Hello everyone, In this video myself and Mark share with you our FRENCH DINING ROOM MAKEOVER and we take you through our journey in our 1880s French home! From envisioning the perfect colour scheme finding clues in the old paint colours. We share every step with you and we cant believe the finished result!
Please note that this is our second channel exclusively sharing our home renovations/ makeovers/ gardening/ allotment and cooking updates etc! And I am re posting videos that have been previously shot before xmas which were on my other channel Annabellaz Sanctuary but now I am separating my videos out onto separate channels; so I am reposting a few to bundle them together!
Our other channel’ Annabellaz Sanctuary’ is now exclusively chateaux and historical visits all in rural France!
Thank you for being with us,
Love Annabelle & Mark x.
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@AnnabelleMarkOurLifeInFrance
(*THIS VIDEO IS NOT SPONSORED*)
This channel follows the adventures of Annabelle and Mark in our 1880s French home in the beautiful countryside of rural France! We will explore our garden and grounds, any renovations we carryout, cooking and gardening and anything else!
A very special thank you to all who have come to join us on our channel we are delighted to have you here with us!
We hope you enjoy discovering more about our adventures in France and do not forget to make yourself comfortable and grab a nice cuppa!!
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Hey there everyone hello welcome back to the channel really nice to have you back with us if you’re new then thanks for joining us and if you’re returning back to the channel thank you so much don’t forget to subscribe please that’s really appreciated yes hey so today we are
Showing you around our dining room following lots of work and lots of painting and lots of Blood Sweat and Tears I think getting us to the position where we are now yeah absolutely so today is a renovation update as we promised isn’t it it is it is and it is
Quite the update and quite the change I think you all agree definitely and it has been a long time because it’s taken us like six months to actually get to this point with this room so there’s been a lot of like it hasn’t just been decorating has it it’s been renovating
More than decorating yeah I mean it’s taken us a lot of time just because life is going on around around it so you know we had lots of stuff to do in here anyway we had lots of removal of the ceiling to an extent a lot of the
Panels had to be taken off and we had to fill the walls and yeah generally do a lot of work in here but it’s turned out amazing no well we’re very happy with it so we we have yet as Mark’s saying we’ve had to take all the poyene um squares whatever they’re
Called those squ that they put everywhere they used to put in the houses so we’ve taken that off the ceiling actually looks really good it’s not perfect it’s not completely smooth or anything but it’s looking really good it certainly looks better than 1980s styrofoam I’ve got to be honest and it’s
A lot safer as well because they are a bit of a bit of a health hazard bit of a fire hazard to say the least it is absolutely and it actually makes the room feel big it does higher I mean we’ve probably gained about this much haven’t we yeah
We’ probably gained an inch I would imagine cuz they’re quite thick actually so it’s got high ceilings anyway but um it feels definitely even even higher it just feels it feels like we’ve got the room back to how it used to be how it should be basically and that’s what we
Really wanted to do was really just um you know just really get a feel of how the room should be not how we think it should be but how just get the feeling right and um yeah you know cuz we I agree what I mean by that is I just
Wanted to take it back to how it should be basically bring them bring the old life back into it because it had been decorated as houses had been you know in the’ 70s and 80s in a style of that era but we wanted to take it back
To when it were well kind of closer to when it was first decorated first built so yeah we’ve gone with quite an authentic color um yes so this is a color that actually when we were taking the paper off so yes so we um took off
All the squares then we were taking off all the paper and I think that was probably I mean I helped with the taking off the squares you did we shared it we shared all the it wasn’t fun it wasn’t easy but I think you did most of the
Scene but I did I think I did nearly half not quite half of it but and then you just finished the rest didn’t you yeah you did you did it really fast it took me ages but you took it you did it really Qui yeah I just went crazy with a
Hammer and a spat and that was it they all come off and then it was all glue that was left on there so then you have to sort of got to take all the glue every single Square had at least five or six dots of glue it like 35 No each one
Was like one in the corner yeah there’s three along and then yeah but every single tile and it was the whole ceiling it was the whole so as you take the tiles off it leaves the glue behind so you then got to take all the glue off um
We could have taken the ceiling back and skim the ceiling but um it was a big expense to be honest it was an extra expense and we wanted to do it on a budget so we’ve been doing it on a budget we’ve been doing everything for ourselves as much as possible so we
Haven’t got any help in really we did this completely ourselves oh no help and it’s literally sort the walls out as much as we can sort the seiling as much as we can and then decorate it ourselves yes so my job was really to take the
Paper off so I just went around peeled it off and then you’ve got two layers so the first layer came off uh pretty easily really and then the second layer is like a bit more stubborn so I had to really get like a nice warm soapy bucket
Of water with a big sponge and just go all over it and let it soak it up and then scrape it off basically as you do with taking paper off and that’s how I did it the whole room so I went around like that and um I didn’t have a
Wallpaper room like or anything and then it was a case of it worked it worked well and then um fill the cracks fill the holes fill the ceiling holes and then sand it all back cuz I had once i’ done the as well I had to sand
Everything back and that was a messy job but then once that was done it was down to choosing paint and painting once I took the paper off we started to uncover the old paint color that was actually the original color of this room probably one of the very the earliest paint
Colors that were in this room so all around the window and I found it on the back of the doors was this lovely green and they call it a ver okay like a ver and um so I was I love this color so but I couldn’t find the color anywhere
Like we couldn’t find it Dulux won’t do it you know your your local DIY Shop being Q won’t do this color old paint so yeah exactly so we had to go to as like a paint specialist we’ve got one actually luckily I I knew that we had
One not far and uh and I asked them and I said look we’re looking for this Val valree and I just can’t find it anywhere and um luckily they do pharaoh and ball paints yeah yeah yeah they do and they also do yeah pharoh and ball
And I was like oh I know this paint this is British paint you know really high quality paint and then she gave me all the nuances you know sorry all the um yeah all the variations of color yeah she gave me the color board and uh and
It was just heavy cuz then I could see there was just all the colors I could have wanted to see were there and then I brought them home and we looked at them and we tried to match the green to the what was originally in this room and we
Found it pretty close this is the Val for the yeah Val it’s called and I just love the color yeah I love it a great color I love this and it’s so right for this it just you know when you paint a r and you’re like it just is the
Color for this room it looks right it matches the room what the room should be yeah I’m really happy so I’m very happy with the outcome of it and as soon as we started putting it on I was just like oh yeah this is it this is the color it
Should be and then um we went for the gold trim around the doors and around the skirting boards all the way around the room yeah and so that’s turned out yeah it looks very very Posh I think is the phrase cuz you see you see that in a
Lot of the Shadows we’ve been to and we got you know you got ideas from the lot of the Shadows visiting been inspired obviously with all these visits and it just looks good it really adds to the room and brings out the doors and brings
Out all the it just brings it out looks really nice yeah we’re really really happy with it so we’re still in the process of finishing the painting at the moment and then um doing the door handles yeah that you you’ve been removing the paint doing the door locks
Yeah door locks we moving the the we’re going to go around the room in a minute we’re going to just go around and have a little look excent um but uh we have been getting a lot of inspiration that’s for sure and we did go through a few different ideas before
Because at first I was like yeah it I don’t know why but I just see this room green it’s got got to be green it’s you know it’s been green before but I I was like I was like yes this has got to be green me and the boys did think of blue
Blue was an option I think yeah it was a big it was an option it definitely was an option but and I love the blue idea I thought I could really see it blue as well blue and with the gold you know but but I agree with what we’ve done I mean
I think it looks amazing there’s still some finishing touches like you say we still got the um the coing to put up or to get to put up and we still got a light to put up or to obtain a light work in here and but otherwise it’s it’s
There and it looks yeah it looks a million but you you said to me oh I want to feel like the room is special that we have a special grownup you know like a really somewhere that’s really elegant and somewhere where you’re you nearly feel not afraid to live in but you sit
Down and look at it and go oh yeah this is this is nice I think the words were I want it to feel like I shouldn’t be sitting there that’s what I said it’s I want to be sitting in a room where it feels so opulent that actually is this
Really ours and yeah we’ve done it and it looks and I was like okay then but I said to you in that case we can’t just go beige we can’t just go cream or not going white with I think if we’re going to go special we need to get some color
Because color really creates an atmosphere and it really does you know it’s so lovely to have your own house where you can actually paint it the colors you want it’s going crazy and um we’ve actually literally painted all the walls and the skirting boards in here so
We didn’t leave anything white it’s just all the same color really the anything that’s white and the ceiling and that will stay white um even with the coing yeah we will put the coing up eventually so there’s still things to you know that will get done over time because like I
Say we are run a budget we are doing it on a tight budget by the way you know we can’t we can’t just like you know can’t just go out and just get it all done that’s why that’s why it’s taken so long we’ve had to do bits when we could do
Bits so we’ve you know we done the ceiling the ceiling of preparation work was you know that that was just time that wasn’t and I was happy to put that preparation time into it because then it meant that we could really take our time getting it right so when we got to the
Painting the paint would just it would just go on beautifully like Silk you know and it did and it did it really the preparation was actually really important made a big difference made a big difference but then you yeah you chose a different color also in the
Covered as well so should we take you around should we take everyone around AB come come see come see come take you around come you can see here that yeah you’re in the process of top finishing these doors doors yeah they are quite High aren’t they these doors
They’re big doors so we’ve got these big double doors that do come go connect to the lounge so I’ve just painted these ones have nice so this is just literally been finished yesterday and yeah there’s still bits that need to be just touched up and
Obviously the gold yes I need to do the gold I haven’t done the gold bits yet you need to do cuz didn’t notice this know I didn’t I just realiz I need to tidy this up as well at the handle and and take that back off but then you’ve
Done all all the gold already done around the frames which amazing looks great yeah it probably needs a second coat though on all the gold in here I think it does some part on a lot yes it does it does I’m going to go around and do
That now this is furniture that came with the uh the house that we with the house we bought didn’t we with the we included house we said yes we keep it it’s exactly what we like isn’t it yeah it’s it fits in the room nicely and it’s
Actually we’re using it as like glass storage so it’s a nice nice big mirror probably something a bedroom I thought at some point I think that’s more well I think they use the multi-purpose they were multi-purpose like you know but it’s great it works so do you want to
Open it we’ll show what we’ve got in what’s in there we have a little nose have a nosy around so yeah that’s it it’s a good size so we’ve put all our glasses yeah it it just it just works well for what we need ice cream cups and
Just it just works well works well for what we need it’s perfect actually for the glasses it is it is and then we’ve got um this lovely big window in here I like it lets a lot of light in here it does it does yeah so we put these
Curtains up that we we already had from years ago so we had them a long time we oh yeah we’ve had them about 12 years and I’ve never been able to use them because they’re so long say and and now they’re a bit short and now they’re a
Little bit too short but they’re just right actually they are they are they look really nice yeah they work in here finally we’re making use of these curtains and they we do need to finish I I need to finish around the window do finish around the window cuz
It’s been an awkward hard to get to the back of the radiators isn’t it you can actually see some of the green that’s left there yeah I don’t want to have to take this radiators off just because I don’t want to have to take them off they’re big radiators and the original
They’re heavy a lot of effort a lot of radiator really want to actually have to do really have to see and as you can see we went all around the room with the gold around the the skirting boards all the way around all the way around yes
And then onto the doors so this is the built-in cupboard yeah this is our yeah storage and should we open it up you want to see the color Inside Yes because inside oh and I also just to add this was actually painted this lock so I’m going done all
The locks in the house oh yeah we’ve taken all the paint removed all the paint of all the Lots because I love the old it looks better without it and then in here you’ve gone for a bit of a bold bit of a bold color I love it I love it
Bold color I just love so I love the way it just brightens and Pops in the room I mean with the red it looks amazing I love it I’m so happy with it I mean I don’t know what everyone else thinks but I think it looks great against the Green
It looks good it looks good and you know in these homes you’ve always have to have a bit of red somewhere oh absolutely don’t you think it’s authentic it’s authentic typical red it just brings the house to life I mean it’s either going to be red or real
Royal blue if you weren going to go royal blue for the walls you’re going to go royal blue for something else so it works well with the it look because we also had holes didn’t we in in oh there’s holes everywhere yeah and then we had to repair all that obviously like
As you do and then just sealing things up so there’s less drafts coming out yes but you can see how much it holds in here yeah I mean this is like an extension of the kitchen really isn’t it it is it is it’s it’s a huge col
Everything we can’t fit in the in the kitchen yeah it’s it’s a minimalist string no no do you remember I did some videos on minimalism mhm and you can go back on my channel and you will think hang on a minute she’s been a minimalist and now where’s all this stuff all this
Stuff but can can we just go over this just clear I need to clear the air on this absolutely okay so during that time we were living in a very different place a very different a different country we had a different house we’d collected up
A lot of things over the years of things that really were our life was cluttered it wasn’t ordered like that and I I was always cleaning always Tiding up trying to get the house ordered you know and I could never quite get it how I wanted it
And then I just don’t know how old but I got interested in Mar condo Mar condo yes yes also and she’s brilliant okay so she’s a Japanese lady I think she is Japanese Chinese no Japanese Japanese she is and she’s brilliant and I I listened to the whole audio book that
She wrote on minimalism and I just thought this is it like this is exactly what I need right now in my life life and it just lifted off so much pressure and stress it allowed me to order things in my mind and in the house and I I was
Just hooked on her methods of having a minimalist life and it’s not about getting rid of everything but it’s about letting go of the things that don’t matter that you don’t care about that you’re just holding on to for some reason but you don’t really you know you
Don’t really need it so I just started to purge through all the stuff that was just there and that we didn’t need and you know that I didn’t even like really you did more like be honest it’s more the the bags of clothes that you got rid
Of minim lots of clothes I started with my wardrobe yeah which that was that you done well there that was that was some as well I but did because why not and the kids do everything the whole house the house yeah and and and we were moving like the
Whole point of that time in our life was to reduce the amount of amount of things that we owned because we wanted to make a big change in our lives and we couldn’t we knew that it was going to be expensive we couldn’t drag around things that we didn’t really want because it
Wasn’t going to be beneficial it wasn’t going to be cost effective for us it’s all about preparation so Letting Go letting go of all the old allowed us to bring the new chapter of our lives in and it really did and it’s like it’s like the laws of the universe
You let go of the old and it allows the new to come in and replace the old and that is exactly what happened to us and now look what happened we we didn’t know what was going to happen in France we didn’t there was no guarantee about any
Any of this happening no and it’s just allowed it just feels like the universe has just opened its doors to us to allow to do to make some our some of our dreams come true you know and the N is flown in it’s flooded in you can see
It’s flooded in and the universe has said okay you’ve got rid of all this stuff well here’s a whole new stuff like you can have all this all these new things can fly through your door yeah a lot of a lot of exactly exactly true because but it’s
Interesting because a lot all of most of this stuff that’s in here came with the house yes it did they left it with the house a lot of it came with the house I have been out collecting because then I’ve had my Etsy shop and I’ve been also
Like really just embracing and loving um being it back in France picking up some bits and um the beautiful things that are in the broons so yeah I suppose and it’s allowed me to to Really um keep or buy if I buy it’s what minimalism taught me was um to
Be more careful with when I buy to really think about what it is I’m buying why am I buying it you know and I have slow down immensely and if I do buy things we don’t buy a lot of new stuff anymore it’s because I really no it’s
Always because I really really love it it’s no I have to really love you have got to really love it otherwise I won I mean honestly you do really love your light fittings I do regardless of the life things are you do really love them
I love them yeah you PCH for them but um but yeah so minimal as you can see but this is organized and it allows me to organize my life and to think right well how do I want it to be what are the things that we actually really want in
Our life that we really want to use that we want that bring us joy and that’s Mar cond okay does it bring you Joy well there’s only things in here everything here brings us joy so when I open this and I see this I
Go you know I’m so I’m just so happy we and I feel blessed that we have what we have absolutely and um there you go and it BR us joy yeah and if you if the moment you’re not feeling joy for it cuz it’s too much voila you have B Doors and you
Can’t see it anymore it’s great I love it I love it so yes and then you don’t have to look at it’s not on so let’s move back let’s move around okay so then we’re going to come around the room to the shimy area what we got there and um
We’ve just kept it simple we’ve just got this nice chimney that we love you know um oh and I’ve um we’ve cleaned up a lot of the the brass fittings I think they’re brass copper fittings they look great yeah it’s the the original vents on there on the chimney and they they
All both one on this yeah there both sides but it didn’t they were just really dirty and not looking very good and they kind of fit really well they’re so cool they look really cool and they fit really nicely with the the color SK yeah and and the surround
Of the fire it looks really nice it looks really nice really happy with it really happy with that and then this came with the house so this is has always been here so we’re just reusing it and it’s very BR looking isn’t it oh it’s now where it is now I
Think it fits in the house far better because before it was don’t know if you can see my hand just over here next to the fireplace on this wall here and it was in this yeah it it and it looked obtrusive it squeezed it in it looked obtrusive for the room and you
Couldn’t appreciate the chinney No No you could too much going on absolutely and now the cuz that’s a feature within itself isn’t it it is it is yeah yeah absolutely and then um we have this lovely singer this is a Singer sewing machine actually it is that is a sewing
Machine i w I won’t get it out no because it takes a bit of work to get it out but that opens up and that’s beautiful it is it’s a old singer 19th century singer machine singer sewing machine yeah you open it and it comes out yeah and it’s all still in working
Order oh absolutely it’s got a little table it becomes a table with up one day we will we’ll show everyone but my nanny used to have one like this because she was um a cier my English Nanny um she was a a fashion designer and um yeah she was born and
Bred in London but yeah she used to have one like this so they should be happy that we’ve got one of these they they just work they last a long time they last forever and they work really well work really well yeah and then we have
This this uh table and chairs which I love I really love this table are you all right yeah yeah I love this table and chairs um this is really French typical French style table what did Mom say this W was again I don’t remember what she said it was no I can’t
Remember terrible can’t but it does have an extension it it has a double extension actually has a double exion it comes out it go it does the whole length B it will seat about 15 people or not it’s it’s huge it could but I like the the shape
Of the legs on the table and the feet yeah it just it’s really it’s a really nice table and it was AIG bit of a bargain as well so and it fits in BR it was and it fits in really nicely with the room I we still got a roll table but
That’s now upstairs in the Attic which is being used as a arts and craft area so yeah because our sons do a lot of sewing and sculpting so they use the uh the old kitchen table that we love that we have um yeah but this is more dining dining style table it
Whereas that was the other table’s very Farm housy I love it I love it very farmhous it’s it’s been our table forever and it will always be our table but it it just doesn’t fit quite right now in our dining room but we’re very blessed cuz then I found this is on a
Bargain total bargain and then we have these lovely wooden floors Mark that need we need to clean them up a little bit yeah our wooden floors are a bit dirty at the moment the shed yeah Chev style it is and it’s a oak so it’s a really nice flooring really nice floring
But just to show you quickly as well this is what I’m doing to all the door locks you can see here this is now being taken back to bare metal from where it once was so I’ve got a bit of work to do on the rest of the locks and the rest of
The house but it’s going to they come really nice with that alongside of the gold and it just looks well it’s like we’ve done we did in the kitchen y absolutely we wanted to carry on doing it throughout the house so you’ve got the other one to
Put on there I have I’ve got put that on later on I think that that goes there’s the kitchen one in there Y and it’s very this this design of this house we have said it before but it is chatau architect who actually designed this house and you can tell because of the
Big double door here and these are giveaway signs because it’s very like and how each room interconnects with big doors so that’s why we’re very proud of of this house and we just want to just really respect it and bring it back to life and uh and we’re having so much fun with
It I mean it just loves it loves the the attention that King it’s so King it up isn’t it even over here we mustn’t forget Mark oh this is true this is we must forget I mean we may be in France we are in France but but we have
This beautiful Elizabeth the first portrait it’s one of my favorite portraits of Elizabeth the First and she has all the eyes and ears on her robe that she’s wearing and all these beautiful symbols with the serpent here and it’s just full of Sy symbolic meaning and I think it’s one of the most
Amazing portraits of portrait saw Hatfield house it quite impressive but that picture looks really nice in this room in our in our French our French home but we got that at Hatfield house in England where Elizabeth the first grew up it was her childhood yeah home and
Hatfield house and I recommend it for anybody to go there The Gardens and everything think are just amazing and the the actual house itself is just beautiful so we’ve been doing this for a very long time going going to castles we were brought up I mean I was brought up
Since little going to castles and uh just historical world heritage sites and things like that so this is nothing nothing new at all and Mark you I’ve done the same we’ve been to a lot of them as well so it’s yeah it’s really nice really nice yeah and um I don’t
Know if there’s anything else to we still need to put the light fitting up oh yeah light fitting still needs to go up but that’s really yeah that’s not we have got one we’ve got a few we’ve got a few we could choose from
I know find the the one we want yeah but we need to rewire it needs to rewiring needs to rewiring that’s the thing we need to rewire the light fitting yeah cuz I think we have that one that we’ve got is going to be great it’ll be a
Great one but it needs to complete rewire and that’s that’s great yeah it’s not impossible no no no no not impossible just need to find the right person to do it personally I’m not an electrician I can change a light I can change light fittings but I don’t fancy
Rewi in a whole entire light without without the chance of it not being right no that’s true but we will get round when when we do put the light fitting up we’ll do a little update because I think that will just finish the room off and
As I’m crazy on light fittings I think it will be worth we’re doing evening nocturnal visit of the dining room with the chandelier on excellent yeah it’s be nice like Med they’ve got one coming up they have I am temp to to be done I’d love to go but I
Don’t know if I’m going to be able to go or not we’ll see we’ll see if time allows we see we’ll see if we do we do a video on it yeah I thought it was going to be amazing and anyway so that’s it this is the dining room update yeah that
We promised you this is what we’ve been up to this is what we’ve been doing it is and uh I hope you enjoy what you’ve seen uh please you know add a comments love to hear what your views are and you know what you think we’ve done don’t
Forget to subscribe without a doubt yeah please do yes please do I’m just going to say thank you so much for joining us today we hope that you’re all having a lovely day that you’re all enjoying your week that whatever you’re doing wherever you are and um thanks for joining us
Again today we love you all and we send you all a lot of love and we’ve got some shatow I’ve got shatow visit coming up you have I do I’ve got a nice shatow visit um so I’m really excited to share that with you very very soon excellent
Well thank you so much everyone have a great time thanks again and we look forward to seeing you next time take care everyone bye everyone