A Series of Pictorial Up-Dates, no. 1

We have made such a lot of progress from the very ‘low base’ that was the house when we first acquired it that I think it might be worth giving you the contrasts between then and now. So what is below is a series of linked posts showing just this. It has to be said, though, that there is in all cases a deal of finishing work to be done – painting, putting in skirting-boards and architraves, etc, etc. But it is comfortable and most importantly given the onset of winter and colder weather wind- and water-tight.

In this post you can see the difference between what the salon/sitting room used to be like and the situation now. In the first pictures you should be able to see the damage wrought by the collapsed part of the roof and the large crack in the wall in one place. And then the position as we now enjoy it.

Just remember the hard work, time and money that’s gone into achieving this, we do!!

A Series of Pictorial Up-Dates, no. 2

In this set you can the difference in what is for the moment the kitchen/dining room.

As with all the areas in this part of the house the fact that the roof had collapsed in several places caused a great deal of damage. But this room seems to have been used as a store/wine cellar and was therefore not particularly well looked after even when the house was occupied.

The room is being used as a kitchen/diner only until we can get to work on the second half of the house and create the proper kitchen and separate dining room. Once that has happened this room will revert to being a cosy sitting room/study/music room.

A Series of Pictorial Up-Dates, no. 3

And in this set the change is from very badly damaged bedrooms and sitting rooms to the principal entrance-way into the house. The area is virtually unrecognisable from how it used to be and provides a splendid, welcoming entrance.

A Series of Pictorial Up-Dates, no. 4

And the external position of the house. We will eventually have the walls at the front, the side and part of the back covered in a new coat of crepié. But I have spent time ensuring that the existing covering is complete and gives a weather-proof covering. It also makes the house look a little less ‘shabby’!

A Series of Pictorial Up-Dates, no. 5

Just for completeness here’s the position on the field which was covered in the material taken from the back of the house. We have spent some time removing a great many pebbles/stones from it, though that is far from complete - look back to July 2008 to see how it was. It is green only because vegetation has grown back of its own accord. But you may be able to see that we have now planted nine fruit trees at the far end to create a small orchard. We hope that in the not too distant future we shall be able to pick our own fruit whilst relaxing in the shadow of the trees!

At last, a Summer up-date

Dial-up is such a pain that keeping the blog going is a real trial, and up-loading pictures virtually impossible, but for the moment this will bring you up-to-date on where we are now.

In terms of rooms not much has changed since the last posting – we have two bedrooms, one with an en-suite shower room, a kitchen/diner, the large sitting room with mezzanine and now a downstairs shower room. This latter is very useful when we have guests as they no longer have to use ‘our’ shower room. So what have we been doing all this time? Working very hard to finish all the rooms, and this is still very far from complete. The main bedroom and en-suite and the kitchen/diner require very little finishing now, I have not done this as other tasks were more urgent. The spare bedroom is only a little further on as it is useable and we want to complete other areas first. In the large sitting room the three non-plasterboard walls were crepied by Jean Claude and initially we were quite content with this. But we then employed another craftsman to crepie the walls in the hallway and downstairs shower room and he made a marvellous job of this with a much better finish. So we have decided that we’ll employ him to cover over the walls in the sitting room again to achieve the much better finish that’s possible – a double cost but we think worth it in the long run. I have tiled out the floor in the sitting room and carried this through into the hallway so that I could tile out the shower room and the next door walk-in cupboard. In having the shower fitted we employed a plumber who ‘sorted out’ some of Jean Claude’s less than wonderful plumbing efforts and we are much more content with it all. I have also put in the floor for the mezzanine and the ceiling underneath it. We bought a spiral staircase to access the mezzanine which, unfortunately, when I tried to work out how it would be fitted we realised that it would be rather ugly and intrusive in the room. So, research at various builders’ merchants led us to buy a second staircase that works extremely well in the overall context of the room. And we shall use the spare staircase to access the summer room we intend to make in the first floor of the open-sided barn, so not an entirely wasted purchase.

Most importantly in terms of comfort we have finally got a proper connexion to the electricity supply – two days ago indeed. It’s taken over a year to get to this happy position and even right at the end EDF managed to make things difficult for us. An appointment was made and confirmed with EDF but the technician did not turn up and EDF claimed that the appointment had been re-made for a day six days later. Result – we would be without a supply of any sort for that period. However, our ever helpful neighbours allowed us to tap into their supply, and as long as we didn’t use too many appliances at once all was well. But now with a proper connexion we can put in heaters and the like and not have any concerns about over-loading the supply.

Outside we have spent time trying to keep the courtyard and garden tidy. We have created a vegetable and flower patch, reclaiming this from the on-rushing weeds – it’s going to be a constant battle as we adjoin a field which is a haven for all sorts of invasive weeds. Foolishly we did not put in the necessary work on our field in front of the house. If you remember, or look back to the previous posting – July 2008 – we had the earth taken from the back of the house spread over the field but this contained a great deal of caillou (pebbles ranging from quite small to huge) and these need to be lifted before we can turn the field into even a quite rough grassed area into which we can put fruit trees. The area we did work on can be mowed using the sit-on mower but this accounts for only a quarter of the field and in the remaining three-quarters the grass and weeds went wild – up to three feet tall. Eventually our neighbour kindly cut it all using his tractor and attachment and turned and lifted the cut material to use for feeding his cattle. I have now used the mower to cut over this area as well but very cautiously trying to avoid the pebbles as much as possible. We must though carry on the tedious task of removing the pebbles so that mowing is not such a fraught task and we can establish the field in its proper state.

All work and no play I hear you ask! Well not entirely, we have met many people here both French and ex-pats and our social life is expanding quite nicely so that we are able to lift our heads from the grind of working on the house and simply enjoy the pleasure of la vie française.