The closing of the gates. The job is fully complete. Now, we’ll wait to reopen the warehouse and take the pallets out for a new owner. Then, the Chateau facades set sail! *When you want to return to the Journal homepage – click here.

So this is the day before we finish the entire project, and let me tell you, these guys are proud of what they accomplished. Not a small feat. *When you want to return to the Journal homepage – click here.

The team painted a message to the future owners of the Chateau facades. *When you want to return to the Journal homepage – click here.

We also left our bottle of Champagne! Though it won’t have time to get dusty, as everything will be sold very quickly ! *When you want to return to the Journal homepage – click here.

Last clean up. *When you want to return to the Journal homepage – click here.

Preparing the site to present the Chateau, with projection of images on the pallets. *When you want to return to the Journal homepage – click here.

Happy Team after work completion. *When you want to return to the Journal homepage – click here.

The LAST pallet to finish! We are finally complete. This huge job is done. Everyone working together made it possible! *When you want to return to the Journal homepage – click here. Here is the toast to my exceptional crew including Paulina who is taking this video to celebrate the […]

“Today we found something extraordinary in one of the pallets, as we are almost finished” A time capsule left 32 years ago. *When you want to return to the Journal homepage – click here.

We had to re-palletize the largest pieces today. They are the massive lintels of the South Facade Doors, 1 meter deep, one piece. *When you want to return to the Journal homepage – click here.

At my desk in the Gite. My wonderful team made a warm fire and coffee every morning before leaving to the job-site — the best environment to come and start the day. *When you want to return to the Journal homepage – click here.

Every stone has a number that is checked and registered to match it with the final Facade Plan. *When you want to return to the Journal homepage – click here.

Finding the bases of the balustrades today. *When you want to return to the Journal homepage – click here.

This massive semi is delivering 450 brand new pallets for export. Every single old pallet has to be transferred on to one of these new pallets, which means the team is moving 800 tons of stone! *When you want to return to the Journal homepage – click here.  

Everyone on the team got along really well, and everyone had a terrific meal every night after long days of work.  We had such a nice place to stay!   *When you want to return to the Journal homepage – click here.

I know it’s hard to imagine that you start with old pallets stacked up to the rafters, and that you can decipher every stone after months of work! Would you have tackled this? I couldn’t have done it alone. My team is the best! They know what they are doing. […]

There was always a small fire or even some really bigger ones – to keep everybody’s body and soul warm! This one is next to the Pediment of the South Facade. *When you want to return to the Journal homepage – click here.

These two limestone columns will eventually have a gorgeous iron gate (that I can find for you or have made here in France) between the two columns. What an entrance to your new property! Massive blocks of antique stone. *When you want to return to the Journal homepage – click […]

Paulina draws and measures each stone and identifies exactly where they fit on the AutoCAD! *When you want to return to the Journal homepage – click here.

This is a picture of Cristiano emptying out the entire warehouse and taking all the pallets that have been there for almost 40 years. Then he puts them all alongside the warehouse to only eventually bring them all back inside again — newly packed and crated — ready to ship […]

Moving Pallets in the Cold and Rainy Weather Almost every day was rain and mud, but Cristiano got into his tractor every day and made sure that pallets were moved and worked on! *When you want to return to the Journal homepage – click here.

SO SO HAPPY HERE! The whole crew is in one gorgeous farm house. *When you want to return to the Journal homepage – click here.

So, if you go back to my post on January 17, I tell you about the luckiest day of the year, January 28. This was the day I took a train to Metz and met with Julien Le Bras, who showed me some wonders of the world (i.e. the wood […]

This beautiful farmhouse is right next to where we were staying to work on documenting the chateau – just fabulous! *When you want to return to the Journal homepage – click here.

Here is my hero Cristiano miraculously taking every single pallet out of the hangar. You will not believe how he plans to re-organize the whole warehouse – like a Chanel Boutique! *When you want to return to the Journal homepage – click here. All of these pallets coming out of […]

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Here are my heroes going off to work every morning at 8AM in the rain! *When you want to return to the Journal homepage – click here. Below is a picture of the Chateau that was down the lane. There’s a shaggy dog on the doorstep!

This is the super nice place where we stayed, exactly one kilometer from the warehouse with The Bordeaux Chateau. The crew are just driving home for lunch. They arrived exactly at 12:00 noon – after starting at 8am – my heroes. *When you want to return to the Journal homepage […]

Here is a picture of the inside of our work trailer with the AutoCAD drawings that Paulina did – it is a grand puzzle to figure out where the exact stones are on each pallet in the hangar. This is going to be our greatest asset! *When you want to […]

First things first – we had to get rid of the mountains of debris that were strewn everywhere. I think the funniest thing is that you are now seeing Cristiano driving a forklift for the FIRST TIME – our forklift driver never showed – thank you very much. But Cristiano […]

Every night we had dinner catered for the whole crew with the local gastronomic chef. I definitely did not do the cooking or the dishes for that matter. Our chef even put the menu on the table. Nice touch. *When you want to return to the Journal homepage – click […]

Note: Alisanne’s first purchase – not just one of these big boys – several…. By the way, I ordered heated gloves for everyone — guess when they arrived? Not when it was freezing out – that I can confirm… *When you want to return to the Journal homepage – click […]

OK – This is proof of the day we officially left Paris for Bordeaux. Now when I look back at it, it’s so funny that I thought we could move more than 800 tons of stone in a month. Paulina drove, and I talked the whole way – about a […]

I would constantly make everyone crazy with astrology dates – and man, were we going to stick to them! My crew had to practically memorize the dates I would give them! Remember this date, because it’s going to come up again – January 28 2021…wait and see. *When you want […]

Cristiano, the head of the entire project, went to Naples and met with a high school friend that had this fantastic printing machine that printed with adhesive backings. He printed out our “first shot” of the negatives of the South Facade. Thank you! *When you want to return to the […]

MY BAGATELLE  –  I really felt like Marie Antoinette in 1775, when she made a bet with her husband’s brother that he could not build her the Chateau de Bagatelle in the Bois de Boulogne in 64 days. Honestly, I didn’t know how long it would take to dismantle an […]

We just finished the AutoCAD here in Paris of what we believe to be the South Facade dimensions. We did it to the best of our ability – using deductive skills and only two negatives from 40 years ago! *When you want to return to the Journal homepage – click […]

This is where the Bordeaux Chateau began – a text from my friend, Julien Le Bras – a wonderful man. Julien never knew until later that I actually went through with purchasing the chateau! *When you want to return to the Journal homepage – click here.