Renovation diary: the land of the Before

Not my favorite place, or the most photogenic, but an important one

Hello and welcome to this week’s edition of The Bell!

My Instagram feed is one long stream of gorgeous before-and-afters of country home renovations. When I read the captions, the timelines often shock me.

“One year ago today,” they read, panning across uninhabitable rooms before transitioning to the current state: finished, furnished, and fabulous.

Today, I write to you from my country house in France that has been in the barely-habitable “before” state for the the entire 3.5 years we’ve been the proprietors. It completely lacks a kitchen (and the floors and walls need major surgery before anything kitchen-y goes in), needs major updates to the bathroom, the living room is currently a storage unit for chairs, the plaster is cracked everywhere, the paint is faded and chipped, the drafty windows welcome in a steady stream of dust and bugs, there might be a hornet’s nest in the chimney, and on and on. Forget about the garden—we have! Nature will just have to go au naturel until we can even think about the maintenance of something that grows.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s long on charm and we adore it here. The limestone exterior is beautiful, the original interior details are so special, the family history is rich, the light is beyond, the horses nickering in the field across the street fill my heart with joy.

But we have a long way to go until it’s the house of our dreams, and progress thus far has been slow.

After removing baseboards and plaster from the future laundry room, we were dismayed to realize the limestone had been covered with cement from floor to ceiling! Renovation is full of surprises, some fun and some very much not. My husband stripped back some, and the stonemason is going to finish the job. But let’s take a moment to appreciate the beautiful beams and door.

People doing any kind of work on their home (or brick and mortar business) run into all kinds of reasons for delay: budget constraints, the intensity of their day job, elder care, having a baby, medical issues, other priorities taking precedence, overall being spread too thin, etc.

We’ve experienced a mix of some of these over the past few years. At the end of the day, I know all the reasons why work hasn’t gotten off the ground yet. They’re valid and we couldn’t have done differently.

And actually, we’ve been doing a lot behind the scenes.

Nobody writes about the Before of a project like this because it doesn’t make a visual splash. There’s nothing satisfying about reporting that we’ve been reading books, thinking a lot, talking through options late into the night, emailing back and forth with a designer, gathering inspiration on mood boards, or taking endless photos of contractors’ vans when we see them driving around and contacting them one by one to see if they’re a good fit.

But that’s what we’ve been doing for a few years, both in Boston and in the couple-week-long spurts we’ve been able to be here, as my husband’s job rolls back their once lenient remote work policy and life deals us other setbacks and more urgent priorities.

The land of the Before is an uncomfortable place to live when the livability (to say nothing of comfort) of your house depends on making progress. An extended period of thinking before taking action, while probably prudent when the stakes are so high and investment is so large in a project like this, can feel like the finished state is so far off as to be unreachable.

But it is reachable, and I know our patience will pay off.

I was chatting with someone the other day who wisely said that even if we return on our next visit to a kitchen floor that’s torn up, it will feel better than the current intact floor that’s destined for removal. Even if the room goes from minimally usable to completely unusable for a while, that’s progress—the unusable state is actually easier to live with because of the optimism of forward momentum. The demolition stage brings the finished state slightly more within reach.

The other challenge of the land of the Before is that I feel some pressure to have something to report to you guys! Several among you reading have heard us saying “we’re renovating our family home in France” for such a long time, without having actually done any renovating. You may have wondered if we’re actually serious.

Well, fear not! We are very much serious. And things are not going to move this slow forever.

This trip has been incredibly productive with decisions made and important, disruptive, foundational work scheduled to get done over the winter.

The whole main floor, which comprises an entry, a kitchen, and a laundry room, is getting taken back to the studs (which in our case means limestone walls). The entire tile floor is getting demolished down to the foundations and relaid in a way that better manages the humidity in the house. We’re replacing cheesy 90s ceramic tile with traditional terra cotta tomettes. We’re having the walls freshly lime washed—but probably leaving one wall with the beautiful limestone exposed. We’re having a new front door built, with windows to let the beautiful light into our entry. And changing the direction it swings, to maximize space. We’re removing an awkward water closet built under the stairs in the entry and moving the toilet into the bathroom, American-style. The plumbing change is going to be an adventure.

Then we’re giving our two-part stairway and landing a simple fresh coat of paint, though in several years we may redo the plaster through that space too.

At the moment, we’re still in the land of the Before. But with each passing day, we move closer to the During! Even if the holistic project is a long way from the After, there will be lots of mini Afters to share along the way, which I can’t wait to share.

Watch this space!

xx Jane

P.S. Do you guys know the story of this country house? Do you want to hear it? I don’t want to be repetitive and boring if I’ve shared it all before, but you also might be confused/curious… Let me know.