The weather is fine and spring cleaning is under way. Time to purge with a vide grenier (empty the attic), a kind of communal garage sale.
While some purge, others acquire. One man’s junk is another’s gold.

Antique shops and brocantes (lower-end antique shops) are fun to visit, but the real bargains are to be had at the vide grenier, where gems are truffled among masses of consumer mistakes, but prices for the two are about the same.
Guess that didn’t work out

We scored a pair of bronze candlesticks that had been converted into lamps…and must be rewired completely. But the holes have been drilled, which is the hardest part.



Did you know that a wooden shoe is a sabot, worn by the working class, probably because they are nearly indestructible? And that saboter at first meant to bungle or be clumsy or noisy, because it’s hard to be elegant in wooden clogs. Then sabotage, or the act of saboter, came to mean deliberately introducing errors in one’s work or destroying industrial machinery. According to my Larousse dictionary.
More than antiques are on offer.


But old stuff rules. Maybe because it was built to last.


History can be cruel. One is great enough to be commemorated in a bust, only to end up in a red plastic bin at a mass yard sale.


There’s entertainment.

But the best part is the attention paid to lunch. While numerous stands hawk grilled sausage sandwiches, crêpes and churros, most vendors come well-equipped.
Lunch is served at a table, with a tablecloth, real dishes and silverware, wine served in wine glasses, everybody seated on real chairs. Just because it’s a picnic doesn’t mean one must be uncomfortable.

We saw one table–a sturdy round one, covered by a neatly ironed tablecloth–that seated eight, and they were enjoying their lunch fully. It was fine to inquire about prices of their wares, but wait a minute while the seller swallows.

This joie de vivre is irrepressible in the French. Being reminded of it, at stall after stall, was the best gem I took away from the vide grenier.
Love the pics of vide grenier, especially love the “lifestyle” information. That kitchen clock was beautiful!
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Yes, the French really do lifestyle in style.
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TOF I cant wait for the better weather and the constant hope of the find of a treasure at the vide greniers, love the pics
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I hope the wind has settled down at your place!
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Lovely pics! Love this French lifestyle!
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It’s so easy: always eat well 😉
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We have a Sabotier in our village … I had not made the connection to sabotage! I love the fire back – all in good time, I remind myself …. we still have much to do at Maison Catastrophe before we can indulge in pretty things ….
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I read that the term is related to “clogging up” the system–a clog is a sabot.
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Interesting …. yes, I know a sabot is a clog – the fellow who makes them is quite a character. I can’t imagine anything more uncomfortable but he assures me I should try them!
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Let me know how that goes.
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I think you can be confident that it won’t!
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I would love to shop this. That clock!!!
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You would go nuts.
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Some gems there. Would love to know who the plastered gentleman was
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I really don’t know. Maybe CDG, though the chin and ears and hair aren’t quite right.
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No, that nose is too small!
Bet he’s some kind of intellectual, philosopher genius type French person
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I looked for authors and composers and didn’t find anybody who resembled him.
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Just realised he is wearing a roll neck sweater. Ernest Shackleton ?!
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Not Shackleton. Shape of the face is wrong, and S had no mustache.
My first thought was that it was some old revolutionary.
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Actually I saw this guy twice. Makes the mystery even more tantalizing.
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I’m one of the many who would love that dog!
Why is it that there is a Law of Vide Greniers that states the items that you would actually consider buying are always at events that you are not visiting?
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Ah, the odds of finding what you want are better if you can hit multiple vide greniers. And it’s odd–sometimes the big ones have so many great things for sale, and other times, it’s the little ones, where villagers are really emptying grandma’s attic.
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My beau-père had a pair of those wooden sabots for gardening that he left with us. They gather dust in our basement while I try and think of what to do with them. Decoration? Firewood? 😛
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Decoration for sure!
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The pair hanging on a wall, toe downwards with a plant or so in each clog.
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Great idea! Merci.
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You can’t burn them!
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Mais bien sûr que non! 😉
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I love a vide grenier! I’m hoping to get to a few this year. My best purchase was a Ricard bottle for 50 centimes, two days previously I had passed one over in a brocante because they were asking €16.
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Some people ask antique store prices, when a vide grenier is about liquidating.
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Hurray for the vide grenier season – this year I’ll take a stall at one, and get shot of some of the accumulated “treasures” 🙂 You’re absolutely right, a vide grenier is all about liquidating, and recycling.
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I was going to be a seller yesterday, but it was canceled for rain.
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Sorry to hear that! the weather was a bit beastly yesterday!! Hope you have better luck next time!
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Vide-greniers were perfect family outings. Everyone could look for his or her own treasure. For my son, it was Ninjago cards, for me it was teaching material, for my husband, tools and ‘odd things’ and for my daughter’s, clothing!
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Yes. Though it seems that the things we look for is constantly changing.
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