Wow!

So much activity at the house yesterday.

Monsieur C was there, plus helper, putting up the final bricks that cover the thick insulation in the kitchen, so that his plasterers can do the kitchen walls.

Two of Monsieur G's carpenters were fitting the new doors that will go from the new entrance hall into the lounge and the back of the house.

Monsieur M was steadily working his way through the myriad of electrical and plumbing connections he has to make.

Then we were up there with Monsieur B measuring the kitchen and bathrooms for the tiling and trying not to get in the way of everyone else.

And then Monsieur C's three children turned up and stood in the kitchen smiling shyly - it's half-term.

Vita thought all these people were VERY exciting!

Wet, Wet, Wet

Saturday afternoon and yet again we've had an emergency water company engineer on site; this time up to his elbows in the manhole where the water meter sits.

I thought about getting my camera and taking a picture of his bottom in the air, but it seemed rude to wander off and leave him when he was baling ice cold water as fast as he could so he could get at the problem.  So we carried buckets and made small talk in French and English.

Fortunately the problem was the water company side of the meter.  Our side and he would have driven away.

Somehow the water company pipe coming into the meter had become detached and within minutes the manhole was full and water was flowing down the garden in the direction of the house and along the pipework into the kitchen.  We now have a very soggy kitchen floor (again).

Strange that it should have happened just after our plasterers arrived and tried to use their pressure equipment for spraying on the plaster.  But the water engineer thought that the new pipe our side of the meter might have settled in the ground and in doing so tugged the meter out of its connection - maybe it was a combination of the two.

Anyway, he sucked on his teeth and muttered about the previous workmanship (doesn't every plumber when they come to fix a problem?) and added another joint to the meter to give it a bit more leeway.

We're seeing the floor-tiler and Monsieur B at six this evening to talk kitchen and bathroom tiling.  We'll have to ask Monsieur B how we can make sure the kitchen stays dry.  New tiles and new kitchen units don't go well with the occasional flood.

Links:
A Water Leak (or Two)
(And down at the cottage) Water, Water Everywhere

Insulation

Our first winter we struggled to keep any warmth in the house and finally bought special aluminium foil insulation and just rolled it onto the floor of the loft to give some sort of protection.

We struggle to keep warm in cold weather because when we look up at the beams we see the bare wooden slats of the loft floor.  In the days when the loft was used to store hay just having the bare boards was an excellent plan.  The hay insulated the rooms below. 

Lounge ceiling showing floor boards of the loft

Now, we are having the house insulated properly.  In the lounge the insulation will cover the cross beams and we will just have the two main beams showing in the new ceiling.  In the dining room however, we think the cross beams make an attractive feature and so the insulation is being fitted between the beams.

Lounge ceiling insulation

Dining room ceiling insulation between the cross beams

The bedroom (which was a cow shed) had little or nothing below the bare roof.  The new insulation feels like a duvet has been thrown over the room and already it feels so much more cosy.

Bedroom ceiling insulation like a large duvet