Chicken Coop

Posted on May 18, 2012 by Jason

Shutters Opened

What can you make from a couple of palettes? Almost anything!

Here’s the new chicken coop, made from recuperated palette wood- Even the nails were recuperated! Total cost: about 3 euros for brackets and screws… It’s traditional acadian-french style with clapboard siding and trim. The roof is angled to the south so that the sun does not make the interior too hot, and is equipped with a rain water recuperator… This will be the home of ecologically conscious chickens! Inside we have some comfy hay (certified bio from our field), and nice perchoirs for sleepy chickens at night time… now just have to find some lovely inhabitants. Can’t wait for eggs! Continue reading →

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Spring in Les Verrines…

Posted on May 17, 2012 by Jason

It’s definitely spring! In La Creuse, that usually means a lot of gray, rainy days… But there’s a good bit of sunshine mixed in and when the sun shines, even for a brief moment, it’s amazing. The color of green everywhere is intense, some kind of shade of green which can’t really be described or captured in pixels… You will just have to come see for yourself.

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This Must Be The Place

Posted on May 16, 2012 by Jason

Inspiration of the Day:

There’s no place like home. It’s where we live, work and dream. It’s our sanctuary and our refuge. We can love them or hate them. It can be just for the night or for the rest of our lives. But whoever we may be, we all have a place we call home.

THIS MUST BE THE PLACE is a series of short films that explore the idea of home; what makes them, how they represent us, why we need them.

Produced and directed by Ben Wu and David Usui,
of Lost & Found Films (lostfoundfilms.com).

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Market Day

Posted on May 13, 2012 by Jason

Saint-Léger-Bridereix

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Spring Cleaning

Posted on May 12, 2012 by Jason

Just a few smaller projects happening, getting the yard cleaned up and ready for spring/summer… The garden is underway, still lots of digging to do though… The weather is warming up fast and the ground is starting to dry… The chicken coop turned out to be a more thorough project than I had intended, but it should be finished soon. The girls are arriving next week.

I had been stumbling down the little hill on the side of the house for long enough and I decided it was time to finally put in some stairs down to the garden. Of course the old fence had to go as well, and when the fence was gone it was clear the whole rock wall needed to be rebuilt. One thing led to another and a simple project turned into a few days of hard work! After two days of hauling boulders around, I could hardly move! Then it was time to break down some palettes to turn them into a reclaimed wood fence to finish the deal… Yeah Anika, I finally used the wood you and Josie broke last year!

Now back to digging… Planting tomorrow! Continue reading →

Posted in The Yard | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Handmade Houses

Posted on May 5, 2012 by Jason

Inspiration of the day:

outsider architecture

In 1967, on the Esalen Institute's property in Big Sur, California, jewelry designer Goph Albitz was mining the possibilities of outsider architecture for himself and drawing inspiration from old Esalen buildings such as the Waterfall House and Selig Morgenrath's design of the Fritz Perls House.

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Spring is Here

Posted on May 1, 2012 by Jason

Back in La Creuse!

So, the weather had been typical Creusois spring time (lots of rain and gray skies), but there has been some sun here and there… Plus the upside of all the rain is that everything is so GREEN. Spring is definitely here… Continue reading →

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A House With a Blue Door

Posted on November 19, 2011 by Jason

Yet another project that was months in the making- This one has been worked on by at least four people over a span of two months! In the middle of all that the roofing extravaganza began and the door was put on hold multiple times. It was a project that was long overdue, from the very first day I saw the house, that old, ugly brown door was the first thing I wanted to rip out!

We picked up the door way back in the middle of September. Odette told me there was an old door that the now deceased neighbor had long ago given to her now deceased husband that she had always thought would look great on the house. I didn’t expect much, but we went over to rummage in the barn and found this beautiful old door, made by hand of solid oak. The years had made their mark, but nothing a fresh coat of Le Vignaud Blue couldn’t fix.

Continue reading →
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Roofing Les Verrines

Posted on October 31, 2011 by Jason

September 20, 2011 – October 31, 2011

Yup, count ’em- that’s almost SIX WEEKS of roofing, and you get to enjoy it all in a matter of seconds from the convenience of your home. I know everyone has been waiting for months for this! The thing is, when you live in a house with no electricity, encoding video, editing photos, and Facebook status updates happily fade away into non-existence. You’ve all been rewarded for waiting so long though with a very in-depth and media-rich experience brought to you by the kind folks at Le Vignaud Productions.

Continue reading →
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Konrad’s Les Verrines

Posted on September 16, 2011 by Jason

Les Verrines’ youngest member gets his spotlight! Konrad came to visit with his mom Anika and his friend Josie for ten days and helped with a few projects, swam, ate gummy bears, and played. Konrad even got his “Petit Chevalier” certificate in his young knight training course.

Continue reading →
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