The cutest little french farmhouse you've ever seen

Today Olaf and I are driving to the other side of Natural Park Le Morvan, where a young couple that we've met on Instagram invited us to spend a night on their property. Arvid and Morgan are a 30-something Dutch couple who decided that rather than having a bigger house in the Netherlands, they wanted to have their farmhouse dream house in the French countryside. In 2020 they found their beautiful house and in the course of a couple of months they turned it into a beautiful holiday home that they spent most of their time and they rented out during summer. And of course they gave us the tour of their beautiful Fermet du Merle. Merle is a little, yeah, I can't call it a river, a stream, a Ruisseau down the hill. And it's also a little swimming lake, yeah, nearby, five minutes drive. And yeah, this is a Fermet, so it's a small farmer's home. So we decided to name it La Fermet du Merle. Yeah. Come in. Yes, thank you. I'm so excited after seeing all the beautiful pictures on Instagram. Oh wow. So this is the kitchen area. And this was like this when you bought it? Well, yeah, the kitchen was like this. We only painted the cupboards. Yeah. And of course, yeah, the room. I don't think, did you do the seating as well? Yeah, but this was already here. And yeah, this is an old bread oven. The chimney is closed. Yeah. It's been reverted because that's our central heating, which is state-of-the-art. Yeah, state-of-the-art. No, but it is, frankly, it is. It's very easy to use, as you can see. It takes just a few minutes and then, well, it has central heating, so that's an advantage. But I'll tell you, we really want this, I'm dreaming to have this in our home. Well, if we remove it, you can have it. But I mean, just because it's such an original feature and I think it will heat the kitchen really nicely if you have this going. Yeah. But where do you, sorry, I'm super interested. I'll give you a demonstration. So that's where you put the wood, yeah? The wood. With this, you can arrange the air, air intake, etc. You have to turn the pump and then the circulation starts. So that heats the entire house, so your radiators are connected. Yeah, they're connected. All connected. And you can use it for cooking as well. But that's what I mean, so you can actually use this for cooking. Yes, of course. For slow cooking. And that's what we did while refurbishing and things. It's a French house. Yeah. It doesn't have to be perfect. No. It's not a new home built in the Netherlands or somewhere else. It has to be perfect. Yeah. Wonderful. It's very open, so we can see into the living room. Yeah, I love the Delft blue color. When we entered this house for the first time, we said to each other, the kitchen will be blue. Yeah. So that's something we just did. We didn't even think about it. This is a simple Ikea lamp, but I painted it in dark blue. Yeah. It was black. Yeah. I think black is too hard for this room. Yeah. And this, the pillowcase my mom made. Yeah. And this is made by a Dutch lady. The leather straps she made. Yeah. Leftover pieces. Yeah. Oh, wow. It's a really good idea to have a bench and to add this to the wall. Yeah. When the first time we visited the house, before we bought it, everything was full. Large cabinets. Dark. Dark ceilings. Dark, yeah. And then we immediately decided everything out. Should be bright. Yeah. Because you already have limited windows, of course, which is very useful during summer because it's very, people at home don't feel it, but it's very cool. Yeah. Thick walls. So you needed to add light. And then you did it fantastically, I think, with the colors. Yeah. I followed an interior design workshop. Yeah. Well, of course. So I made mood boards and everything. And at that time, I didn't really have a job. I was in between jobs, so I had the time to really think about it and to collect items and materials from pop contests or Markplatz. So almost everything is secondhand, except for the couch and the bed. And it's also very nice. You made mood boards and think about what styling you wanted. Yeah. And you always take a lot of time and patience to find the right furniture. I'm more of a... I'm painting here. Let's hang it on the wall. Just do it right now. So... Wait a little. Sometimes finding the right balance between patience and... Wanting to get it done. And speed. Yeah. That's really nice. So here is the living room. This used to be a very dark space. Yeah. The ceilings were dark, dark, shiny brown. Yeah. I saw that. I saw you painted the whole thing. The floor to us is very special. You hate it or you love it. But we decided to keep it because it adds something to the house. I absolutely love it. Yeah. And that is the center piece really. It attracts the attention. So everything is... I love how you've designed everything around it. Thank you. Really, really beautiful. Yeah. But do you know when this was put in? What date? I don't know. That would be interesting to... Yeah. Slowly starting to get finding more pieces of history of the house. You could call the lady on the hill. Yeah. Her family owns the whole hill. Yeah. And she used to play in the attic when she was a child. She's now 70. And her mother also used to play here when she was a child. So this is one of the oldest houses of the hill. They say, but we don't know if it's true. They say you can find the house on early maps during Napoleon time. Wow. Yeah. And this is nice. Did you find this at a brokant? Yeah. In Auxerre. Oh yeah? Yeah. Did you see what it says on the... Yeah. It's going to Desis. So that's a place nearby. Yeah. It's like 30 kilometers. So yeah. It's used in this region. Yeah. And that's nice. Yeah. And here we made a gallery wall with, yeah, everything we saved during a few months from Markplatz and Brokant. Yeah. Nice. I want to have one of those in the kitchen. Yeah. But in a real large one. A real big one. Yeah. Go to the... Oh, you have one already? No, not yet. Oh, it's called Go to the Vide Maison. You'll probably find them. When people do Vide Maison. Yeah. When people sell their house. I don't know if people know what Vide Maison is. Yeah. But that's when people just empty the house. Yeah. And here is the guest room. Yeah. Oh, nice. Yeah. I've seen the project of putting the... Yeah. The backboard in. That's maybe a nice story to tell. Well, I saw there was some kind of... It wasn't really straight. Yeah. So I thought... It was moist. I thought there was some space behind it was moist. So I just thought let's hit it with a hammer. And then the whole piece of the wall... Came down. So that wasn't going as planned. And then we thought that we can try to fix it. But then it would just look too new. Yeah. Because then we have a whole fresh wall, which we don't want. So then we decided to put it like this. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And that took me... Because nothing is straight. Yeah. People who have a French house would probably recognize it. Yeah. So with a lot of cutting and edges and etc. We fixed it. Yeah. And this I got for free at Markplus. I painted it white. And also the chair used to be of someone I know. So I painted it. And also the lady from the leather straps. She remade this. Oh, yeah. So, yeah. Nice. Really nice. I really like this room. And I think this just to have the old windows and then the curtains. It's just a proper French style. Yeah. There's plenty of wildlife in the... In the garden. Foxes. Deer. Mainly foxes. So now we entered a bathroom. Yeah. It's very small, but it is. Yeah. And you got the wood from the Netherlands. Is that the story? We bought it in France. It's old French wood bought in the Netherlands. I know. But apparently it's just really difficult to find here. Yeah. We chose a modern shower. A good shower. Yeah. It's important. The downstairs is what you rent as a holiday home. Yeah. For people that want to come stay here. Okay. Yeah. And upstairs, yeah, we keep some things and there's our room and we don't rent it. So we get the VIP tour. Yeah, the VIP tour. Still got some work to do. Yeah. That this is finished is a big, I think a big advantage already. Yeah. To find a house that's in this condition. Yeah. It's a luxury. Because, yeah, when you both are having a job, you're not staying in France permanently. And then... It's challenging. It's challenging to do that. You know how much work it is. Putting the bed like this. Yeah. With the view in the morning. Yeah. I like it. And we don't have curtains. So you see at night, you see the sky, the stars and everything. And then we'll be awake. Also a nice story. When we bought the house and the day we got the keys, we wanted to do a little inspection. And then we suddenly, this is very French way, French style. We saw that, you don't really see it now, but there was a piece of floor missing. So we put cardboard in it. And then, yeah, this thing. So now you don't see it. You don't see it. It's a French style. Yeah. This is really nice. That you found this. It was very dirty. I cleaned it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Really nice. Can you switch it on so we can see? It's in super good condition. There's nothing broken. No. Really good. Yeah. I think by far the best of this bedroom is the view. Yeah, absolutely. Looking out of the window. To wake up to this view. And this is nice. The wall was like this. All pointed like that. Wow. Near the chimney from downstairs. Yeah. And it should be possible to get this look downstairs as well. And exterior. Exterior and interior. By stripping the walls. But then you have to protect it again against all the weather. Yeah. Well, actually, if the pointing, what I know, or what we know from our renovation, if it's properly pointed, you can leave it like that. The question is, do you want to insulate or do you want to leave it? Because it's not insulated this way. No. But the temperature here, even during winter, it's nicer upstairs than downstairs. Because the heat goes up. It's too beautiful to lose that as a feature. I can really imagine this is fine. Yeah, it's fine. Nice. I love it. And then there's another nice detail. It's such a gem, really. It's like a little paradise. This is like a typical French farmhouse, I think. So how did you find it? Online. Just online? Yeah, just online. And I think it was for sale for one year, one year and a half. Really? Yeah. So what's the thing you didn't see? Or did everybody else just not see the beauty of this? It wasn't welcoming. No. Not at all. Oh, yeah. And you have to look through it. We also took advantage of time of year. We bought it during winter. Yeah. That's the best time to buy a house. Also to see it in a grey, not so sunny days. And if you still like the house then, then it's only nicer during summer. I think we just had a lot of luck. You get what you deserve. Isn't that what they say? And that must have been the stables, right? Yeah. With the low doors and all the rings for whatever that was used. I don't really know. And that will be the next project. Yeah. I'll have you guys over in five years, two years. Oh, you're so optimistic.