Well Tooled Up!

Timeline: October/November: We had a lively few days with our god daughter’s party, including her university friend, her sister and her sister’s boyfriend and despite a little precipitation, we got out and about to see a few sights in the three days before they departed to Italy and the USA. With two geologists, caves were very much on the menu and we managed two wonderful collections of these at Brézé and Doué, did some wine and cheese tastings, enjoyed the delights of the bustling Saumur Saturday market and hopefully left them with a flavour of the area, which I assure you is even better when not raining! On a personal note, we particularly enjoyed having Laura, Emily and their friends to stay and we wish we could see more of them and their family, whom we have known right back to our teenage years. Come back again guys, you are most welcome.

Although I was acting tour driver and guide, the bride and I managed to slip away and order our kitchen for the maison d’amis, just in time to get a sizable discount and are expecting delivery by the middle of November, when most of the work on the little house will be completed.

Having had to dash to the UK to attend to some matters, the ground floor of the maison d’amis had been transformed by clean fresh plasterwork thanks to Kevin’s first class skills, while plumbing and electrical works have also leapt forward and this little time capsule is coming back to life again with a smile on its face thanks to a skills of our hard working team.

We’ve now trying to get to grips with the magnificent, yet lack lustre oak beams. I’m also giving some thought on colour and texture of the walls and ceilings. A sympathetic look and feel for the age of the building is desirable and further research is necessary before we get closer to what this little cottage deserves. The floors however are remarkably easy, as they are the lovely and ancient tomette clay tiles to both floors, which need only cleaning and light restoration. We had to do a little jiggery pokery upstairs to get a structural metal tie rod to sit more or less flush with the floor tiles and the look of exposed metal now adds to the feel of the living heritage of this large bedroom suite. This is one of my favourite places on the whole site, as it’s already a wonderful space in which to contemplate the rest of the word from, having some fine stone features, magnificent timberwork, a high cathedral ceiling and the space filled with natural light.

Having obtained a sand blaster when in the UK, I needed an air compressor to power it and after some research into one of my seemingly favourite topics, namely ‘tools’, a shiny new twin cylinder 11 bar compressor with a 150 litre tank now sits in the workshop, together with a small, yet carefully selected collection of air tools, so useful for the cars as well as the building work.

Attempts of removing well bonded 100 year old rock hard lead paint from equally dense oak beams, even with such manly air-power tools, proved tedious as well as greedily consuming large quantities of grit, so the sand blaster will be reserved for the many other unpainted antique timer beams, while the ground floor timberwork will be rubbed down and painted white, together with the plaster ceiling. This will still be in keeping with the original treatment of the house decor and will give the ground floor a cleaner and lighter look than the previous two-tone green.

I had to relent slightly with the floor finish to the ground floor bathroom and selected some new grey and white ceramics for this slightly smaller room to maintain a comfortably cosy and cosseted feeling of intimacy.

Other than have modern doors everywhere, Paul has made all of the cupboard and wardrobe doors in the effort to preserve the hand crafted feel of the building. These will be sanded and waxed and then hung with appropriate hand finished ironwork furniture to complete the look. He’s also working on a new iron studded external door for the upstairs suite.

Autumn is well and truly with us now and we are still having plenty of sunny days, which is good for the external work. My brother in law is arriving in a few days to install the upgraded electrical site distribution network and I have some trenches to dig for these. Unfortunately, the mini digger company cannot deliver the machine for the foreseeable future, so it’s hand digging again for a couple of days, which is just as well now there are already numerous underground drains, water and electrical cables to avoid down there!

Next time: Preparations for Christmas, finishing off the maison d’amis and oh no . . . more digging in the dirt as the poste de relevage arrives!

A bientôt,

LC