Now you see, now hopefully don't!

When we bought our land, we realized there was a big house right in front of our garden. We hesitated, as French people dislike houses with "vis à vis", they prefer to be able to relax in their own garden under privacy.

Don't know why, our neighbore decided to install so many windows on the North side of their house. It didn't bother me much, as I got used to those non privacy houses in Malaysia. 

So we finally did something to it. We bought 12 trees that would have green leaves during all 4 seasons, hopefully it would hide the view gradually. Hubby is conscious that he has a lot of maintaining works to do, as we can't let the trees grow too high.

I have never expected that planning trees needed so many times. It took hubby and my FIL the whole weekend. They had to dig up holes enough to put the tree in. It was hard work. On Sunday, an old lady cameby to tell them to stop as they were making some noise while digging. Oh, the sacrosanct Sunday. Hubby was supposed to mow the lawn but it was pu on hold. So no lawn mowing on Sunday then.

The weekend of DIY

Hubby continues on his DIY projects. This weekend, the focus was on lamps.

The goal was to add three lamps to the kitchen area. To do this, he has to dig a hole on where he wanted to hung the lamp, then link an electrical cable from the hole to the central hole where it used to have a lamp thus the electricity supply. It took him quite some times to do this, as the cable had to passe through above the ceiling, to go through between the ceiling and the roof, then come down to the electrical supply hole.

 The result. The central hole was closed after so that we won't see the electrical cables hanging there.

He also installed a design lamp in his daughter's room with color matching the wall color.

Lamp installed in the other girl's room. She was not happy at the beginning when she saw it. She said her daddy should had asked her opinion on the color, she would have wanted a red one. I explained to her that it was to match her wall color, she was thrilled after. However, the brightness was not suitable for reading, since she has myopia, I urged hubby to change the bulb.

Finally we can hung a towel and toilet paper in the toilet. I was so amazed, the design these days included a flat surface above the toilet paper so that you could put your smartphone on it while doing your business. 

Anyway, hubby has become a handy man, he is so into DIY now.

Lawn : one month after

One month after planting the lawn, here's how much they have grown.

The seeds turned into grass two weeks after, we were so excited!

The man has been working on all sort of tasks, rain or shine. He was working on installing some protections on the borders between the soil and the wood deck to prevent the soil from going under the deck and to reduce the humility from the soil destroying the wood. 

One month after:

He removed the soils while installing the protection and put them back after, that's why the areas around the deck have not yet growing.

The South side : lawn growing except the part which was served as a passage to walk to his vegetable garden.

The North side.

The East side.

In between, they cleared the weeds along the border with our neighbor, and put a plastic protection to prevent weeds from growing again.

And, we are far from finishing. They are going to build a small wall between our garden and the neighbor's. The materials have arrived : sand, cement, bricks, woods, strings...Another weekends of work are waiting....Hopefully the weather won't be too harsh for them...

Planting the lawn

When we bought this land, I would have never thought that we would have a hilly garden.

 It looked flat to me, so I was foreseeing an expanded straight forward lawn.

March 2015: The day the foundation was carried out, they dug out hills of soil. We posted on several sites to ask if someone needed our soil, but nobody was interested. 

July 2015: After spending 5000 euros damping the soil, we yielded. The remaining soil was spread out to form three levels. Gone was my imagination of a straight and even garden.

Aug 2015: I was given the task to loosen the soil and started planting some mustard. Frankly I was not motivated, I only did a very small part.

Mustard planted to fertilize the soil. Aelig spread all the seeds that were meant for 400m². It grew rampantly after.

For around one year, the garden was abandoned as we were overwhelmed with other tasks. Excepted a small area for our kitchen garden where hubby grew tomatoes, chilies, pumpkins, French beans, green beans, and raspberries. We started removing specific weeds that would be hard to unroot after, and most of the grass and weeds were finally cut off at the beginning of Oct 2016. We chose to not use pesticides to kill the weeds as we want the garden to remain chemical free.

The garden shape still didn't please us. Hubby decided to call back the builders to remove the extra soil that we didn't damp.

Three loads of truck, sent to a specific dumpster that we had to pay for.

The earthmover also helped loosen the soil, and scraped the weeds from the surface.

Hubby and my FIL started to prepare the soil. They sorted out the stones, the debris, roots with garden and landscape rakes.

 It involves a lot of work. Hubby had to use a wheelbarrow to transport stone, roots, debris, construction damps...

Since the soil was already broken down by the earthmover, we didn't rent a motorized cultivator to do the job. Instead, I used the garden folk to dig out stone and weeds buried under. It was so much easier to do after the earthmover did the preliminary job.

Roots, stone to filter and remove

It was a team work for the whole family

                                       The whole land has to look like this before seeding

                                                                            Seeding

                        Using a roller to compact the soil and to let the seeds remain in the soil

After 5 days of team work, the garden was finally looking good. It will look geogeous when the lawn growths, I hope!

PS : Some people used landscaping contractor to prepare their lawn, but it was very expensive. Our neighbore did it in one day, he invited a friend who was a landscape contractor, plus 3 other friends. 5 of them started at 8am, and they finished around 6pm. They had less tasks though as their land was flat whereas ours have a lot of slops to take care of.

After weeks of slaving in the garden

When we were building our house, I was so naive to think that having a lawn or growing something in our garden would involve only spreading seeds, watering and some maintenance. It seems that reality always wins over naivety. After the builders had spread back the soil they dug out previously for the foundation, I was told to use a garden folk to loosen the soil, remove roots, weed, stone. I had never done this before and there was a monster in my mind : as someone working mainly with computer, I do not wish to have to sweat in the garden while my blonde neighbor was dolled up in her dress, probably watching me slaving in the garden. It took me a while to overcome this thought, I managed to work on a small part of the garden, which turned into our vegetable garden today. Then we were occupied with other stuffs, the garden was abandoned for even after we moved in.

 The state it was when we moved in.

One month after, weed spreading everyway

Hubby was too busy with other projects like building the wood deck. Meantime weeds were growing higher and higher as summer begun.

At the end of summer, we had rampant weed problems. My MIL taught me to cut off (unroot when I can) different kind of weeds (rumex, thistle), but we left others because I was told that it would be removed one day by a machine when we will be growing our lawn.

In Septembre, my FIL told me that I should cut off all the weeds or grass with a sickle. I had around one month to do it (hubby was still occupied with other projects), so weekends and free time were spent removing weeds.

A friend came to help me one Sunday, which I was grateful, and hubby helped to transport all the cut off weeds to a dumpster station.

After weeks of slaving in the garden, we managed to cut off most grasses as instructed. This prepared the beginning process of planting the lawn.

Tears on cooking

Several months ago, on certain weekends, while preparing lunch, I almost burst into tears. I was very stressed out, thinking of what to cook for the next meals.

Here are some background stories. I started cooking when I moved abroad like 16 years ago. Efforts made, dishes tried, I didn't enjoy cooking, and most importantly, I didn't like what I cook. So, at one point, after several years living in France, I decided to stop. Hubby would be the chef in the kitchen and I would do the housework (he hates it).

Things changed after we decided to buy the land and build our own house. Due to financial constraint and the family culture of DIY, hubby was/is caught into many new tasks : getting quotations, applying for construction permit, making choices, calling different people, visiting forums for information...on top of a more demanding job, so the last thing I want to bother him was cooking. And, at the mean time, our second was born.

I picked up cooking as much as I can while dealing with a new baby. I cooked very simple meal : fried rice, curry chicken with roti canai, slow cooked pork, braised chicken with mushroom, quiche...On Mondays when there was nothing left in the fridge, I would just buy a flammekueche, or crêpe. Hubby and the kids would eat some cheese and dessert but I didn't make them. When the construction started in March 2015, We went there almost every evenings to check the progress and to make sure things were built as in the house plan.

The challenge started when hubby participated in the construction. My MIL took the girls, I helped when there were tasks I can do and every evenings after dinner, I had to think of something for lunch to feed three men (hubby, my FIL and a professional we hired). Since I was on vacation and the girls won't there, it was manageable even though I was getting tired to have to always think of meals to prepare especially now beside main dish I also needed to think of  cheese, dessert, coffee, chocolate. This stage lasted for a month.

The stressful moment came when the DIY phrases started. For about a month, my parents in laws came every week from Wednesday to Saturday for the tiling. Suddenly I had to cook real French meals almost every day. Both my in laws were good cook and they have their habits and preferences. Here the lists:

For breakfast, my FIL requests:

Brioche with certain brand

Orange juice with certain brand (I don't stock up this because I don't want my girls to drink too much)

Chocolate powder with certain brand (he switched brand so the one I bought for him in the past was sitting in my pantry untouched)

French baguette

Coffee with certain brand and brown sugar

Jams (he brought his homemade jams because I stopped buying since at one point nobody ate them in my household and they got spoiled)

Milk powder with certain brand (I happen to drink the same so ok)

Some snacks on a Saturday evening

For lunch & dinner:

French baguette is mandatory

Some snacks (preferable for Saturday evenings)

Wines (preferable for the men)

Meats (preferable for the men)

Salade (mandatory for my MIL)

Cheese (preferable for the men)

Dessert (mandatory for French meal)

Coffee (mandatory for everyone except me)

Chocolate (preferable for my FIL)

Some constraints:

Rice & cucumber (digestive problem)

No pizza unless homemade

No hamburger even though we bought fresh ground beef from the butcher

Flammekueche was considered junk food

Note : We lived in an apartment complex that didn't have elevator. So after every grocery shopping, I needed to bring up everything to the 4th floor, then brought silverware, plates, glasses and coffee cups to the new house for lunch. After that, I had to bring them back to wash at the apartment (after climbing up to 4th floor of course).

I shouldn't complain because it was very nice for my in laws to come help us out with the house. They live around 1h45 from our place and each time they came, they brought over a dish and a dessert, and some homegrown vegetables. However, I do not know how to meet their expectations. I was like a person who speaks only 50 Chinese words now having to please someone who speak 3000 Chinese words with idioms and expressions.

I struggled, I stressed out, I woke up during the nights thinking of what kind of dishes would please them, and I asked hubby to help, that he would cook one meal to release my stress. But he has a mountain of tasks waiting for him. I also needed to entertain my MIL, she got bored sometimes as some stuffs she didn't want / know how to do. My parents in laws go every places together, if she was bored and decided not to come, my FIL would be less motivated to come. She was nice and helped around the housework, but I was still the principal cook. 

So, every Wednesday morning, after sending off my daughter to school, I went grocery shopping with Awena and constantly reminded myself that I shouldn't forget anything required for breakfast. Unfortunately, the shop I went to was going through renovation, so sometimes I didn't find what I wanted, and it was time to go home and started cooking, before picking up Aelig from school (she only has half day school on Wednesdays). The dish and dessert my in laws brought over were usually for dinner. I had lunch with them, and tried to help out but with Awena, it was very hard. I would have to keep telling her to not touch this and that, to not step on this and that, and at the end I just gave up. In the evening, I had to think of their lunch for the next day. And the next day, after work, I needed to rush home to pick up Aelig from school then cooked for dinner. Sometimes my MIL prepared dinner and I felt so grateful.

After our CNY trip, hubby requested that they come during the weekend so that he could participate into the remaining works. So they decided to come on Friday and leave on Sunday after dinner. This time they brought their own lunch. So every Wednesday, I woke up feeling stressful for the 5 means I have to prepare (Friday dinner, Saturday and Sunday lunches and dinners). After a week of working, I was hoping to chill out during weekend, but I had to cook. Every weekend when I woke up, I felt stressed.

One Friday, I took the day off, placed grocery order online, I planned to spend the whole day cleaning the new house as a worker just finished tiling the bathrooms and toilets. I wanted to leave at 6pm, pick up the grocery and started cooking before they arrived. Hubby came and announced that his parents were on the way to our new house and we should wait for them. I got home after 7pm and tried my best to cook as fast as I could. At one point, my in laws arrived and the first question my FIL asked : " Did you buy bread?" No, I completely forgot about it. Bakeries were not on my way so I don't usually buy them. So I replied : "No, but we have brioche at home". He looked at me, and said :" You are like Marie Antoinette, no bread, eat brioche (Qu'ils mangent de la brioche)". His words upset me but I know I was a failed host, bread is mandatory in this family, when they are here, we have to go to bakery every day.

My MIL is expert in homemade dessert. I don't really like traditional French desserts so I made this cake. They didn't eat it because they prefer something else.

My saver, BBQ! I'm happy we could do BBQ so that one meal less to prepare!

I think for someone who are talented in cooking, this shouldn't be a big deal. I have to admit, cooking is my weakness, I so wish that I could do just like in Malaysia : "ok everyone, it is lunch / dinner time, what do you want to eat, I will go pick up some food." Then simply go to any hawker center to get what they want.

DIY or have it done?

French labor cost is expensive.

When something is broken in the household, we are anxious : how much would it cost to get it repaired?

Examples:

Washing machine not working : a guy came for 5 minutes, 60€ gone.

Toilet tank running non stop : a plumber we know came for around an hour, 180€ gone.

No wonder French people in general are good in DIY projects. They are a lot of shops selling raw materials and DIY products such as lumbers, tiles, paints, plants...

I have heard some cases : some people try to build a room, a garage, a house, and it could last for 10 years.

There are two people I know building their garage at the same time. Their garages are attached to each other. In the photo, the one on the left have it done by a professional. The one on the right decided to do it themselves, and they just did the foundation. I see the difference day after day. The one on the left was done within two weeks, the one on the right, the owner doesn't know when it will be finished. There were discussions on DIY vs professional, and of course budget is the main consideration, but it is not the only one. Certain people prefer DIY because they could be sure on the materials being used, and they are proud to be able to build something themselves. Whereas for others, they just want to enjoy life and not tied to a project that will drain their free times.

And it makes me wonder, when you buy a house, would you choose one that was built by professionals (it doesn't mean it won't have problems), or built by the owner?

A house : Light at the end of the tunnel or still in an impasse?

In a relationship we always have to compromise. Hubby and I managed to find one on many things even though we come from completely different cultural backgrounds, but there is one thing that has been blocked for the longest time : finding a land to build our future house. There are two main reasons that push us into an impasse on this issue:

Location : Countryside vs suburban

Hubby wanted to live in the countryside, the ideal situation would be to live in a piece of big land, with his neighbor being cows and lambs. That seemed scary to me. I'm not a city girl but I simply couldn't foresee myself living in area surround by no one, especially during winter. What happens if hubby is not around and I'm left with kids, then something bad happened? Beside, living in a countryside means that we have to commute long hours to work, facing traffic jams everyday. I couldn't stand that idea either. What if my kid is sick at school and I have to rush back immediately? And, I hope my children would be able to play with kids in the neighborhood. Eventually I set my limit : no more than 30 minutes travel to work per way; the house has to be surrounded by neighbors. Hubby also set his limits: the land couldn't be less than certain meter squares; it needs to have exposition to the South so that it will have the maximum sunlight; there should be enough space between our house and the neighbors to have some privacy. 

Urban planning restrictions

In France every community has their own set of urban planning rules. For example, in some communities no flat roof is allowed. Hubby wants his house to have a center patio, so most likely the house won't have pitched roof as required by certain communities. We visited several lands, and had to give up because pitched roof was mandatory. Due to this rule we have to exclude a lot of areas, and each time we saw a land that was situated in a new community, we have to check if they accept flat roof / patio. Besides, lands in the city suburban areas have become scarce, the common trends these days are to sell smaller lands, while preserving agriculture lands or natural lands. In rare occasion when we did find one that was big enough, it cost an arm and a leg. 

Over the years, we must have visited over 20 - 30 piece of lands. We did find some that suited our requirements. We felt in love with the very first one we visited, but the whole project was put on hold due to many reasons. We were ready to move to another city for a land that fitted into our budget and requirements, but the community didn't allow a flat roof or center patio. At one point I finally lifted one of my limits, the land situated 45 minutes from my office, and I kind of like the idea of being neighbors with a bunch of cows, while still able to walk my daughter to school. But after verifying with the neighbors, the land was flooded from time to time. Then you have the perfect land but it was situated closed to a highway (too noisy); or close to a high voltage power line (might incur health issues). I was so discouraged that I completely gave up on searching land for years. It didn't help when I heard people buying houses within 1 month of searching, it sounded so easy! Why do we want to build a house instead of buying one then? I know of nobody in Malaysia building their own house. Then I remember, it is hubby's dream of building a house with patio. When it comes to realizing a dream, as a spouse, I could only give my support, I suppose?

Then one day I saw a piece of land close to where we live now, with the size that hubby wanted. He wasn't keen on it as it stretched our budget too far that we simply couldn't afford it. He kept on searching land on his own, and came back to this land. This time he felt that we could probably make it, but I had doubt, so it was on hold again. But then we keep seeing the land, and realized that it might be the right one : I'm 99% happy for the location, he is ok for the size. I'm satisfied as it is located in a new residential area which will be surrounded by houses, he is excited because houses built in the area came with different shape and roof. The only problem is PRICE!

We decided to try it out. We were so disappointed that somebody had put an option on it (reserved the right to buy the land but nothing was signed). We were patient, and managed to put an option on it weeks later. I was elated, so I immediately asked my FIL to draw us a house plan. We went researching on forums on all the construction related issues. I was overwhelmed, hubby was stressed out. Starting from 2013 new houses have to be complied with RT2012, rules that require a green energy installed in the house and good insulation. When the house is built, someone would come to control if the house meets the requirements. With this rule, houses cost around 15% more. We got a quotation from a builder, the masonry work already costed 3 times more than what my BIL had paid. Obviously we are discouraged.

Now the big question : Do we give up the project and go back to square one or we go ahead and reserve the land?

Weekend activities

End of Friday, I decided to "faire du lard", meaning sitting and do nothing for the weekend. For some people, I might had wasted the time staying at home since the sun was shining outside, but one of my hobbies is to just lay down and read the whole day. Ended up I was doing the "menage", housework the whole Saturday while hubby took care of the cooking. Hubby laughed at me and said:"wow you are like a working Bee!"

Unlike me, hubby loves to do stuff during the weekend. He started his decoration project, and the result is very satisfying.

Cactus

Water plant

I like this purple color plant.