If you ever consider rebuilding a house......

You really gotta love plaster-boarding! Its one of those things, its not difficult, its just a pain. To start with the sheets here in France are 2.5m x 1.25m which is big and heavy and fragile; in fact just about the worst combination of working characteristics. Granted cutting it is easy and you can appear to make progress quickly but getting the stuff from the builders, up a ladder to the first floor, then stored so it doesn't warp or break is just plain hard work. And that's about the size of it; In reality building a house is hard work. At this point I should say that this post is not any kind of rant or moan. We're hear for the long term, we do a bit at a time and really enjoy the life here in France; but its not an easy life and it is hard work and understanding that before you dive in is good. Living where we do next to Gites, we see many people who are house hunting looking for a new life in France and so many times their expectations are completely unrealistic. So remember no matter what you have seen on "a place in the sun" or "grand designs" actually doing it is (trust me) is hard work. If you like hard work great and hey I'm catholic, but remember: You really gotta love plaster-boarding!

Not quite finished

By the way this is Frankie's bedroom

And French style electrical boxes; round. Genius! why oh why are English ones square, are they trying to make it difficult! Round holes....drill.....pop quiz!

Notice the frame for the window seat....nice. Think little girl sitting on her window seat reading a book from the library.........(I do like to think they won't just sit there texting their mates) Ho Hum you can but hope!

Summer Time

At Last its officially summertime. Lighter nights and spring is in the air! My Little girl has a new quad bike kindly on loan from my Brother in law...Thanks Jon. Here she is "patrolling" my neighbours field?

Well back to the business in hand and that means making some progress with the house. Now to make progress you need materials and the buy materials you need money. When I was thinking about buying a house to renovate I talked to several who were renovating or had renovated houses, and if you listened to what they said then building materials are cheap in France. Indeed one chap I spoke to pro-ported to have paid £20K for his house and renovated it all for another £20K. Now some years down the line in my own renovation I'm not sure A, How big his house was or B, what his Idea of "Fully renovated" was but in my experience, materials in France are every big as expensive as the UK. Some materials are in fact very much more expensive. Any one who has renovated a house will tell you that unless you do your homework and shop around money doesn't go very far; So when I saw a rather special deal in one of the diy stores in the UK is would have been silly not to take advantage. Now the question for the day is: Just now many rolls of insulation do you think you can fit into a Fiat Doblo?

Oh and yes there is also a full underfloor heating kit in there too! I did however get a few funny looks going through customs

Just Occasionally...

I'm really surprised; in a good way! France is bureaucratic right? Well like most things in France that's not the whole story; It goes a little deeper and is a little more complicated. Forms for example. This week I had occasion to want to venture into the world of French form filling. Now in England if you  get a form then for every page of form there is as least one possibly two of explanation to tell you how to fill it in. In addition to that the government web site usually has additional supporting info. In France; for this particular form, there is the form.... that's it. So you ring up and ask questions, you join the self help forums and you get a little closer. It also has to be said that official phone numbers in France seem to have some sort of persistence check applied to them. The first time you ring....you get a very polite but not very useful answer. The second time you ring...they will give you a hint at how you might find the answer. This is where the persistence check kicks in. If you ring a third time you have passed the test then bingo, the magic happens! In this case the man on the phone calmly and very helpfully asked if I would like someone from the prefecture to make an appointment to come round to my house at a time convenient to me to assist in filling in the form! Errrr yes,but...will there be a charge...No.....eeer well yes please. Low and behold the next day an extremely nice and competent person arrives at the allotted time, fills the form in with me, all the lower case i's dotted and the sevens duly crossed in just over an hour. Brilliant. Now as I said before France has a reputation for bureaucracy, but what are the chances of getting that kind of service in the UK. I would suggest zero (about as likely as getting a doctor to come out to your house.....which come to think of it also happens in France).

On this very surprising, occasion.....Vivre La France!

Some progress at last

Having spent the last 6 months working in the UK there has not really been much or any progress, but Christmas has given me a few days to at least start the Girls bedrooms...

Stud work and ceilings go in

I've used a metal frame system to provide a level support for the plasterboard (cheap and very easy to use. The metal brackets just clip to the rails. Rails are every 50 cm and the plasterboard goes length ways so lines up with the 2.5m sheets they use in France.

Close up of the bracket / ties clipped to a length of rail.

Walls are a mixture of wooding studs and the metal wall rail system very popular in France. Wall studs are on 60cm centres to match the width of the plasterboard sheets which are 1.2m wide. Ceiling heights are 2.5m + a bit so no unnecessary cutting of the sheets. For info there are two types of rail, horizontal and vertical. if you set the top and bottom rails (which are a simple U section) first then the stronger vertical rails just clip into them and are screwed in place. The screws used are little round head self tappers. All the rail system complete with screws and fixing I used are made by Lafarge. The vertical rails are back to back to insulation can slide between and be held in place by the rails. The insulation I used is isover. It has one side with a paper vaper barrier which is placed facing inside to the room so the paper is against the plasterboard. (I mention these small details because if you have never done this before its these little details that sometimes take a bit of working out)

A little something

Here is a little something I've been working on in my spare time....

My prototype watch. Solid Silver, Swiss Movement, all hand made .

as is the back and crown..

Hand wound, mechanical ETA 2804.2 Swiss movement

Not too big, but with a nice quality feel..

From Grand Designs 2011

A few interesting bits and bobs from Grand designs this year:

Nice door, made by a very talented craftsman. I like this because it will fit a standard door hole; Great idea...Lookout for this on the doors for the kids bedroom.

All sand cast in bronze and then polished by hand with an angle grinder. Apparently it takes about two weeks to polish..I can believe it! A very interesting twist on the old grandfather clock.

New VELUX roof window opens up into balcony..Brilliant.

Freek the neighbours out with this baby.

And one for Claire and Andy

Victoriana

Here is a little piece I made for a lovely lady who wanted a period Victorian bracelet to go with her costume;

Central Amethyst with rose cut white topaz and rose pearls in a silver mount.