Charming habitable cottage in the Puisaye in glorious NW Burgundy

• Beams, log fire, beautiful rolling countryside
• Massive enlargement potential - 2 big unused rooms
• Tremendous village with good restaurant
• Short drive St Fargeau + swimming lake
• 30 mins motorway, 2 hours from Paris

• Bedrooms: 3
• Village
• Lake

• Condition - Restored / Habitable
• Roof - Good Condition
• Drainage - Mains
• Water - Mains
• Heating - Fireplace / Stove
• Electricity - Mains

Though the cottage is attached at one side (to a workshop only), and in a lane in the (very quiet and pretty) village, and only 2 minutes walk to the square, to the restaurant, to the morning bread van, it is completely private.

The house is old with thick stone walls.  There's a small garden ideal for eating in; a pine tree, a high hedge. The neighbour is rarely seen or heard.

Madame in the house across the road is friendly, lends her stepladder for hedge cutting. There are views from upstairs across the fields, the allotments, orchards.
Further into the lane, there are a couple of cottages lived in by quiet retired people - everyone amiable - and also 3 used by French for their own holidays. Most people speak a little English. One of the 3 French holiday house owners has worked as a tour guide and speaks perfect English. We don't know of any native English speakers in the area, though. Most holiday makers here are Parisians.

The location: we worked hard to get this right. This is the fourth house we have owned in France and easily the best located.  The village is charming. The church bongs the hour. The people are nice. The bread van that comes round in the morning from the main village (5 mins drive) has really good croissants. The square has a terrific unpretentious restaurant; if you go twice, the lady owner will greet you like an old friend.  You can sit out on warm evenings. There are swallows swooping. The air is scented with village flowers.

Communications are very good. It's a 40 minute drive north to Auxerre. 30 minutes west to the N-S motorway. 2 hours to the edge of Paris (and IKEA!). 40 minutes drive to a train station with frequent Paris services - which also goes direct to Charles de Gaulle airport. The Puisaye is Burgundy's northern bit of Arcadia, with rolling hills and woods and lovely views.

It used to be a major pottery making area and some potteries survive. The writer Colette  was born in St Sauveur (our nearest supermarket, 9km) and wrote of the area's beauty. St Fargeau - 20 mins pretty drive - is the most touristy of the Puisaye's little towns (really they are big villages) and has an awe-inspiring castle - visitable - nice restaurants including an excellent creperie, a superb tea shop with the best local macaroons, and a swimming lake surrounded by a forest, where our children enjoy bathing and reading and going on the pedaloes, and we all like to swim in the peaty tea coloured water.
There's an artificial beach where local families come on summer weekends.

AFTER ALL THAT, for us the details of the house are almost secondary. But here's what there is : 3 bedrooms (1 on ground floor), huge sitting/dining room with log fireplace, small kitchen, and a big unconverted room adjoining, that the kitchen would extend easily into, through an unstructural stud wall (this room has big arched doors to the garden), a bathroom with a powerful new cabinet shower. 

Upstairs:  2 upper level bedrooms, plus a big upper level room - huge and unconverted - that would make a natural master suite/upper sitting room (this is integral, not a further grenier/loft). Small garden. More internal house details: A big big sitting room with french windows to garden and wooden stairs leading to first floor. We have one end as a dining area. There's a big log fireplace - which is great off season. Beams. Knobbly character walls. A tiled floor - good in hot weather, easy clean.
This is modern, but the downstairs bedroom/hall/kitchen have their original tiles/tomettes.
Down the corridor from sitting room: the ground floor double bedroom to the left, the bathroom to the right, the small kitchen straight ahead, and its big unused "Garden Room" to its left, again.

We have spent some money having the house rewired and replumbed, a new boiler and shower installed.
Bear in mind that everything is simple, rustic, old fashioned. If you like a modern hotel finish you are in the wrong place.
The kitchen is 1970s and very simple. It has a short row of pine cupboards, a small under counter fridge, a 4 burner hob, stainless steel double sink with drainer, plumbing for a washing machine, window, door to Garden Room. In one corner, a solid fuel stove/cooker that we use off season.
The bathroom has black floor tiles, peach floral wall tiles, a good old sink, new loo, new cabinet shower with a large rose and excellent pressure. [New large water heater tank in the unrenovated upstairs room].

Upstairs there are two more bedrooms (beds 2 + 3)  with double beds and old wardrobes, and wooden floors, and a third door opening into the big unrenovated space.

The house is being sold furnished. We will take personal items and most pictures away but the furnishings and kitchen equipment will remain, so it will be immediately usable for holidays.

Furnishings: The sitting room has a mixture of IKEA and old furniture. 2 sofas. Armchairs and occasional chairs. A table and chairs and dresser at the dining end. The beds are a mix of old (house inherited) and new, IKEA ones. The armoires are old (house inherited). DIMENSIONS - approximate Sitting/Dining Room  -   27'6  x 15'6 Bedroom 1 (downstairs) -    14' x 10' Bathroom -  7'6  x 6'6 Kitchen -  13 x 10 Garden Room  -  17'6  x  15 Upstairs: corridor  6'8 wide Bedroom 2  -  13'8  x  12'6 Bedroom 3  -  12'6  x  12'6 Unrenovated Room  -   24'6 x 19  plus (in the L) about 10x8.
The house is also listed with Burgundy 4 U.

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