Levelling up!

Joists that is! So here we are day 1 flooring. A green field site, with the supporting beams ready to put in the floor joists.

This time I'm using softwood to make a conventional joist floor using 175 x 63 treated timber. Max span is 2m between the joists so that section should be plenty and I'm going to use a mixture of joist hangers and nails to hold it all together.

Believe it or not there is about 550 euro's worth of timber there! Mind you stuff in France has gone up a lot in recent years. Only 2 years ago when I put the floor in over the kitchen, oak was 500 euros a cubic metre , now its 650! Anyway back to the floor; its going to be laid 16" (400mm) on centres and tied into the walls at the edges and double joists under the partition walls. That should do the trick. As the wood is a bit long for one person I'm going to be assisted by my eldest daughter Frankie (whether she likes it or not). Fourtunately when we had the "major work" done by the builders they raised the oak beams by about 15 inches in the wall and also levelled them up as best they could. This now makes my job putting in the floor so much easier than it otherwise would be!

Frankie's Bedroom

Well after much sweat here it is:

Clean and very white, Monastic even!

That door by the way is made out of 100yr old reclaimed timber. 300mm wide boards, three boards wide. This I admit is a bit sad, but you try getting that timber new, either its wet and twists or it costs a fortune! This is the real deal, straight, dry and nail holes aside a lovely character,

That's the hand scraped joint between the boards; sad but nice at the same time

Tis the work of the Devil

You put the dishes in the white box and press the button. An hour later they come out clean, Evil Genius! Ok I know many of you have suggested that I should send the kids down to the river to do the washing and washing up but In the end I did a deal with them; They could have a dishwasher as long as they agreed to fill and unload it each day. We will see how long it lasts?
As you can see from the picture the laundry room has had a makeover, I got sick of no space to put anything and no splash back that I could keep clean so in a fit of pique I've ripped it all out and have re-done it with new cupboards from the local brico. Normally I would have made the cupboards but you know, it's hidden away and life to short to start mucking about making cupboards for a laundry room. One thing i'll say about fitted cupboards though, they are actually kind of practical. Lets say I'm warming to them.

Chickens!

Chickens!

And Chicken of the woods; Bracket fungus, smells and tastes like Chicken...Bizarre! Found food great! By  the way if I die, I blame Julia.....

What a difference a door makes

Goodbye plywood 

Hello chickens

Meet Ken and Poachy

 And a new cherry tree to replace the pear tree we killed

While some have green fingers we most definitely do not!

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