Wat vliegt de tijd. Op 6 december werd het nieuwe dak over de oude geplaatst…
Our house search in France: 1.5 years long
On December 7, 2021, we, Henri and Joop, traveled to green vistas in
Avrée, located in the French Morvan
(Click if you’re curious about where that actually is). It was time for a special moment: the signing of the deed of sale at the notary ChinChole in Luzy! We finally got to call ourselves the proud owners of the Avrée water mill, or in French: Le Moulin d’Avrée, after a long search for a house.
A long search
During an 18-month house search, we scoured countless websites. We saw, judged and turned down hundreds of houses, drove back and forth a number of times for nought, sometimes didn’t see the point, then gave up and kept going anyway. On weekends, we drove the full 10+ hours to Burgundy. At one point we even saw houses that were just a carcass, and all the power and water had yet to be installed. You do get creative at some point.
There it was: our dream house
However, the wait was totally worth it, because we finally found our dream house in the Morvan. A 2.4 hectare piece of land containing a house, a gîte (the French name for a vacation home), a conversion project (the mill), a horse trough with professional stables and a small river that runs alongside our property. How beautiful it is and how happy we are with it.
The first viewing
In early August, Joop saw the house for sale. It was about house number 793 that we saw. I then had the attitude ”another one.” I didn’t see its value at the time. Since the house did appeal to Joop, we made a viewing appointment, and traveled August 21, 2021 to beautiful France once again.
Within 5 minutes I was sold and wanted to buy it. Really. The house met everything we were looking for. The tremendous peace, the fact that we could stay in it right away and the beautiful nature made me immediately excited. That same afternoon we negotiated the price a bit more and by 4 p.m. we had a preliminary sales agreement.
"Binnen 5 minuten was ik verkocht en wilde ik het kopen. Werkelijk."
A special moment: the key transfer
Dec. 7, 2021 was the key exchange. After years of dreaming and a long house search, it could finally begin. Off to rest, nature and adventure! In the days following Dec. 7, we lived in our new home for about 5 days. The cottage was left furnished so we could bivouac there immediately. From the cottage you can get into the main house by a sneak-through crawl-through route and that’s where we worked: cleaning, polishing, sanding, painting and saucing. Joop also knocked another bookcase off the wall. The living room is pretty much finished now (one more ceiling for the second time and one more window frame 2 more times). And when I see the living room with our own furniture, it already begins to feel like our home.
Straight to work
We also unloaded our small truck. We had even brought a wood splitter from Holland, but the hospitality of our new homeland was immediately apparent to us: the previous owners had left one for us! So splitting wood was going to work, and our own wood jib could return with it.
See here the first results after 5 days of hard work. Not bad if I say so myself! We hope to complete the main house in a few subsequent visits, then from there we can prepare the gîtes for rental.
A warm (French) bath
During the days we worked on the house, we also had a few visitors. We found ourselves in a warm bath. The previous owners took us out to dinner, we got a fine address to buy wood, and met the mayor of Avrée, monsieur Georges Chateau. That didn’t amount to much: the introduction lasted less than 5 minutes. However, he now knows who we are and where we live, and that was the point.
We look forward to our next visits to Moulin d’Avrée, meeting many more residents, and getting started on our French homework.
Salut!Joop et Henri
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