting out that's the second trailer to go excellent there it goes load number two this feels so good i need this to go it really is feeling like spring it's just beautiful weather we're clearing out and now i'm going to see if the seedlings have come up and my mother certainly doesn't think that they will have hi jenny you're out here well this is brilliant because i can introduce you to everybody at the same time though many of you will recognize jenny because she came to get the peacocks oh thank you so much it's such a pleasure how are they getting on oh brilliantly that i oh i love them and i think they've really settled now and they're kind of chasing each other around and chasing sticks as well which i never thought they would do which is really funny and yeah they love the dried worms and i was in there the other day and ian was honking while i was in there in their kind of their bit at the moment so i kind of thought that was a good sign that he was honking yeah they're beautiful and they've grown they've really grown so that's good and you've brought some footage for everyone haven't you yes i have i'm not very good at taking film but i and i kept forgetting i was filming and was looking at them and then so it's very wobbly i mean it doesn't matter no one's gonna mind they'll just be delighted to see them so i'm so lucky to live with such beautiful animals they are stunning yeah yeah and so do you want to explain why you are standing with a watering can in our garden oh really fabulous water again i'm definitely going to try and get one of these well i mean isabel obviously has done such a fantastic job in this garden and i feel so sorry for her that i'm sure she would love to be here yeah and sure sowing the seeds and um here um in the middle of france it's the time really for sowing seeds yeah because on a day like today it's just a joy and so i thought i would perhaps come and sow some seeds i grow my own veg at home i'm not a professional but we we live off our own veg and your veggie delicious you grew philip snake yes i brought a couple more with me so jenny's going to be here with us for a couple of weeks as a volunteer helping out in the garden it's so nice have my seedlings come up yes well i haven't looked this morning yet i was just about to watch i'm gonna go we're gonna go and have a little look go and have a look i haven't uncovered mummy had a few choice things to say to me about my technique but i think she was pleased that i was out here doing things well they they need watering so i'm going to water yes it's so great having water in these ones are not dahlias and these ones haven't come up yet none of the sweet peas have yet they were a bit deep they're really so deep oh no these are dahlias and there's more than that they're all different type of dahlia but they're also coming up right yes these ones are starlight mixed right so be mixed colors daily early birds there we go they put in an appearance oh that's incredibly satisfying yeah yeah it is steph i know gardening is really so destructive maybe i can come and say some seeds with you sometimes well of course you'll be very welcome any time it's your greenhouse you can give me advice which would be great i don't want to take away any of the joy from you i love the fact that you're here it would be really nice to come and do something with you yeah well i'm going to major on vegetables at the moment great a little bit early perhaps for for flowers but we'll have a look at sewing flowers as well because the weather is so good and in the greenhouse that's the great thing but we're doing i'm gonna do radishes spinach peas um and we'll start start some potatoes off as well if we can get something oh yes let's find some fun varieties loads of good food to eat i'm going to go in because annelise is going to come and cut my hair oh yes go and find her all right cheerio see you later bye i just checked and annelise isn't here just yet it'll be any minute but maybe we have time to visit the chickens hello ladies i caused a bit of a fluster there hope i haven't interrupted someone's laying i think i might have so they've gone outside oh no this one's cold so she hasn't just laying it what a beautiful egg hello hello how are you i'm good how are you really good i was just on my way to spot the chickens but i'll do it later they laid an egg oh fantastic good to see you how is everything good thank you excellent beautiful day i can't believe it it's amazing our chickens really do lay the nicest color of eggs look at that selection it is such a beautiful day that we've decided to do this outside why not it's amazing i mean i'm not even wearing a jumper it's incredible i know first of march it's a good sign isn't it yeah definitely i think so so you weren't coming to cut my hair but actually now you're doing a light a mild tone i think we're going to do a toner just to kind of eliminate some of the red that that we've got going on here okay um and just to add a bit of shine and condition you know to your hair and then give it a nice nice cut and blow-dry finish thank you there we go yeah so steph's new hobby while color is developing is called chair weeding chair we do yeah see see i'm helping dad it's just it's incredibly satisfying they come out so easily with the gravel and they were just sitting all around me so i figured i may as well pull them out whilst done yeah it's already made a difference and you've got a little pile on the go you will tell down how good i think yep absolutely thank you he basically got an undergardener i really love my hair and elise it's amazing i love it thank you so much you're welcome it's been a pleasure as always you always make me feel so glamorous i hope you enjoy it and enjoy the rest of the the sunny day that we've i think i'm going to go for one to see if i can find those chickens that is a really good idea and see if you can get everyone to lay in one place yeah i'll have a straight word with them yes i think so see you really soon thank you take care bye bye found this um in a secret nest out in the vegetable garden at the bottom of a grapevine and i but i don't know how old it is so so you're doing the water test which annalise has done queen of chickens it's not floating yeah it's a good egg good egg i love good eggs yeah it doesn't get better than a good egg it's been a good day for eggs i found one as well earlier in the correct place brilliant okay i'll put this over here somewhere's just back from his weekend away yeah how was it yeah it was very nice too i saw a lot of satosh but sometimes you cannot uh it's private and the roads and it is some i couldn't see yeah i love the fact that you every weekend you explore france yeah and then i don't know where to always where to go and then you see it played chateau and then yeah and then also oh i like the chateaus and all the churches it's beautiful yeah we're so lucky to live here honestly everywhere there's something beautiful to see yeah it's really great yeah well good to have you home i'm gonna go and wow the chickens with my new hair i just want to show everyone even if it's a chicken that's fine well i can see two of the chickens the large brahmin that dan brought a few months ago and there's picasso first time i've seen picasso wandering out and about i don't know where honoring is though having a good old explorer i hope alpha caso is superb what a chicken does the feet just crack me up every time [Laughter] there's catwoman and the brahmin castle is on the move with her magnificent bottom swaying in the air we're just walking around in circles whilst i'm looking for the chickens i just realized we have a hive in here do you hear that buzzing there's a hive or a nest i don't know if they're wasps or bees i think they're bees it's covered [Music] and there are other rolls looking pretty majestic today everyone's enjoying the sunshine we're all out well this is looking very different from the mud pit we've had for days yes things to remember where you're standing is a manhole i haven't raised the top or anything because this is probably where we will bring the gutters into here okay a new manhole well as long as you remember where it is taking pictures okay great taking pictures just so i remember and it's right outside this yeah chunk of concrete good so this is where those three come into yeah those ones will probably come into here yep to get them away from the terrace i think and then we'll go off in the direction of your tree where you want your fantastic manholes are out the ground because that was your finished height yes it was okay so we're going to be changing the color of the gravel obviously and that'll bring it up a little bit more and then if you want me to cut them down once you've laid your gravel yeah i can okay okay so it's easy gutter project has started and leland's first french drain is in place project gutter i never thought i'd be so excited so you've got your drainage and you've got the perforated pipe behind that yeah to protect the house great and so all of the gutter water is now going straight into underground pipes rather than just leaving the water at the foot of the building the underground pipes are all linking up together and they're going to go to a big underground cistern to water the garden all right this is fantastic and i'll see you then when you come back for the shower doors all your existing pipework because i mean i bought enough to go down to there yeah is in the far room okay great also the the excess of the perforated pipe that's all in there and everything else so then we can just keep on going yeah great okay and look what's happened whilst i was having my hair done all of the rubbish has gone we've got one last trailer load to be taken and all we've got left to one side are usable things these are all the old doors from the chateau which we think we can reuse a bit of paneling there i can't believe this we have a clear room except for an absolutely delicious collection of b days this is going to be great feels so good today well this is really weird the first time you're leaving the chateau since arriving in mid-september yes whoa how am i gonna film without you i don't know i've got used to having a right-hand man now i'll be back uh probably end of the week yeah philip has got to rush back to holland because there's a family issue that he needs to deal with and then we'll see you when you get back it's going to be really weird yeah so talk of hedgehogs it's going to be like a woodland animal-free zone i mean how will you survive that i haven't worked it out yet honestly i'm pretty sure i speak for everyone watching the vlog when i say none of us can wait to see which bits of your wardrobe that you bring back that we haven't seen before yeah so i'm taking an empty suitcase it's gonna be a brand new phillip the week after next everyone have a safe journey thank you i'll be all right well it's very quiet without phillip yes but mavi as always has filled the kitchen with flowers they're the daffodils from the woods yes well it's spring it's official giant and they're plenty of them i only pick a few here and there so this still looks like there's loads and there will be more coming as well oh fantastic it's so pretty and most excitingly you've cooked tonight yes i hope it's fine look look fantastic cheese and nuts salad it's wonderful we call it philip has gone to holland we can eat cheese and nuts and what is this risotto it's some tromboncino or snake risotto as you call it phillips snake specifically yeah philips snake risotto wow i found some tromboncino scenes from somebody in the greenhouse today so it can grow you can grow your own snakes it's wonderful it's really funny filming from down this end of the table where i'm in isolation hi everyone jenny that was delicious and i can't believe we've also made dessert very welcome what is in this cherries from my garden we have the most amazing cherry tree you know when you go to a french market in the south of france or whatever and they have the most luscious huge wonderful cherries yes that's what we get on our cherry tree and we basically pick them from the ground and we have but we don't even have to get on a ladder there are so many and the branches are like waved down so they and they're just absolutely loads of them and so i froze some last year thinking and they perhaps wouldn't freeze very well but i think they're frozen really well so this year will be freezing this is a delic thank you so much you're very welcome did you get the cream i got the cream a huge thank you to all of our patrons at la land who are making this vlog possible especially our duffer and dauphine of la land jaedel and ether brandon and john michael dunbanda lauren barnes cecilia begum denise behrens jill bidwell candice blackburn candace ned borkovsky clara butcher paulina calabro chloe chalakhani steven sarah cole zoe dork sakura dennis zane dixon jackie ellison nicholas w fairfax tracy ferrari caroline first abigail grant fifi greenberg crystal hardy brenda harris delaine hallbrook kim hasselhoff dave and tong henderson jacqueline holmes priscilla hubler jimmy kemp nadia kennedy lisa laforge david samuel land morgan lawley victoria lepine janet hof lombard marina frank martin meredith robert miller cathy nuri jc award maureen palmer teresa sloan frank broposki and james snow tomorrow price armin rahman tonya renee rjb bettina rojack hanny ross mary ryan elizabeth scandans fen schreiber lisa schultz jennifer shanks patty sue who susan stevens and the leaf house sarah thornton colleen troyer rene valerie victoria jessica walker brandy walton laura watkins lucas wallace james whalen cheryl whittaker christine wilson winnie de la cockapoo greg with david young ludwig and thank you to all of you [Music] you

Channel: The Chateau Diaries

Views: 108,665

Rating: 4.9700127 out of 5

Keywords: chateau de lalande, chateau diaries, chateau life, chateaux in france, chatelaine, escape to the chateau, escape to the chateau diy, french castles, french country home, french country house, french country living, historic house, life in a chateau, living in a castle today, living in a chateau, living in a french chateau, stephanie chateau, stephanie jarvis, chateau de la lande, the chateau diaries, restoration, diy, french drain, chickens, transformations, spring clearing

Id: r0kTicQtFmM

Length: 31min 24sec (1884 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 02 2021