Maison d'Amis

Timeline: September:  Now we have the main gîte pretty much completed, its time to get stuck into the little house, our lovely 18^th century listed cottage. We want to bring it back to life as our second gîte, providing a cosy retreat full of charm and original features. It is blessed with lovely tommette clay floor tiles to both floors, an old fireplace and chimney which although covered with multitudinous layers of green paint, hopefully will yield some stone underneath and then there are lots of beamed ceilings, stone niches, fossils and a fabulous exposed timber roof construction. Although a small building, like many structures this old, it has seen changes over the years and as we gradually strip back generations of paint and plaster, some old secrets are revealed. 
 

Maison d'amis, a centuries old time capsule

We discover a low level window opening with a curved head and adjacent door opening in the rear wall, both filled in with stonework at least a hundred years ago, as we have photographs this old showing the external staircase which blocks these openings. The roof line has been increased in height, with the line of the old roof and pockets for roof timbers clearly visible. Another external door is discovered at the front of the house, more recently blocked when the massive stone gate pillars where built. My suspicions are that the rear door and window are probably original to the house, possibly dating back several hundred years when the house was in its original form. The gate pillars were possibly only erected in the 19^th century when the property became more important as a part of a larger wine producing enterprise. More research will hopefully reveal further clues and one of our neighbours family used to own much of the properties in our road as part of their vineyard, so we have some local knowledge to hand.

My now good friend and stone mason Monsieur Deschamps has already created new window openings and we had new windows fitted in July and after many attempts of finding a roofer, the old roof covering was removed in September and as I write this on the 9^th October, the ridge tiles are just being finished and we have a new watertight roof.

  

In the last few weeks, Paul and I have moved a door opening, formed another, repaired various parts of he structure, constructed the timber stud partitioning to the ground and first floors and with great satisfaction, uncovered a stone fireplace beneath all that green paint! Paul has also put all the first fix waste and hot and cold water services, while Sparky Paul has done most of the first fix electrics. There are seemingly more electrical cables than on the space shuttle, but they’re all been hidden more or less away and the rest will soon be covered up by new plaster and plasterboard.

The bathroom (yes, a bath!) to the first floor

We also have had a new purpose made steel balustrade fabricated and expertly fitted by our local metalwork man and Thomas is a remarkable and happy individual to have on your team.

So that brings up pretty much up to date, although we are just about to accept a quotation for construction of a new chimney to the barn and the bride et moi are very much looking forward to the arrival of our god daughter Laura, her sister Emily and Em’s boyfriend Pete and Laura’s friend Olivia tomorrow. We haven’t seen Laura since her last trip to the UK two years ago and Emily since Laura’s High School graduation on Maine in 2006, so we have some catching up to do. Our local restaurant, which is normally closed on Wednesdays, is even opening specially for us to have a grand reunion dinner tomorrow night. How cool is that!

Next time: Masion d’amis, continued . . .

A bientôt,

LC

At Last, We Have Guests!

Timeline: Friday 20th July: (Slightly out of order, but I was so keen to share the joy of the road racing with everyone!) Good news, the gorgeous bride arrives next week in time to help prepare our first gîte for our very first real guests who arrive in a week. Bad news, our very first real guests are arriving in just one week and the place still looks like a building site! I suppose that’s because it is a building site and if we can pull this one off, it’ll be a very neat trick!

The gîte is just about complete upstairs and it looks pretty good with last week seeing the completion of the second bedroom, including a built in wardrobe, window cill and skirting boards, leaving just curtains and rugs to do. The ground floor and staircase however need completely decorating, new lighting installed, the kitchen refreshed, a media unit building, separation of the utility room and reception from gîte space and new pictures everywhere. The work is easy enough, at least with Paul’s carpentry skills and if we had two weeks, but then there is also the transformation of the building site outside into a tranquil and lovely courtyard space where people will want to spend quality time together and remind themselves what a wonderful holiday they are having.

We have a tabulated programme of work, itemised with daily tasks and we have already used up most of our ‘float time’ over the past two weeks of the three week schedule. Fortunately, a local builder gave us three days and built a beautiful paved terrace and cleared so much building detritus away, but I still need a ‘big statement’ to be evident one drives through the gates. So I order 24 tonnes of gravel, after discussing the probability of a juggernaut being able to get into the place to drop its load. 

The first of two gravel delivery trucks

Pool and terrace in a sea of gravel

The transformation was amazing with the addition of gravel a small pool on the terrace, a big BBQ, planting, garden furniture and the sound of a tasteful fountain tinkling in the background. We were pretty close to the feel we want our guests to find when stepping out of their car. It will be even better when more planting is completed and established with playful sights, sounds and smells to delight and entertain the senses. 

The 'secret' bathroom

All that sanding the floor paid off!

With the bride here to swell the workforce and with our good friend Sarah, who has quickly become one of the bride’s favourite people in the whole world, the girls soon had acquired all the items left on the shopping list to completed the equipping of the gîte and was looking even better than we hoped. Sarah went above and beyond the call of duty, giving up two precious days to help out and enabling me to stick at the build side of things with Paul in readying the place for our guests. Thanks Sarah, we owe you.

True to their word, Andy, Sue and daughter Hannah arrived spot on schedule at 19h00, as we were carrying out important last minute preparations, like opening the bottle of bubbles in welcome.

Despite an over long day of travel, they all managed to walk up to town for the night racing and a most excellent day was spent with them on the Sunday, when the village was filled with thousands of race enthusiasts.  

The next two weeks seemed to pass in a flash for us and hopefully not so quickly for our guests, who enjoyed a mixture of wine tastings at local vineyards, castles visits, troglodyte cave expeditions, a day at the local bioparc (a wonderful zoo for endangered species with an active breeding programme) and plenty of chillaxing time around the pool and barbeque.

Having Hannah here was a wonderful tonic and this bright and engaging almost six year old was as happy to entertain as be entertained. She even got Paul dancing and provided remarkably useful feedback for us on the child friendly front. She enjoyed playing with the hastily provided swing-ball set, as have many others, including the adults.

Our first guests proved to be excellent company and we have all become firm friends and were sad to have to wave goodbye, although they hope to be back again next year. Paul however, is providing a local wine delivery service for them at Christmas en route to his own festivities.

Yes, Christmas is just round the corner and we have five guests staying for a week of frivolity!

A bientôt,

LC