Last night my husband and were watching reruns of Channel 4’s Escape to the Château DIY. Even though we have already watched the series it was still strangely fascinating and we remained glued to the TV watching Dick and Angel working their magic on their own Château de la Motte Husson as well as advising, guiding and sharing their experiences with the next generation of château owners.
We bought a home in Normandy earlier this year under the misapprehension that “all it needed was a lick of paint”! Five months later we still have not unpacked and moved in, we’re still in total chaos and nowhere close to actually having “a home”. This week, for example, we have two workers renovating our bathroom and two painting those awful brown wooden ceilings so loved by the French (and the Germans for that matter) a brilliant white. We’ve had workers invading the sanctuary of our home for weeks – no months.
I only tell you this because, during the programme last night, our son piped up “Mum, why are you watching this when all you’ve seen for months is renovations going on around you, I thought you were fed up with it?” ha ha, so true, we are BEYOND fed up! Why then this fascination?
The answer is two-fold. Angel Strawbridge is to creative design concepts what Albert Einstein is to the theory of relativity and Dick Strawbridge is to engineering solutions what Thomas Edison was to inventions. Every time you watch Escape to the Château DIY you come away with new ideas, it awakens the creative spirit in all of us. It also gives us the confidence to think, well if Angel can do it so can I, and you say to yourself “OK time to upcycle that tired and dated piece of furniture”.
For us personally, we own the website www.ChateauxEscapesFrance.com and have personally visited and met with some of the “stars” of Escape to the Château DIY including Château de Montvason, Château de la Basmaignée, Château du Bailleul as well as others which are not featured on the programme. So to see places and familiar faces on the TV is always rather fun.
Let us know what it is about Escape to the Château DIY that fascinates you so we can share it with our readers . . . and please don’t forget to visit our site and LIKE US!
