Discovering The Abandoned Chateau Plans | French Chateau Renovations #38

This week, we install our shower, pay a visit to Benoit, and find my grandfather's original plans for the chateau. In the last video, we were able to fill this corner here, which was just a test. Yeah, it was supposed to be a test to see if this would match and how well it would hold up, and it totally passed. And this corner there, I'm very, very proud of. Are you proud of it? Yeah, it looks better than the rest that were original, in my opinion. Because that worked so well, we went and got more steel rods, and we're going to continue working on this wall, because it's pretty bad. It needs some help. Especially this wall, because that one had ivy growing into it, and it's eaten away the whole face of that tile. Stone. That's a stone, right? This is stone. This is not tile. I've been cutting tile all week. This is my one break to get out of the bathroom, is to come work on this. This portion here is probably the worst out of it, because look at this. It's just coming off in chunks. Yeah, that's usually not a good thing. No, it's a little scary. Last time we did this, you were talking about how we have basically a sandcastle. This looks so much better than before. Not bad, huh? Yeah, I mean, it's not perfect, but some of these... But that's almost what makes it better, is that it doesn't look perfect. Yeah, I mean, you don't want it to look perfect, but I know some of these stones actually shifted a little bit, and so we would have to grind away at the stone itself to create a fully level face, and that's not an option. So definitely a solid improvement. Yeah. Good. You're a little speaks. Yeah. Good girl. Yeah. We got a speaks. Good girl. Stay. This week, we've been spending quite a bit of time at the mayor's office and speaking to the architect of the buildings of France, trying to get things approved for our future plans, and while I was rummaging through our paperwork, I found some old plans that my grandpa had put together for some of the projects that he had seen for the place that had unfortunately gotten refused by the mayor's office. His big idea was to create a big club med of sorts with a golf course and tennis courts, like equestrian walkways, and here we actually have the plan that he had set up to create that. So it had a pony club and then tennis courts and then a whole indoor complex with a pool, a hotel space, and I'm not sure what was here. The ironic part is that in the land or with the land that he sold off, the people who purchased it took his ideas and those were passed by the mayor. So on the other side of the freeway, you can literally go and play tennis, there's a pool, there's indoor racquetball, and just down the way at the old abbey of the chateau, there's now a huge golf course. I had heard of the difficulties my grandfather had to go through trying to get all of these plans submitted to the mayor's office and how disappointed he was when he wasn't able to do it. And I would say that we are starting to feel some of that pain right now as we're trying to submit ideas for plans. We have not been successful yet, but we are going to keep trying. And I just love that we found these old plans of my grandfather's. They were great. He had great ideas. Since our initial plans for the Hunter's Lodge were denied, we decided to visit Benoit and discuss our options. Oh, it's so cute! Benoit and I discussed our options moving forward, but the frustrations with building permits are just another hurdle for our renovations. On the bright side, it turns out that Benoit is a mushroom hunter in his off time. So, the mushrooms are going to grow. There's not a specific thing. If you go to the N and the E, you're going to find more easily. Normally, the pharmacists are there to tell you that your mushroom is good, it's good, it's not good, it's not good. That means that normally, you have to have two baskets when you walk around. You have a basket where you are sure that your mushrooms are good, you put them in it. Those where you're not sure, you mix them. Because you can't mix the two kinds of mushrooms. That's the first thing to do. And already, the pharmacist is going to tell you, no, it's not good, it's not good, it's not good. He's going to keep them for you. You don't leave with them. So you say to yourself, they're really not good? Yes! He didn't have time to go get them. We don't care, we're going to get them for him. It's not true. And frankly, good mushrooms. Because well-cooked mushrooms, tender, in the pan with small onions. It's a little delight. We agree. Grilled meat and everything. Benoit installed this beautiful countertop for us. And we just need to do a little bit of a finishing touch. And we're going to go up to 320 grit so that it's nice and smooth. And there's no snags for anyone's clothing. And then we're going to put this oil from Blanchon on it that Benoit recommended. The weird thing is, there is no ingredient here that is actually readable. So oil for floors is what it's called. Water resistant and you can clean it easily. So we're going to go for that. So Christophe just came and installed our faucet and our sink. And now it works! And we were hoping to install the mirror at the same time. But when we pulled it out of the package, it was totally cracked. So we have to order a new one. But we will order it, receive it, install it soon. And in the meantime, we are going to finish the shower. Alright, so we are being extra careful in preparing the green tile cuts. Because they are very fragile and they take several different runs for each cut. And I found that out after about 40 minutes of cutting halfway down the first. And then I was midway cutting the length and it cracked right at the very end. So we're not going to do that again. We've got some clamps and a very fancy duct tape rig right there. You want to go first? Let's do it. So I'm extra scared of this piece because this is where the two shower nozzles come in. And this happens to be a really beautiful piece. It would be a shame if it broke. I'm not pushing right now. Why are you so out of breath? Look at that. That's pretty good. Why am I so out of breath? You'll notice that this tile was cut all the way to the edge. Instead of just where the niche is. And that's not because I didn't try. I tried a couple times. And how expensive are these tiles? Wow. That's my finger. Okay. You got your spacer? Okay. We've got a beautiful shower that's waiting to be installed. And we have the Toto toilet just ready to be plugged in. And tested. Definitely tested. Not by me. And then the sink is good to go. You're not going to test out the Toto toilet? I mean, I will eventually. Let us know in the comments below if you should test out the Toto toilet. Thank you for watching. If you've enjoyed this video, then please consider subscribing. And if you'd like to support us and get exclusive content, join us on Patreon. Because we're in proximity of the church. And it has nothing to do with the fact that the chateau is actually a historical building, ironically. That would have been good if you called it the chateau. I know.