Well, It Had To Happen

Editor's note: I am extremely pleased to hand over the blog to my good friend and expert wielder of every manly power tool now residing in the, erm, joinery shop! Mr Beast, aka Paul, has risen to the invitation to pen a blog spot and moreover, if he gets some favourable comments, has intimated he will pen his continuing story of life here at Le Clos de Rose for your further enjoyment. LC  

 

Well it had to happen; the job is now officially a load of old Pauls.

Paul 1 (aka Mr Beast) has been joined by Paul 2 (the sparky) and thanks to Sparky, we at least now have all our dangly bits in the right places!

Wires of course, what did you think I meant!

We returned from the UK last week (Monday) complete with a new engine for the Volks Wagon, lining paper (you wouldn’t believe the price of it here in France) and some paint which is equally expensive and not such good quality we are led to believe.

So first thing Tuesday we delivered the engine to Monsieur Le Garage who after much studying of the cooling system conveyed to us that something was wrong, He and his mechanic were offering up the old water pump with the one fitted to the replacement engine, there ensued much arm waving and cries of ‘impossible’, then Monsieur Le Garage asked if the engine was from another pickup to which Bill replied “Non, a camper”. “Ah” he replied, shaking his head. Then a few moments later, cries of ‘Eureka’ as Monsieur Le Garage saw the answer to the conundrum and all would be OK and we wouldn’t need his spare Subaru engine after all, the VW could stay just a VW and not a VW ‘s’.

Apparently the cooling system is different from the pickup to a camper we now await the delivery of said pickup, as we are in desperate need of some plasterboard.

The week has seen some ups and downs; the main up of course was getting Sparky on site to start getting the wiring sorted,  another up was seeing the beautiful roof structure.

On the down side, was me falling off the steps and twisting my ankle but worst of all was our plan to insert the shower for bedroom 2 in the cupboard which use to be in bedroom 1. I had blocked off the doorway to the cupboard in bed 1 making it into a recessed book shelf.

Recessed surprise bookshelf

Then to our surprise when we broke out the false clay pot wall lining we found a tie bar right in the way. It might have been ok, other than the floor in the cupboard, in keeping with the front side of the house, is about 100mm higher which in turn meant that you would have to be a dwarf to get in the shower.

So the landlord and I had to come up with plan ‘B’ which is, the recessed bookshelf will become a recessed bookshelf come secret door, while the bedroom 2 side will be boxed out at the bottom, the toilet pan will now sit there, said tie bar will be hidden and some recessed glass shelves will be fitted with some LED down lights to show off the cleaned up stonework and the glass. Nice!

On the whole, progress has been good this week. All the walls are now in place for bedroom 2 and I can now run the pipe work and get it tested prior to finishing the plaster boarding to all the walls. Then it’s just a matter of decoration, simples!

I wish!

Paul.