Full House

Timeline: Thursday 14 June: We are a busy site of six chaps and a dog today, as the mason arrived prompt at 08h00 to cut all the new window openings, shortly followed by a roofer who set about relaying lovely old canal clay tiles over the grotty corrugated cement covering what will become the site laundry room.

Coco, Kevin the roofer’s dog, making herself at home

Meanwhile Paul is finishing off the wardrobe to the grand maison front guest room, while I’m revising the roof specification with the aim of getting the roofs to the maison d’amis and barn underway as soon as practical.

Meanwhile the bride finally made it back to the UK late yesterday after waiting four hours to get her aeroplane fixed. Why on earth the airline couldn’t find a mechanic any closer to Tours than Paris is a mystery, particularly one who seemingly must only travel by bicycle! Bonkers!!

Anyway, all is well and building work progressing a tad faster with so many workers and as the days roll by, a new routine has developed. I’m up at 07h20 and up to the bakers for breakfast croissants, back and with two pots of coffee on and the main gates open for the mason’s arrival. Paul and I have our breakfast and the masons have the second pot of coffee before starting promptly a few minutes after eight.

After I agreed the price with the head mason, a lovely man called Eric, I had imagined upon their first arrival, they would unload the stones from the truck, all carved at their workshop and begin cutting the openings and installing the stone surrounds. Oh silly me, no, the first thing the masons did was to take over the garage space of the barn and set up their workshop, while the boss went off to bring a large quantity of beautiful golden coloured tuffeau blocks to be carved on site. This was marvelous! The sound one then heard over the next few afternoons was the gentle tap, tap, tap of the stone carver’s mallets as they cut and shaped the stones into cill and jamb sections ready for phase 2. Meanwhile, the other part of phase 1 was in the mornings, when some very large holes indeed were cut through the stone wall of the ancient maison d’amis. The large size was necessary due to the sheer mass of the stone surrounds to be inserted once the stones had been carved and the openings formed.

A wardrobe with a secret!

Stonemason's tools, just the same as hundreds of years ago

Big scarey hole!

Getting there

Cleaning the old stone made a huge difference

Now for some terracing, well the BBQ's got to go somewhere!

The masons were with us for three weeks and every day we marvelled at their skill and cheerful joy of doing what they did well. I have come to know the proprietor of the company much better and he has shared so much with us and been remarkably helpful in many ways. His wife runs a gîte just outside the village and he was happy to share some good advice to us novice would be gîte operators and unlike one might have expected from a competitor, he wished us every success and I’m sure we will remain friends and indeed work together again.

We’re now looking forward to the window delivery on the 13th July and the installation on the 16th. Progress!

More soon,

LC