THE TERRACE TOUR

GREEN SPACE

Now that you’ve seen the inside of our apartment, it’s time for the terrace tour. In earlier blogs , I stated our requirements in detail. Green space and a terrace were both on the list, mainly for the dynamic duo of Zoey and Coco, but also for us humans. Little did I know what a bullseye we would hit!

REZ DE CHAUSSÉE

Our apartment is “rez-de-chaussée” which is French for ground floor. It is in the center of a complex of buildings without access to the street, or any of the security downsides that come with streetside views. And in our case, a terrace that was the major selling point of the apartment we purchased.

FIEFDOM

Our terrace is equal or larger in size than the living space inside our home. What a perfect place for us and our two Shih Tzus! We always intend to have dogs, have made arrangements in our will for the care of any animal who outlives us, and a large part of choosing this apartment came down to ease of life with our furry family. A dog needs a fiefdom. And a place to pee at 2 a.m.

The terrace is divided into three parts: deck with awning, tiled terrace and garden. One of the renovations we did prior to moving in was have our contractor replace the dirt floor/wood slabs of the awning area with a concrete slab and wood decking. Benoit did an amazing job!

ZOEY AND MOI

That’s almost a selfie above. My computer, my coffee cup and glasses. I love this part of our outdoors; it’s my morning sanctuary and a perfect place to commune with Zoey and Coco and write.

And it’s also apparently the perfect place to attempt to grow a treat tree. Zoey buries her Dentastix in the mulch on a regular basis.

ENTERTAINMENT ZONE

Next is the large tiled area.

This will be our main entertainment area. And Zoey and Coco take advantage of it for the same!

JUNGLE TO LE JARDIN

Russ did the hard work for the outside area. If you look back at the real estate flyer contained in the Update, Montpellier We are Here blog, you can see there were a lot of planters on the terrace and weeds in the garden. The planters were rotting and had to be hauled off by Russ. And here’s a “before” picture of the garden giving you an idea of what a jungle it was:

We had 18 bags of mulch, plants and soil delivered by Jardiland to start this project:

And then Russ went to town:

Sadly, the heatwave wiped out our hydrangeas despite diligent watering. We picked up some hibiscus this week at the garden store. The outdoors continues to evolve and in a few weeks we will be holding our first soiree on the terrace. A full report will definitely be in order!