Rainy Mornings

My body decided to wake up early today and not go back to sleep. So here I am blogging on a Sunday morning at 6 a.m. because I have nothing better to do. Did I also mention that it's raining outside? The soft pitter-patter of raindrops on windows and the slightly louder noises coming from our skylight. It's kind of eerie knowing that I'm the only one up at this hour. I have this all to myself until 7 a.m. when the caretaker gets up to do his usual errands. I know it's not long but it's the most peace and quite I get through out most of the day.

The rainy sky at dawn from my window

     Well besides not being able to sleep, I've been getting beauty tips from my mother. I recently started getting a few pimples on my face and my mother said that it was because I don't drink enough water. So now I'm on an at-least-7-glasses-of-water-a-day diet, hahaha.

Me drinking water, to prove that I'm hydrated enough

(The flash from my camera nearly blinded me in this one, that's why I look like I'm glowing, hahaha)

EDIT: I thought I posted this at 6 in the morning but I just noticed that it wasn't posted on my blog, so here it is, 18 hours late.

~ Aurelia Maude

New Pets

    I love animals but unfortunately my parents both think the opposite. I've always wanted a cat or a dog to play with since I always got lonely being an only child but my parents never wanted to hear any of it. Now finally, after we moved away from the city.. I can get a pet!!! I'm so excited!! Unfortunately it can't be a cat or a dog.. But we have some stables near the house so I can get horses! I used to take riding lessons back in Canada so I know how to ride them but I have no idea what to look for when buying them.. I guess I'll have to do some research... Speaking of animals, I went to the farmers market a couple of days ago and I bought two baby chicks! I might post pictures of them later. They're the most adorable things ever! I named them Chick and Pea (the bigger one Chick and the smaller one Pea). They're living in a big cardboard until I can find them a place more suitable.
    Aside from baby animal stories: my tutoring has been going well Je pense que mon français est plus bonne qu'avant. So what do you think? I don't know if that's 100% correct grammar but it will have to do, hahaha. My parents also got me a nanny... I know right? A nanny for a 15 year old!? It was a matter not worth arguing so I'm going to have to suck it up and move on. My dad's almost never home he's always out working or in his study and my mother does her own... Stuff (whatever it is she always does)...so I guess a nanny could keep me company until school starts and I make some new friends. My piano and dance lessons have ended until September 6, so I have a lot more free time to blog and take pictures!
    That's about it! Hope you guys are having an awesome week so far and I'll blog later!  

~ Aurelia Maude

The Specifics

From the pictures I posted a lot earlier today, I guess you can tell that the furniture we have in our house isn't very "up to date". My mother's going to fix all that though. She likes the more contemporary style, but since we moved into a Louis XIII style home built in 1878, it's going to be a little tough for her to completely change over a century of history. I like my room just the way it is, a soft elegant style if you can see it properly in the photo (sorry for the bad lighting from the windows). She said we could meet in the middle though, maybe that classical modern style that's pretty in right now? Anyway, more about my house:

-  It's a Louis XIII style château (although it's quite a bit smaller than the others we vsited when looking to buy a house) built in 1878.  

- It's in a residential village about 50 km from Paris and in the middle of a 33,000 m2 park by the Seine river

- It's been completely restored

- There's 8 bedrooms and 10 bathrooms on 800 m2 or 8,608 sq. ft. (I know it sounds big but all the other châteaux we looked at were 20,000 sq. ft.+ and that was way too much space for only 3 people and a small staff!)

That`s all about the new house, I`ll write again real soon!

~ Aurelia Maude

Interior Photos 2

The continuation of the interior photos. Post 2 of 2

The master bedroom dressing area

Another bedroom

The master bedroom bathroom

Another bathroom

The bathroom on the third floor

Decorative ceilings

Decorative little paintings above some doors

And last but not least... My room and bathroom!

Well I hope you guys enjoyed the pictures! I'll write a follow-up post a little later about the history of my house and how my week went. Write to you later!!

~ Aurelia Maude

Interior Photos

Hi everyone!! So I promised that I would show you the inside of my house a super long time ago but I've been very busy this past few weeks so I didn't get the chance to. Well, I finally took all the pictures and with out further ado.. Here they are! (For those of you who're wondering what I'm doing up at 5 a.m. I'll talk about that in another post.)   Post 1 of 2

Inside the pool house

The great room

The breakfast room

The other side of the great room

The sitting room

The dining area (if you're wondering why it looks slightly more contemporary, that's because my mother already "fixed" the furnishings into something that better suites her tastes)  

The main staircase

The drawing room

The main floor kitchen (can you tell how lightly it's been used?)

The lower floor kitchen (the one our cook uses)

The family room

The music room

The library

My father's study

The hallway

Guest room

Guest room

Bedroom on the third floor

Bedroom (some bedrooms have bathtubs in the same area)

Guest room

Master bedroom

There'll be more pictures in the next post! Post 1 of 2

~ Aurelia Maude

Now Hiring

    Good evening or good afternoon - it depends on where you are in the world, maybe even good morning? Again, sorry for my absence. Not much has been going on and I didn't want to bore you by talking about what I had for dinner. Speaking of food; my mother finally found a cook so we're free of dried processed food, hahaha. We also now have a caretaker living in the caretaker's house I showed in my earlier post. It was about time, since our gardens and yards were starting to look a bit like a jungle. To keep the inside of the house looking sparkly, we also hired a maid's  service that come by every week to do some thorough cleaning. Once a week is fine since we're a family of only 3 people and we don't live very messily, but this excludes my father's study, hahaha. My mother isn't an avid cleaner and even if she was, cleaning our entire house would've taken forever! Now that I come to think of it, I never really explained my house to you. I'll try doing so in another post for those of you interested in Napoléon III architecture and history.
     Enough about the house, now about me; hahaha. I started my ballet classes again yesterday at a local dance studio (I was amazed at all the things the town has to offer in where I used to call "the middle of nowhere"). The language barrier isn't that bad since I learned all the positions in French in Canada so there wasn't much of a difference. My piano classes started today but I'll actually be going every Tuesday, today was just an odd "starting" day. My piano teacher know a bit of English so understanding is fine in that as well. To get rid of this "language problem" my father hired a tutor that will come 3 times a week (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday) starting on Monday. She'll be kind of homeschooling me for 2 hours and it will also help me learn French. I'll be taking something like FSL (French as a Second Language) after school starts but until then, this is just to give me a head start.
   Wow, I said I had nothing to talk about but I guess I had everything to say! Hope I didn't bore you out of your wits. Will type soon!

~ Aurelia Maude

 

Photos Of My New House

    Here are the photos I was talking about earlier. They're only exterior photos of the house and grounds; I'll add the interior photos later. These photos were taken with two different cameras (I was testing out my dad's new DSLR) so sorry about the quality changes between pictures. Also, the photos taken in the evening with all the house's lights on are from before we bought the house during the showing.

Driveway to the entrance of the house

Gate at the end of the driveway

Front of the house

Side of the house with the garden room

Side of the house with the pool

Back of the house

Back of the house and the backyard

The windows (I like architecture)

Goyle (I think that's what they're called) on a part of the roof

Garden by the garden room

Path to the stables and out houses

Stables and caretaker's house

Another way to the stables

Outdoor pool

Gazebo/veranda with a view of the surrounding farm land

My father's vineyard at very extreme close-up; you can see our neighbour's house (the ones I was talking about earlier) I don't know if you can call them our neighbours though, since they're so far away and they're behind us not next to our house 

Hope you enjoyed the pictures! Now I'm really starting to get tired. Goodnight and I'll write tomorrow!    

~ Aurelia Maude