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How it all started… “once upon a time”…there was a ‘chateau for sale’ or as the French agent mentioned “chateau in need of restoration”!
Rutger, my husband, sent me an email with information about the chateau with lots of photographs and the famous words: “needs a little bit of work, darling!”

This was such an invitation to someone who was dreaming for years about a Maison en France! A dream about a whole new life with lots of sun and living outside in a green environment.

I dreamed about starting a chambres d’hôtes (Bed & Breakfast) and especially about tables d’hôtes, so I could share my passion for cooking and good food with my guests!  I always loved watching tv programs about people moving to France who are starting a new life….

The pictures on the French real estate website showed a grey and neglected chateau, but with two promising little towers. Uhhmm, is this really what we are looking for?? But it made me curious and I convinced my husband to plan a visit or as they say in French ‘a Rendezvous’ (RDV).

January 2018, we payed a visit to the chateau for the first time and I think that I was smitten right away. What an unique opportunity: a chateau with lots of land around, to be precise 6 ha. Difficult to imagine how big that is. The chateau looked very sad on this rainy day, although I was impressed by it’s appearance. Inside it was not looking very promising. The whole place was full of all sorts of things: furniture, books, clothes and a lot of rubbish. Everywhere it was packed with useless stuff and dirt, but the worst of all was the water dripping on the stairs, it was obvious that something was leaking. It turned out to be the roof that was in a bad shape… In the kitchen it was clear that there were termites who made a view big holes in the beams.

We visited the chateau for a second time that week and I was convinced that it had a unique selling point with ten rooms, beautiful old features and those lovely towers. We went back to the Netherlands and the chateau was still on my mind…

But then there was a little crisis: Rutger did not want to live permanently in France and most of all, he didn’t want to buy the chateau. We seemed to have lost each other in the whole process… I thought it would be a real opportunity and didn’t want to give up so easily. So I did some research how to achieve the chateau on my own to make it into a succes. In the end I decided to buy the chateau on my own and have a big adventure while renovating the chateau. Maybe even the rest of my life.

So this happened already more than a year ago and at this moment I am in my dilapidated chateau all by myself. My husband Rutger just went back to Holland last week and my friend, who helped cleaning, just left two days ago. 
Here I am, for the next four weeks all by myself and it just crossed my mind “what was I thinking…?” 

Well it is the end of March, the sun is shining, I am most of the time outside in the garden or on the porch and it’s 20 degrees in the shade… 

To be  continued…To be  continued…