My humble abode

[voy]

thank god for euro's who don't baby people. yet.

[Deleted]

Apr 14, 2009 20:03:26 GMT Kimby said:

Apr 14, 2009 19:07:21 GMT kerouac2 said:

Everything was done totally illegally with no permit..

Will you have trouble when it's time to sell the place? In the US, your taxes would have gone up for increasing the square footage, so you could be in trouble with the taxman, too.

However, don't think that a railing would have been required by law. No amount of protection will ever keep people from falling down stairs if that is their destiny.

I didn't realize you believed in fate, K2. I'd be more worried about someone taking a book off the shelf, taking a step backwards and falling right through the hole in the floor, which looks like it makes up a sizeable percentage of the floor area.

All of us upstairs neighbors are currently regularizing our situtation, basically because one person was stupid and stole some space over one of the other apartments, which was later sold -- anyway, the cat was out of the bag. I prefer it this way, because it was questionable about whether any insurance would be valid if something happened.

Most annexed spaces are never regularized, and for this reason there is a very interesting moment in any real estate transaction in France. After the main check is handed over, the notary ceremoniously leaves the room for 5 minutes, with the pretense of "taking it to the accountant" or some such. During these 5 minutes, big envelopes of cash may be exchanged between the two parties to compensate things that are not official.

[Deleted]

There's a passage in The Polish Officer about this very interesting moment of which you refer.

[lola]

This is from, not of, our humble abode: a painting I did last summer from our back porch, laundry on the line. Casimira knows the neighborhood, since she went to school just up the street. It's an Americana kind of an area, and you can walk to grocery, post office, library.

Many thanks, Kerouac, for the decoding help.

[lola]

kerouac, it would be interesting to observe the negotiating during those 5 min. Well, no, it would need to be pre-negotiated, wouldn't it, so you could have your paper bag full of euros ready to hand over. Maybe just a frantic counting of notes.

[Jazz]

My god Lola, how beautiful! I love your painting's simplicity and your palette, especially the unusual pink tones of the sky with the deeper reds of the tree. I can smell the clean sheets. Perhaps one day you will give us a showing of some of your work in the Maritime Museum? That would be very exciting. Thank you.

[lola]

Thank you, jazz! Very kind! I am new to this scanning business, and not very digitally inclined (except my own 10 digits).

[Deleted]

Jeez, and here I was thinking that lola could have at least taken the laundry in before depicting her abode.

[lagatta]

Lola, that is lovely. Do you live near New Orleans?

[lola]

Thanks, Lagatta. No, I live upriver from NO around, what, 350 miles?

kerouac: *gallic shrug*

[bixaorellana]

Oh my goodness, Lola -- what a wonderful painting!

Where do you show your work? I would so much love to see it in real life one day.

[Deleted]

I will now say that I found the painting lovely, lola, in spite of (or because of) the sheets -- and also the sunflowers.

More, more! We have a museum here, you know.

[lola]

You are very kind! I'll see what I can scrape together. Mostly portraits of daughters hanging on my walls. No one in my family likes my self portrait because it looks too fierce.

Bixa, I would love to have you come by and see my clothesline AND the few things I have up here.

I gathered a vase full of tulips on Tuesday and started a still life, my mother came up for the weekend on Thurs, and by the time I was able to settle down and paint again the petals had fallen. Some kind of metaphor there I suppose.

[Deleted]

I love your painting lola!
lola and I discovered that she lives in almost the same neighborhood I lived in some years ago. Small world.Here we are.

[lola]

Thanks, Casimira. Maplewood has gentrified a bit since you were romping and stomping around here, and Webster Groves is -- if anything -- nicer than ever. The trees are bigger anyway.

[Deleted]

I found a few photos of my upper room just as the renovation work was beginning. Before these photos were taken, I had already spent 2 weeks sweeping and vacuuming (with a rented industrial vacuum cleaner) about 75 years of dirt, dust, dead animals and things I never wanted to identify. I used a wire brush on the beams (the free standing ones had a 2cm layer of dust on top) -- you cannot imagine what I looked like after a work session, and I also then swabbed them down with several buckets of some horrible chemical which was supposed to make sure than any parasite that might be alive in them would die instantly and that no other creature would ever want to touch that wood.

Here is the knot of beams that is now directly over the stairs.

This is what the roof slats looked like before the insulation was put in. Not hard to imagine why there were some leaks.

       

The floor had to be built as as separate entity from the original floor, which was totally slanted from 200 years of settling.

Access before the stairs were built was by a ladder from the hallway. The doorway was later sealed and is that space to the right of where the painting is hanging in one of the other photos.

[spindrift]

That was an enormous project and I can imagine the amount of debris whilst it was in progress. Was it very expensive?

[hwinpp]

Are those still wooden 'nails' holding the knot toghether, K2?

[welle]

Lola, you are very talented. Beautiful painting.

[Deleted]

Apr 24, 2009 3:02:31 GMT hwinpp said:

Are those still wooden 'nails' holding the knot toghether, K2?

Yes, they are wooden pegs.

[lola]

Thanks, welle!

Great beams, kerouac. How old do you estimate the wood to be?

[Deleted]

The building was built around 1799.

[lagatta]

Your neighbourhood is older than I imagined it to be.

[spindrift]

1799 - around the time of the French Revolution.

[Deleted]

It was an agricultural village outside of Paris then. I think my building was originally a toll station for entering the Paris area from the north.

[spindrift]

It's great to know the history of your house.

Mine is within the city walls and gates. It was a Roman city, the ancient capital of Wessex and the Kingdom of England. My house is built over Roman and medieval ruins. Many are the generations who have lived where I live.

[Kimby]

Apr 25, 2009 4:54:05 GMT kerouac2 said:

The building was built around 1799.

Think how many generations of termites and wood borers have grown up in your house, K2!

[Deleted]

No termites in my part of Paris yet, although some of the arrondissements have reported infestations. Termite verification is one of the obligatory duties of all buildings -- we have a contract for that.

[auntieannie]

where I live now was originally a victorian school for the poor.

[bixaorellana]

Do tell! How has the building been changed through the years, Annie?