The Builders are Back!

They arrived yesterday morning.  France takes the view that Christmas is a one day affair and then everything gets back to normal, but even so, to have them back on site first thing on a Monday morning is amazing.

Mind you, progress yesterday was one step forward, two back.

We decided that we wanted to have the lounge colombage repaired with stone work below the wooden beams, as in the dining room.  The stones in the dining room are large square blocks, so I was a bit surprised to see that the builder was putting in quite small stones.  I was even more surprised when I walked Vita last night and realised in the torch light that the small stones had been taken out of the wall that holds back the flower bed in front of the terrace!

Anyway, complete misunderstanding.  Monsieur G arrived with large stones this morning for his workmen and the small ones are being removed.  Hopefully they'll be put back where they came from!

Floor Plans

Lynne, who dips into this blog from time to time, asked if I could do a simple floor plan.

Certainly the house layout is confusing and even living here it took us time to work out how all the rooms fitted together.

This is what the house looks like at present, put together over years from an old farmhouse and outside barns.

People who know us park in front of the garage, walk past the bedroom, come along the terrace and into the kitchen.

First time callers tend to wander in the direction of the "gîte"  and get very confused.

We think the gîte was created by previous owners two or three back.  It's a big space but there is no access to it from the rest of the house (see the solid red line) except by going outside and coming in through the french windows.  Friends have stayed in it a couple of times but otherwise we've only used it as storage space and it has got very neglected.

We'd been struggling with not having a proper front entrance and now that we have the cottage where friends can stay we no longer need a guest space attached to the house.  So the gîte will become our entrance hall.  From there, two new doorways will be knocked through into the rest of the house: one will go straight into the lounge.  The other will be through what's now a large bathroom (there will still be space for a good sized shower room) into the corridor beyond and through to the kitchen. 

At the same time we're tidying up the kitchen area, putting a new water heater alongside the washing machine, knocking down a wall to give more space and putting in a new window.

The other major changes are to the bedroom next to the garage which is having a new ensuite wet room and dressing room  / wardrobe plus a new roof (over the garage as well) and proper insulation.

These are our new plans, in outline.

A third stage will entail creating an attractive corridor with windows out of the space behind the lounge and leading that into a gallery across the back wall of garage - but that's for the longer term.

This is the back wall of the lounge where the colombage has been exposed and there is already an opening (at present with shelves across) where eventually the door will go into the gîte / new entrance hall.

We've Ordered the Kitchen

Nothing's been happening in the house for about a month now.  Though Monsieur B reassures us that activity will start again early in the New Year.

Thank goodness we are in the cottage and not renting a gite somewhere, otherwise we would be beginning to worry.

The electrician decided he would rather wait until the plasterer is on site, which should happen in the middle of January.  And the roof over the bedroom and garage will be replaced (weather permitting) at the beginning of the month.

In the meatime, we have chosen and ordered the kitchen.  We've been more adventurous than we were in the cottage and have gone for a high gloss grey (or do I mean taupe?) for the units.  We debated whether Vita's claws on the gloss might be a problem, but since these days she can easily put both paws straight on the worktop and that is harder wearing we hope all will be well.  She only reaches up to the worktop when we are out of the room and if we catch her in the act she arches her back, stretches and looks over her shoulder at us so much as to say: "I'm just doing my aerobics".

We have samples of the colours so that we can choose tiles.  Bearing in mind my doubts about the tiles in the cottage, I'm not looking forward to this bit, especially as the colours of the units and the worktop change so much depending on how they are lit.

We have a provisional  installation date - some time in April I think, but this will no doubt have to change.  The owner of the kitchen shop cheerfully told us that one of their customers ordered a kitchen two years ago and is still waiting for the builders to finish so it can be installed.  Gulp!

We did gently suggest to Monsieur B that we were hoping to have friends stay with us from Easter 2010 and that more progress would be appreciated.

A Water Leak (or Two)

We're having all of the pipe work in the house replaced and when they dug down to lay the new pipes, the channels filled up with water, even though it was supposedly turned off at the main. Somewhere we had a leak under ground - probably had one for ages, which may explain the damp walls in my study.  It may also explain the size of our water bills.

So a new stopcock has been installed in the manhole at the back of the house where the meter sits and we've new pipe (protected in its red sheath) laid from there into the house. This was not part of the original estimate, but we're resigned to the fact that each stage of the build will throw up something unexpected.

There's still water in the manhole and the trench outside though.  Hopefully this is just from all the rain we've had in the last few days and not another leak.

Water in the channel cut  for the water pipe

 
The new pipe into the manhole

Slow Progress

Progress on the house is very leisurely.  Nothing like the rush and bustle of the Poles when they were doing the cottage.

The French builders are all working on other projects, so they squeeze us in from time to time.  Sometimes it's a bit like having elves on the project.  We don't see anyone. There is no van parked in front of the house, and yet there is some small change.  So when do they come and work?

They may not be working much on our house, but they have been helpful.  Monsieur G. lent us his large truck with a crane on the side and a driver so Tod could collect the attachments for the tractor.  We now have a rusty plough, harrow and another thingy with lots of arms sitting on the drive.

In the meantime we're snug in the cottage.