Making things beautiful
Set in the Burgundy countryside, this 19th-century farmhouse is as picturesque as its surroundings
From the outside it was perfect – a pretty farmhouse in the Burgundy countryside – but, inside, the story was quite the opposite. Little by little, Marijtje and Meine have transformed the interiors, making a stunning home to do justice to their cherished belongings
Dutch-born Meine will never forget the moment that he and wife Marijtje stepped inside their Burgundy farmhouse for the first time. ‘In our search for a new home in France, this was the first place we saw. We immediately felt it was something special,’ he says. ‘I liked the fact that it had two storeys and was the ideal size – not too big, not too small. It also didn’t seem spoiled by modernisation.’ Marijtje adds: ‘It had a really distinctive, authentic character – it looked like a manor house and a farm all at the same time. That’s like us: Meine is a modest, country boy and I’m very much the city girl!’
When the couple arrived for their viewing, the house looked picture perfect, with its old stucco, white wooden shutters and sturdy barn doors.
‘But then we went in,’ smiles Meine. ‘We stepped into a very small, dark hallway – at which point Marijtje nearly collapsed!’ ‘It was horrible,’ she adds. ‘The house had been renovated in the 1980s. All the woodwork was painted dark brown, floors were covered with wall-to-wall nylon carpet and there were some dreadfully garish wallpapers!’
The interiors were dark, gloomy and very cramped. But Meine managed to convince Marijtje that all this could be stripped away. The house itself was in good shape, and had a great garden, magnificent view and some beautiful original features, such as the tomettes (traditional floor tiles), built-in cupboards, wonderful high beamed ceilings and a fireplace complete with bread oven.
The couple viewed a dozen more properties then headed south for a short break in Italy. On the way back to the Netherlands, they stopped in Burgundy and signed the contract. ‘We knew that we could change this dark house into the cosy, comfy home that we’d been looking for,’ says Marijtje.
It took many months to renovate the house, and enlarge it by turning the middle part of the attached barn into a large kitchen-diner. The left-hand side, once a stable, had already been converted into the entrance hall and cloakroom by the former owners, a blacksmith and his wife. He had installed his smithy in the old stable on the right, now the master bedroom with a wonderful view. ‘When we wake up, we look into the garden and see the blue sky above,’ says Marijtje. The couple haven’t altered the original layout of the main house: one large living room on the ground floor, and three rooms on the first floor – Meine’s study, Marijtje’s atelier and a guest room, where they’ve kept the only beautiful wallpaper that was there when they first viewed it.
Then followed a busy few months during which the couple built a new kitchen and master bedroom, enlarged the hallway slightly, renovated the bathroom, replaced all the electrics and plumbing, installed central heating, laid cement floors in the kitchen and bedroom, with laminate upstairs, and finally did a whole lot of decorating.
Marijtje took charge of the project, while Meine sat at his desk in the new study, penning his first novel. ‘I really enjoyed discussing our plans with our French contractor and his construction workers,’ says Marijtje. ‘They were quite surprised to have a woman in charge, but we made a good team!’
Once the building work was finished, she turned her thoughts to the interiors. Decorating the property was a special process, Marijtje says, and brought her great joy. The couple fell in love a few years after they both lost their first partners to cancer, and they recently celebrated their fifth wedding anniversary. ‘This was the first house that we bought together. It was our house,’ Marijtje explains. ‘We had to reshuffle our belongings so the interiors are a mix of our previous homes and lives.’
Her watchword throughout was ‘embellir’, a word that Marijtje learned from the French contractor, meaning ‘to make things beautiful’.
‘It’s a word that’s made for me!’ she laughs. Making things beautiful and seeing beauty in unexpected situations is something she has been doing all of her life. ‘A mouldy wall, for example - its powdery surface isn’t dirty but beautiful, like a painting.’
She pulls objects out of their context and combines things that don’t really match naturally. ‘I love contrast – it brings out the best and reveals hidden characteristics.’ Which is how a delicate antique chandelier comes to lighten the rustic kitchen, how dried leaves become natural wall art, how a boutis - a bedspread - serves as a tablecloth, and how a vintage steel filing cabinet is flanked by a metal lamp and a baroque chair.
Marijtje makes things beautiful with wallpaper, fabrics and colours, and by assembling subtle yet eye-catching compositions, using treasures inherited from family, found at fleamarkets and in boutiques, and wildflowers picked from nature – one of her major sources of inspiration.
The couple bought hardly any new furniture for their French home, because although they are interested in modern design and designers, they prefer timeless pieces like Eames and Gispen furniture to mix and match with the ‘reshuffled’ content of their previous households, furniture that has travelled through life with them for so many years. ‘It’s best to use what you have already,’ Marijtje says. ‘As you get older you get to appreciate the richness of your belongings. Our furniture is full of history, but it’s here because it looks good and fits here – a bit like the house itself.’