American Chateau Owners Answer Honestly: Q&A | Our French Chateau

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Welcome back to our Channel if you’re new here we’re a family of 15 for humans the rest are pets our channel has grown ever so slightly in the last couple months and to kick off 202 4 we thought we’d ask you if you had questions for us you certainly

Did so let’s recap we live here in northern France but we’re from San Francisco by way of Connecticut that’s me and Lincoln from New York City we moved to France in 2019 after starting our search for a chatau in 2017 these are some of the properties we looked at

Some were too big some needed far too much work others were too close to roads not enough property no out buildings maybe the town was weird a couple were in flood zones and some just didn’t feel right but after all of our looking we put an offer in on this one but the

Owners failed to let us know that they had already accepted an offer after we viewed it twice we were gutted but finally on our fourth trip to France We Came Upon This Chateau and it came with a cute Donkey I don’t think there’s no they don’t use this one so it doesn’t lock it locks from the inside I guess oh okay they use the kitchen one [Applause] so they have another one too oh you’re in tada I don’t think we even saw it online we saw a picture on online it was sort of like a pocket listing oh and we received the the listing and it was over what we were prepared to pay and we said that’s

Too expensive for us and and she said oh well it’s negotiable so we ended up looking at it um while we were here we made about three three or four trips over to France back and forth looking at properties right chose this one uh no I think you’d be absolutely insane

To buy a property sight unseen remember the tree guy that came out and he said he knew a couple who bought a chateau and bought it online a beautiful place but what they didn’t realize next door was a pig farm the pig nobody nobody seemed to

Mention that there was a pig farm they arrived and there was a pig farm right next of their property and which are stinky and messy and probably loud and so they were stuck with this property so you have to go and see oh of course the

Property you have to view the area you have to view it day you have to view it night you have to see what the little town is like you know is the does the town have enough money to you know to pave the roads to pay yeah I mean there’s so many little

Moving Parts you can’t just fall in love with the house and say I’m going to move there cuz we saw quite a few that we really liked but you know maybe it was the town maybe it was the property was too small um the weather you know there’s so many variables about a

Property and this one sort of ticked all the boxes for us I thought it was a little small small for a chatau it is small for a chatau but thankfully we have the out buildings that we can turn into extra space so we don’t have the burden of heating a 50

Room and coming up with other ways to pay the bills yeah exactly I mean that’s a big thing too it’s not really realistic you know have something really huge over €200,000 EUR but under 2 million EUR so that that’ll give you a good you figure it out the number one question we’re asked

About money we get it people are curious we won’t go into detail but we’ll tell you we sold our home in San Francisco and paid for the Chateau outright we’re not rich yet didn’t win the lottery we’re just a couple of dorks doing the renovations ourselves because we

Absolutely love it and save a ton of money we’re constantly learning new skills our monthly YouTube earnings are put right back into the renovations FYI don’t come to Europe and ask someone what they do for a living how much they make or how much they paid for anything it’s considered rude and

You’ll be escorted away and thrown into a Hole this summer and I don’t think that’s a stretch unless something horrible happens no I mean there’s a lot of demo and we need to replace beams put in a new floor upstairs small kitchen and bathroom yeah it’s just finishes fairly basic stuff people are a little confused as

To the whole kitchen situation that we started demolishing the kitchen inside of the Chateau in preparation for a temporary Kitchen in the cottage right all all we’ve done is remove wallpaper and tile yeah nothing has been ripped out or anything it’s like the kitchen is fully functioning

It’s just it actually looks a little better now that the wallpaper Tyler the wallpaper wasn’t the best so horrible I miss um going to the hair salon on a regular basis as you can see my hair is I always throw it in a ponytail the Japanese man that used to cut my hair

Cut in color he was amazing so that’s the one thing I really miss about the US I don’t know that I really miss anything you missed the strip clubs maybe yeah yeah defin shoving the dollar bills there’s not a there’s not a whole lot we miss about the US I mean there’s

A reason we moved the slower pace of life people appreciate little things more it’s not so go go go and I bought this fancy car and can you top that it’s just a totally different way of life and we love it here oh yeah yeah people people are just lowkey like you lowkey

Lincoln you know it’s funny even like being at the grocery store it’s almost like you’re in a library people are very polite it’s just the culture here where you’re cognizant of getting in other people’s way and being loud is kind of that you’re forcing people to listen to

Your voice so there are people are very you do your thing and you see someone you know and you talk a little bit but um mostly just do your thing we moved in here in 2019 and I had always thought well it’ be fun to sort of document it and for friends and

Family and then I ended up you know I thought about it for quite a while but didn’t have the guts to put ourselves on YouTube because we’re not very outgoing people and this was like a weird leap for us I think I think everybody was like what Amanda and Lincoln have a

YouTube channel they had drugs and I’m actually enjoying doing the filming and the editing I’d much rather not be in front of the camera we end up doing it and you do your thing yeah and you do your thing you do you you do you and

I’ll do me does that make sense and and I don’t know how much longer we’ll we’ll end up doing this we could just burn out and say oh screw it we’re done when it’s not fun anymore yeah exactly we’ll we’ll we’ll give it a rest mm we’ve trapped we’ve taken to the vet

About five cats now right we still have the cat cam up we still see Buttercup yeah who was our very first one and we have a a very a fondness for for him but Lincoln came to me the other night and told me about a cat who was

Outside sitting on the wood pile meowing at him I prefaced it with um I don’t know why I’m telling you this but cuz you know I’m going to miss cat lady do we really need an eighth cat no when I was here I was like here Reen active for me I was crouched

Down we went out to look for it didn’t see it the next night I went out she was waiting come on there she is oh my god there she is hi hi look how cute you are look how cute you are come on it’s warm down

Here she’s purring she’s like oh my gosh she’s she’s just so scared of everything Hello pet her I gave her some extra food I recognized her from the cat cam so I I believe she’s been hanging around for about 6 months now and hasn’t been trapped what are we going to do

I’ve only we’ve only known her for like 3 days so she’s very willing to come this is really fancy food Kitty that’s it I was able to lift her up last night to to put her on a table to feed her so I’m thinking I can get her into a

Carrier yeah much um once the vet is open in a couple of days we can take her in check her out see if she does indeed belong to someone she could be lost most cats around here are outdoor Barn cats or indoor outdoor but mostly outdoor yeah and even if they’re someone’s pet

Right right cuz some people are like why would you want a filthy cat inside of your house I mean we’ve gotten comments like that on our on our blog like why do you that’s that’s disgusting why do you have cats inside there’s a black one now

Who I’ve just spotted out in the field he’s a new one new one so I’m going to try to trap him or her beautiful cat we did have a GoFundMe so everyone thank you for donating and people often ask us how they can help we don’t have a patreon I did start

A buy me a coffee but I’ve changed it to buy me a bag of animal food so if you want to donate to the animals um that’s sort of a good way you can do it it’s right here on our in the description or whatever so if you want to do that just

Helping with the medical expenses that’s a way you you can you can do it but you will have the only fans up soon yes soon after we started the channel we were approached by several production companies that were trying to develop I think a show similar to Chateau DIY

Where it was like a an ensemble cast where they show people fixing up their chat and we were like oh that sounds like fun you know they were going to pay us and everything it wasn’t um I don’t think the people in chatau DIY get paid

Though we ended up filming like three or four of these little interviews and then they give it to the the channels you know I guess they put a reel together and then they but nothing came of any of these shows until this last one which I

Guess we can talk about right cuz we don’t have a contract anymore I don’t even remember the details right I know it’s all a blur we were contacted by this other production company so they approached about doing a show just about the two of us renovating The

Chateau so we ended up filming one of those things where a real I don’t know what they call it and you talk about yourself and it’s really awkward and they had a specific Network in mind in the United States and it was the Magnolia Network we were a little bit

Excited about it you know we had to sign a um what’s it a holding a holding deal we had to sign like which basically means you can’t sign with another Right company while like anybody tring to shop this around no one was banging on our

Door anyway so we like why not so so anyway we were a little excited about that at the prospect but at the same time would it be too intrusive in our lives yeah we didn’t really know a lot of details of what they were thinking no

They have some decent shows on that on that Network anyway they mag ped on us yeah I wonder why a show about nothing are you asleep yet yeah yeah but go ahead and write Magnolia if you want to see us on their on their their Network yeah I mean the only

Reason we were thinking of doing it is because it would have given us more exposure for our YouTube channel well yeah I’ve seen a lot of shows on TV where I then found that they have a YouTube channel that they had had for a while and having a show makes you much

Bigger yeah exactly people know who you are now sure we’ll just continue this it’s not like we wanted to be TV stars or anything because we’re like you know I don’t I don’t know that people would want to watch us on TV I haven’t been recognized I was recognized by one

Person and he was very nice yeah a French gentleman yeah spoke a little English that’s cool I was at the store buying a cat scratcher go figure right process was pretty simple yeah it wasn’t that difficult we have Italian citizenships that was just like all

Right come on over um yeah that’s it was really simple as far as the pets go at the time we just had guava and our cat kiwi and they just needed forms filled out by the vet quite frankly when we got to the airport they didn’t even look at

The forums they they were just all right so the pets quarantining anymore no so that was easy um it was really quite a simple process and yeah we did move our furniture from you know it was an international shipping company and that you know we had a lot of things broken

Because the guys packed a lot of it were some of the Packers were really good and some were not good at all but I ended up packing the most delicate things myself and everything came over here on Skate I can’t think about 2024 that’s so far [Laughter]

Away what time is it is it 20 24:00 yet um all I’ve got penciled in is finishing the cottage and working on the garden two big MH two big projects and then there’s some other things that we’re working on that we we don’t really want to talk about right

Now I don’t I didn’t I don’t want to talk about it I’m clearly the indoor fire person Lincoln’s the boiler man I don’t think Mimi has any desire to do anything but lounge around and yeah eat and stay warm I mean she’s really happy fluffy has a skin condition fluffy

Is severely allergic to fleas and and ticks and if she goes outside she’s just a a mess yeah we have to give her medication in order to control the itching and uh so she needs she needs to be in an indoor cat but yeah it’s a complicated situation having so many

Cats in one space but it’s just it is what it is it’s cool finding unexpected things you know that were left here like the old sink that’s in the basement and old paperwork the history of the of the building and we still need to spend more

Time on that that’s fun yeah that’s fun stuff we found paperwork that in the Attic that’s older than the Chateau because you know the same family lived here up until 1975 a couple hundred years of stuff that got put in the attic and forgotten about it’s interesting to

Find stuff like that yeah it’s fun it’s a real that’s a real treat I think the biggest disappointment is that it’s just the two of us and we’re not able to do everything we want to do like there so much to do outside and and that’s why

You know perhaps once the cottage is done we’ll have a couple of spry volunteers come and and help us with a lot of the grunt work you know a lot of the uh Forest stuff that needs to be done that’s really our biggest concern right now MH is the park and the forest

We don’t want to cut the trees down obviously but it it just it needs to be thinned up until 1975 there was a full-time Gardener right on that lived who lived in the cottage that we’re currently renovating and after that the owner prior to us purchased it it just

Sort of that stopped funny how priorities changed you know living in the US versus France you know the other day we went to the tractor store and we were looking for a part for the tractor that you eventually found because we needed to attach the um the trailer the

Trailer which we’ve done but it’s just you go into the tractor store and you’re like That to the car dealership yes like like going to the the Porsche dealership you know like oh I want that 911 but ooh look at that look at that tractor with the the mowing deck on and the digger that’s a nice tractor that’s a nice tractor so our priorities have changed over the

Years there’s nothing structural ser seriously that needs to be done aside from a few things in the basement that need Shoring up but nothing horrible it’s not falling down no and basically it’s just doing the Grand salon we need to install a little powder room down here the dining room

Kitchen and a master bathroom now that I now that I’m saying it out loud it sounds really bad a lot but it it doesn’t feel like a lot I guess well it’s stuff that we’re we’re choosing to do yeah you could live here perfectly fine without oh sure yeah

Absolutely what’s your inspiration for interior design Mister you no you have a say I mean you you’ll say oh I don’t like that or I like this you definitely have an opinion you’re definitely the person that comes up with things and because when you want everything covered in red velvet and red

Curtains I say no that’s a hard no I still want the dogs playing poker that’ll be in your man cave I don’t know I just I guess I I look at uh I go on Pinterest I just you know I kind of know what I like and well you you tear you

Tear Pages out of magazin I do that that’s that I do that I love to PA tear Pages out and even if it’s just a little a color of something or I don’t know there’s no great it’s just what I do I don’t miss cooking professionally that

Much I think I’d like to put some videos out about cooking with within the garden at some point but I think I like the the filming part of the creativity you know I think that’s cre anything creative I like I used to paint really good at swearing too does that count as being

Created that would be you to do what to engineer to to look at things that would be you you’re you’re he’s super smart uh um I know my limitations so yeah and I can say okay I’ve I’ve got a clue about that but I need to yeah talk to

Someone or figure out some more about that before yeah but we don’t have like a person on staff or anything no no no it’s pretty much seven days a week I mean not full days it’s not like we don’t wake up and start working I mean

We have days where we have huge plans and then nothing gets done because to get to that step there are like 17 other it’s everybody knows that you know you own a house it’s um but we do this full-time so yeah this is this is what we’re here for that’s yeah

Working on the house is our job basically yeah and it does get uh yeah it can it can get overwhelming you know you have days where you just don’t want to get out of bed or you know cuz this time of year especially it’s hard to get motivated

Yeah but now that we’ve redone our uh primary bedroom it’s much nicer to wake up to than the Black Walls and the that that was last year was tough it’s like we don’t go damn we need to put this place on the market get out of

Here no no it’s it’s ex it’s I think we would be incredibly bored if we had a turnkey house I think oh yeah yeah this is this is what keeps us busy this is what we love to do and I just couldn’t imagine yeah living any other in any

Other place or living any other life I mean this is this is the place for us it took me a lot longer to adjust than I think it did you I didn’t really truly feel at home here until maybe a good year and a half ago really yeah yeah

Because you get to know I mean it might sound weird but you get to know the land MH and you get to know the building every square inch of it so to me that I know everything now and I just I love it so much I could never imagine

Leaving yeah we’re definitely looking into um other ways I mean ultimately it’d be great to be off grid oh yeah we can do that certainly yeah it’s just there’s so many other things we need to do first before we can even get to that point but it’s

On the agenda it’s on our list when turbine we don’t know if it’s going to be solar first or a wind turbine first but we’re going to have both yeah and we’re likely going to have um we’ve got running water on the property so we’re going to have we can do hydroelectric

Power also yeah so um yeah we could be completely off grd yeah it would be really amazing since we we’ve had such bad experiences with you know storms and and that sort of thing so it makes you think yeah but for the environment and just you know for us to be

Self-sufficient it’s I think it’s important there are always going to be drafts in this house unless we replace all the windows and put in double glazed Windows which is not going to happen and put insulation in the walls yeah we just can’t do that so can’t do that yeah

Whatever way we’re ultimately going to heat the sh what you’re still going it’s never going to be 100% efficient it’s just not cuz it’s an old building the underfloor heating will be a huge Improvement we’ve been married a long time yeah it seems like nothing at all doesn’t it [Laughter]

Darling we’ve been married like over 20 years it’s been a while we got married quite young and we’re still together so yeah I I haven’t filed the paperwork yet okay no our donkeys are the most boring donkeys in all of donkey land we’ve gotten them balls um you know I thought

Buckets you know I’ve done everything so now they don’t so if you see them out there and they don’t have toys they’re fine W There’s a rainbow behind you I don’t know where he’s going to chase the Rainbow Thanks for all of your support and comments we get a lot of emails and apologize if we haven’t written back we’re just so busy it really helps us stay motivated when it can sometimes be difficult to plow through the next big project Thanks for watching if you’ve enjoyed this video don’t forget to subscribe and if you have something to say leave us a comment