Our Chateau Garden 400 Years Ago | Chateau DIY

This week we finally cut back the overgrowth that has been hiding our farmhouse. Our good friend Francis, who was the previous chateau guardian, joined us to inspect the roof beams and we made a surprise discovery about our garden. So today we have our good friend Francis coming and he's going to inspect the farmhouse rooftop, which Daphne discovered was leaking when it rained last week. I did notice when I was setting up the camera that it looks like there's a cypress tree growing in the center of the farmhouse. No, that's just ivy and that's not good. That's a problem. I also realized that this side is bad, but the left flank of the farmhouse is terrible. I can't even see the stone, so I'm not going to be able to get to that today or even tomorrow, but it's going to have to be done really soon and that's just a huge task. So one day at a time. We'll see how far I get today, but I only have a few more hours until Francis arrives. Just roll, just roll a little bit. There we go. Where did you come from? Huh, well I think this is the biggest surprise in the shrubs for today. You know what? I shouldn't speak too soon. It's almost done, but this this corner looks really suspicious. So I just finished clearing off the stairs and we have stairs here. That's kind of new and I think it looks a lot better. Unfortunately, I didn't get to the ivy yet and Daphne just let me know that Francis has arrived, so I'm going to have to wait another couple days before I can get back to the ivy, but I'm excited to show this to Daphne and Francis and see what they think. This is Francis. He's our savior here. He helps us with a lot of the work around here and helps us figure out how much things should cost and what needs to be done. And Arkea loves him. A good friend, a good worker, he helps us with all the debts, all the work. Someone human, someone human, I know. Okay, good. Very good. I'm going to start speaking English because in Bali, I missed it a bit. It's perfect. So there were two infiltrations. Yes, the second one is right here. It's clearly the ivy, but look at this. And down there? And down there, we don't see it for the moment. There's something else down there. So is it located here or there? Here, the hinge too. Okay. So it's at the level of the ring. Be careful, just behind you, there's a hole. It's the cinema that drilled it to make a... A lamp? A lamp, yes. So check the nooks that are on each side of the bars. And so there's another leak down there. But I don't know if it's the leak that comes from there that goes down, or if it's a leak coming from the wall, from the facade. And look up there. So there's everything... In fact, there's a verification of the whole roof. Yes, at the level of the party room and of the two windows. At the end, it would even be fair to look at the others. Yes. And then... As long as there's work to be done. Yes. And anyway, there's a remanagement of tiles to be done too, next to it, because there are the tiles that have moved. Okay. There's a reinforcement of the woodwork, but we'll be able to do that in a second time, Okay. So unfortunately, the water that was coming through upstairs made a hole that went through both stone and wood. We're going to test the humidity of this wall, because Francis has a handy dandy little tool. And we'll see if it's any worse than what we think it is. If you put a bucket on it, that's why it's not wet. Well, that's good. That's good. Keep putting the bucket on. Yes. There you go. There you go, ma'am. That's good. That's good. That's good. Okay, so... Did you see? Yeah, I saw. Okay, let's go. No, no. There are two things. Yes. Remove the lye. Remove the lye, okay. The lye. And remove it on the piece of wood. Yes. Do you see the grass there? Right there. Just on the right, yes. Yes. You have to remove it, because it will rot the wood. And do you know why it's not patched up? At the level of the beams, you see that there is no coating, there is no patching on it. Why? Why? Why? You didn't finish it? No, it's because it lets the wood breathe. Oh, okay. And in the old constructions, it's always apparent, whereas now it's patched up. There you go. That was for the... Great. Thank you. Very beautiful garden. Very beautiful garden. Very beautiful garden. After that, I think we have to cut the bar. No, no. We're going to put a... Ah, okay. Okay. Well, if we make a balcony and a terrace. With a pool, I agree. Louis, are you coming with the beer? The grass grew back really fast, and so did the nettles, so we're gonna give them a little haircut. And with the nettles, the nitrogen will be going back into the soil, so that'll be nice for the trees coming in. And Ian's gonna go get a chainsaw, so he can take care of these bushes over here, and we can open up the space even more. Premier étoile, Couchée sous la lune, es-tu là? Monde silencieux, Gros yeux violets, Et la taule levée du soleil. Se balade dans les rues de Paris, Imagine son amour, Mordez-en, je ne danse, C'est la femme au-dessus de sa vie, C'est la femme au-dessus de sa vie. I'm pretty glad I waited to do this for today, solely based off the fact that my weather app told me it's gonna be bright and sunny today. Gotta love that. I had to bring my drone down because the wind was so strong, it just started going that direction, so we'll see how many different angles I can get. But I'm going to bring this tree down, and I've got my trusty electric chainsaw. Just makes the job really quick and easy. Electric chainsaws, super cool. Alright tree, your time has come. Okay, go that direction. It seems like the grass has a slight misgrowth where these lines might be, and that's where Daphne didn't cut when she mowed the grass. So my plan is to poke into the soil a little bit and just run a perpendicular line from this bed and see if I can find something in the dirt. Come on. I'm fairly certain this little tool was not in the shape of a candy cane when I started working. At this point, I've given up going that direction. I'm now just going to work all the way back, all the way back to the, you know what it is. No. Yes. See how easy that was? I'm really glad that I found these. It wasn't quite as fast as I was expecting it to go, but that's the theme. Takes longer than you think it will. I'm gonna have to pick this up tomorrow because it's already dark, and I will follow this line and figure out where it goes. Of all the renovations that we can do at the chateau, changing the windows is probably one of my favorite ones, although a little dangerous. And while it is my one of my favorite jobs, I don't love how often I have to do it. Maybe it's because when we get the glass, it's like opening presents. That could play into why I like it so much. The moment of truth. Let's say cut it to the right size, and if our measurements were correct, and check out this cool stapler. This is meant for fixing windows. The staples actually come out the top end, and we just need to put a few in the wood to keep the glass in its place. Well, it's stable for now, and we may have to come back later and get some caulking for it. I'm back in the garden today, and il fait froid. Il fait froid. It is cold, and I'm just amazed at how fast the season turns on this property. We did have a bunch of ladybugs earlier this week, and I think that's part of the season's changing. I could totally be wrong with that, but they just invaded the whole property. I found a ladybug nest. Look. That. There's a lot of ladybugs. There's so many ladybugs. Where did you find that? We have ladybug nests all over the chateau. Really? Yeah. Is that going to be a problem? I mean, I don't think it's really a problem because it'll only be for like a week. At least, typically, that's how it is. Is that what they told you? No. Yes, that's what these little ladybugs were telling me. The camera is way too zoomed in here. I love ladybugs. So with these ominous clouds above me, I'm going to get started and see how far I get before I get drenched again, like last week and probably next week. Well, we found the boundaries and Ian did a really wonderful job digging them out. So that's pretty exciting, but even more exciting is that Daphne, well, let me back this up. We have been trying to find more of the historical facts behind the chateau that helped when we were making the last Halloween video with Leonora Dori and Maria de' Medici, but we wanted to find out more about the overall domain and Daphne was able to dig up a photo from the 1600s, actually three photos, from the 1600s that completely blew our minds because this whole domain looked like a palace. You can see that the fountain was still in the same place, but it was circular. After four centuries, there's been a few redesigns of the garden. The chateau took up the entire space that you see on the moat. There used to be four towers and the walls of the moat were the walls of the chateau and there was a pont-le-vis bridge. Oh, a drawbridge? A drawbridge. I didn't know that. Yeah. Nice. In French it's pont-le-vis. Oh man, it'd be cool to have a drawbridge. I don't know, I like the, I still prefer the stone. We're just getting started. We want, we want to just bring back the main garden. Bring back the structure and then possibly the fountain. Plant a few trees and get some quotes on the fountain. Yeah, we have the offices and we have the other building and now the roof is falling through and the farm, so. Yeah, it's a chateau. It's like things are just falling apart all the time. It's weird. We have some fun projects coming up and probably some more movies and we're excited to share all of that with you guys. Yeah, until next week. Until next week. Yes. It matches this. That's so nice. I like angles. Yeah, what happened over there? Don't worry about that. Let's just, you know, it's pretty good. Yeah, over here it's great, but what's, what's going on over there? Boars. Boars, huh?