The Boys Done Good !

Timeline: 6 Avril 2014: Almost fully recovered from the fall, I'm now working on three fronts, proving that blokes really can multi-task, as we re-lay the barn drain following too many large delivery lorries giving it a dip in the middle, continue fitting the barn kitchen and putting new external lime render on the Maison du Vigneron, which is already looking splendid only four days from starting to put scaffold up.

Getting back last night from a trip to my UK dentist, it was a joy to find the building devoid of the old and wearing the new base coat of lime render, with the site utility suite now wearing a finished top coat of render and a smiley face is watching over the courtyard!

I strongly suspect that the new render, which will eventually extend down the length of the outbuilding’s tired lower stonework, will quickly make the rest of the un-restored buildings look even shabbier, but hopefully retain some chic as well!

Yep, drains up again!

I’d made a reservation to hire a mini digger, as even the thought of exposing a short length of buried drain by hand mad my back ache. Unfortunately, the digger’s trailer had an agricultural pin and eye hitch which our tow vehicle couldn’t handle and so the next weekend saw me wielding pick axe and shovel and with Dan’s strong back joining in the next week, we found and fixed the problem the and now plan putting in some flower beds over the drain to keep traffic off and break up the sea of gravel.  

Never ending Ikea boxes

Meanwhile, the barn kitchen was neatly stacked out with over a hundred Ikea boxes. I’ve quickly became impressed with the pictorial instructions and the quality of the Swedish designed product and many kitchen units and a week later, I still had over a hundred Ikea boxes!

Progress is good though, we just designed ourselves a large kitchen!

I’m hoping for the VW truck to be fixed soon, so will have the opportunity to restore the old ‘hanger’, or open sided barn for dedicated gite guest parking.

More soon, a bientôt,

LC

Is It A Bird, Is It A Plane . . . No?

Timeline: 12 February 2014: There's never a good time to fall off a ladder, so if you absolutely must, best let the time choose you and so the ladder chucked me off last Thursday morning and I landed two and a half metres below on my arse, then spent most of the rest of the day in Saumur hospital. Thankfully nothing was broken, but I've a huge bruised lump on my padded landing area and fortunately only one broken ceramic floor tile! Yes, the floor tiles have been laid!

As I lay on the floor, feeling more hopeless than helpless with my right ankle locked in the rungs of an ancient and very heavy ladder, in shock and failing to understand what had just happened, I do recall saying something remarkably stupid like, ‘No, I don’t need you to call an ambulance, I’m just winded’ and then faster than I thought possible, an emergency ‘first responder’ arrived, as his full time job had placed him right outside our gates emptying the contents of the bin into the refuse truck, his part time job being a fireman with paramedic training. The ride to hospital was frustrating not so much from discomfort of uneven road surfaces playing percussion with my back, but by the ambulance crew not allowing me to doze! By the time my hospital processing begun however, I was pretty much zoned out with pain and shock to appreciate three women taking all my clothes off! Two hours and six X-rays later, the doctor broke the news that no bones were broken, but I’d have to stay off work for four days and even gave me a medical certificate (I must give it to the bride) and a prescription for some rather effective pain relief.

So, back at the barn, the kitchen has progressed rapidly and is looking good. All the tiles laid, I set about finding a complimentary coloured grout. Realising I’d need to do some test pieces under the kitchen units, I set off to buy small bags of likely candidates for kitchens with large format tiles. The colour choice was staggering: black, white, grey, chocolate brown and the ivory we realised was the only sensible choice. Against the nobbly cream tiles, however, the grout looked bright yellow, but it needed to dry out and would lighten in colour. Two days later showed no change, hmm, not sure about this. The next day wasn’t much better, but after another two days I went out and got enough to do the whole kitchen, as it the colour match is just right. Note to self: wide tile gaps filled 10mm deep with wet grout takes a full 5 days to fully dry out!  

The under floor heating incidentally, is working wonderfully and I’m looking forward to padding downstairs in my bare feet next winter and enjoying a big slice of the day in the kitchen.

Meanwhile upstairs, half of the chestnut strip parquet floor has been laid and I’m looking to complete the remainder when I return from my rest trip to the UK next week, so for now its au revoir et a bientôt from me,

LC

Happy New Year

Timeline: Christmas Eve 2013, Hampshire, England: The man flu I got when last in the UK in November, returned the day after I got back and I was in bed feeling only as bad as sick men can, when the door bell got me up to croak a greeting to Sylvia from next door, who was asking if we also had problems with our drains. Just what I need thought I, but rather than wait for the bride to get back, I realised that she wouldn’t really be thrilled with the prospect of looking into manholes, so at death’s door and sporting a dressing gown and slippers, I was lifting manhole covers on the rear terrace on a dark drizzly evening with a torch clenched between my teeth to confirm that, blissfully unaware ten minutes before, we had a drain problem!

Now the only person I was actually looking forward to seeing more than Santa that evening was the ‘Drain Doctor’, but his first words brought no cheer to myself, the bride, or our two sets of neighbours. ‘You didn’t say you was on a shared sewer’ said the doc, ‘Yes I did’ said Dave, ‘I told your office it was shared with three houses when I called you out’ he confirmed. ‘Well we don’t do shared sewers, so you should’ve called the Water Board’ replied the doc. ‘This is getting silly’ someone said, ’so why don’t you just give it a try and we’ll get you a cuppa’ A clever ploy to which he replied, ‘Have you got any mince pies?’ We had him and the bride made the tea and gave the doc some of my mince pies! Fortunately the great big squelchy noisy whirly sucky thing on wheels did the trick and we could all uncross our legs and enjoy Christmas with not having to go the pub to use the toilet.

It was very cold and frosty every single morning with rain most of the time, but I revelled in the company of the bride and our pussy cats and we enjoyed seeing a number of really good friends.

Timeline: January 2014, Le Clos de la Rose, France: By contrast, the Loire valley and our lovely village is blessed with no frost, little rain, some sun, blue skies and a high of 22 deg in the sun outside the door today, as Koko the plaster’s dog sunbathes on the doormat.

This first week of work has everyone fully energised after the holiday and we’ve made a great start to the year. The electrician completed all first fix items between Christmas and the New Year, so started on the upstairs second fix and has all light fittings and the two ceiling fans in the living room and library fitted. We still need to buy the bathroom lights and all switches, sockets, etc. The bathroom is practically complete with just the heated towel rail and bath panel cladding to finish. 

Meanwhile the plasterboard between the ceiling beams is complete and the plastering has begun with the back kitchen wall and the first ceiling panels completed in a single day.

Timeline: 20 January 2014: Today was as busy as usual, but was notable for being one of those days where things looked to advance remarkably. I spent two days last week scraping and rubbing at the stone walls getting ready for pointing, which was all wrapped up today with sections of internal lime rendering and careful, yet efficient work by Kev and Dan had us all smiling as we swept up and realised that the room was now looking rather splendid. 

Finishing touches

I’ll clear the room tomorrow, after a little final plastering, as the tiller is coming the next day to start the floor. I’m also looking forward to a local artisan coming to carefully take site dimensions before starting to make the staircases and balustrades in spider resisting chestnut, which should be ready to install in March.

A bientôt,

LC

IKEA Bad Timing

Timeline, December 2013: I had set myself the task of getting to grips with three important elements on the barn before returning to spend our last Christmas in the UK. The plan was to have the kitchen, installation of wood burning stove and the staircases on order, but France was in no hurry to rush into these things. The kitchen had been progressing through our in-house design processes, while the wood burning stove company decided they simply didn’t want to come out and play, even after we visited their offices to arrange a site visit. This left a minor success in having received two indicative prices and drawings for the staircases, so there was at least hope of getting one, or possible two out of three targets into play. 

After much looking at websites, brochures, showrooms and other peoples kitchens, we finally decided on IKEA for ours and after using their rather nifty internet design tool, followed by much discussion and revision, the bride et moi finally sat down together with a laptop just before Christmas to order our kitchen on-line.

Calling up the website, we were met with the proud announcement that IKEA were pleased to announce their first all new kitchen design for decades, together with the discontinuation of the kitchen we were just about to order. Customers are still able to buy the discontinued line and still have the benefit of the 25 year warranty. Yeah right, so what happens if we want to change something round in a year or two? Or how about actually getting every piece of a new kitchen from a discontinued range where the units will be in the winter sale to get rid of them! Hmmm and to cap it all, the new range is not compatible with the old one and cannot even be seen on the web until February and even later in store. Brilliant! All that time wasted and a delay in being able to poach some eggs. Cheers IKEA, the new one better be exceedingly fab and groovy and have the same feel and finish we were after!

Actually, I found the new Metod range brochure on-line on IKEA’s Egyptian website and while still short on detail, there is still hope, so, we’re looking forward to the new IKEA kitchen range launch over here and getting stuck back in.

A bientôt,

LC

Technology du Vin

Timeline: Saturday 3 November 2013: La maman de Marcel passed from this life a couple of months ago and my friend, saddened enough by this event, has been sifting through the lifetime of memories and emotions in the household, as he and his wife make preparations to sell the old house and move on with life to the more happy times ahead.

We were in our kitchen sharing some local bubbles with Marcel and Brigitte when the bride and I were invited to visit the old house by the church which we reverently did. The house wore the patina of age graciously and we were soon discovering plenty of treasures holding an abundance of social and family history. Our friends insisted we were helping to clear the house and were pleased that numerous items were going to an appreciative new home, rather than to a house clearance company.

In consequence, we have wonderful top and bowler hats in their original purpose made boxes, both bearing matching maker’s names; kitchen balance scales with a set of brass weights; a bedroom nightstand wash set; a pair of forged iron fire dogs made by Marcel’s brother (now residing on the Maison d’Amis’s hearth, but not the brother!) and a multitude of wine glasses. We continued through the outbuildings finding other gems and came across a huge antique wine press of the type you used to see all over France many decades ago and whilst lusting over such an iconic piece of rural French heritage, we realised it really wouldn’t fit anywhere, unfortunately : (

A couple of weeks later, Marcel e-mails me asking me to bring two friends along to help with the delivery of the wine press. Well did you really think we could possibly pass up the opportunity to look after such a relic, particularly a fully serviceable example?

Despite Marcel’s tractor and trailer, it still took nine of us 30 minutes to extricate the remarkably heavy oak and iron contraption out of its old home and onto the trailer and after driving it the short distance to its new home, another 45 minutes getting it into one of the larger outbuildings, where its now feeling quite at home amongst a profusion of wine barrels.

Just thinking!

 

. . . and discussing

Bon installation!

The exercise particularly reminded me of the Year in Provence story from Peter Mayle when the delivery and positioning of a similarly large and heavy stone table was only affected by the equally robust application of French manpower. Much advice, heaving, lifting, pushing, pulling, levering and grunting ensued after which there was the traditional celebratory vin d’honneur to seal the deed.

A bientôt,

LC

Concrete Day

Timeline: Friday 11 October, 07h00: I couldn’t sleep. My back was telling me to get up, so I made coffee. The scalding liquid is getting the caffeine into my system, needed to get going with the day and I can feel the benefit straight away as my brain opens to the idea of conscious thought and hands control back to the day shift.

07h20 and I’m processing the tasks to be accomplished before lunch, as between 13h30 and 14h00, our biggest yet and certainly the heaviest truck is paying us a visit. So big and butch it is, that it will park outside of the gates in the road and deliver its slippery load via a big bore pump and 50 metres of hose. Yes, it’s Concrete Day!

Kevin and Daniel arrive and start clearing the ground floor of plasterboard stock, the staff canteen and the rubbish heap from the upstairs work and a bonfire is soon reducing the rubbish in the rear garden. An hour is sufficient for clearance and someone remarks how big the room is again. Well, we aim to entertain many people, so just as well!

Service pipes and cables are arranged and secured to be concreted in optimum positions and I lay a cable duct to the kitchen island unit and anchor it down with concrete paving stones.

Preparation complete, the men go back to plastering upstairs and I to acid cleaning the bathroom floor in Le Grenier and at 12h40, the little concrete pump truck turns and sets up outside the barn, rapidly told to get back on the road outside, as I’m not risking 15 tonnes of big concrete truck slowly trundling over the cellars!

With all hands to the pump, repositioning is rapidly executed and the pipeline snakes along the courtyard and through the kitchen doors and as I go and help Paul the electrician with a tall radiator in Le Grenier, the big boy truck rocks up and miraculously doesn’t block the road, which would have caused great consternation with the large tractor/tailor units trundling about the village with the fruit of the grape harvest, still in full swing. 

 

 

The rest of the operation went as smooth as silk and the plant delivered a steady viscous stream of fibre reinforced self levelling concrete directly to where it was needed. It hardly required any assistance to steer it into place and just 20 minute after the start button was pressed on the remote control channel zapper, our carefully measured 15cm of slab was in place and with a perfectly smooth top surface, ready to receive damp proof membrane, insulation, screed, heating element and tile in due course.

All that remained to do was a clean-up, pay the big truck man and since we couldn't walk on the liquid slab to get upstairs until Monday, adjourn to the village bar for some well earned refreshment!

A bientôt,

LC

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Catchup

I’m up early today, Sunday, to see off a lovely couple of clients at 07h00 and have just looked at my email to see a note from the bride commenting the I’ve been so busy with the barn, that my last blog entry was three months ago! It’s true then. Time really does fly when you’re having fun!

The rental season is drawing to a close as our last guests are still sleeping soundly in the Maison d’Amis and we will be pushing even harder getting the barn habitable by the end of the year. 2014 will be very different for us, as we all finally become whole again, living under one beautifully restored roof after living much of the last two years apart. Anyhow, probably more of the sentimental stuff nearer the time, but for now, it’s time to bring the story up to date as far as life in France is concerned.

July 2013: Wow, the hot weather has been with us for a few weeks now and it’s being precisely what it would say on its the tin, if you could can it, hot !!!

Low 30s in the shade to 40ish in direct sunlight would normally cause havoc for physical labour, but now that practically all work is inside the barn, with its thick stone walls, well insulated new roof and the windows open, the interior remains pleasantly cooler. So while gîte guests enjoy the heat, we chaps set about the transformation of our 200 year old barn into our new home. All the team know of our commitment to sensitive restoration and they appreciate how we feel about the graceful inspiring space which we are working with. In consequence, the barn is also working with us in as design solutions and details emerge with the barn’s help and as each day passes, the feeling of this wonderful old building being our home grows stronger.

While we wait for deliveries of hardcore and concrete for the ground floor, up above, we’ve cut a huge stair well to give views of both floors from wherever you are and there’s a new floor and timber studwork to the perimeter walls, while the first of four roof trusses has been cleaned of centuries of grime and a soft red hued timber has been revealed beneath. This will be further sanded, treated for long lasting protection and receive a final finish of linseed oil for a fine natural lustre.

New sub-floor

Lounge and library end

Multi-layered foil and bubble insulation

Perimeter studwork

We’ll continue with the two main intermediate stud partitions next week to form the bedroom and its bathroom, so by the following week, all will be ready for the electrician and plumber to start.

July can’t be allowed to slip past without a mention of my favourite village event of the year, this being 17^th Grand Prix Retro, held over the weekend of the 27 and 28^th July. The weather was hot and sunny and the carnival atmosphere gave everyone happy smiles, well that and the inexpensive temporary bars!

One of the most popular vehicles this year was a handy little pre-war Peugeot pick-up truck, containing a couple of keyboards, a PA system and a man happy to belt out a selection of music most of the day. He parked up next to one of the bars and had the place jumping when he started into his blues and rock repertoire. Absolute unexpected magic!

The spectacle of the ‘nocturne’, or night racing, returns for 2014. This is similar to the Singapore GP, but without so much lighting and is much more friendly and we already have a gîte booking for the weeks either side of the event.

Would love to have one of these!

Play it Sam!

 

August 2013: The hot weather continues and I’m watering the plants every day as there has been no rain to speak of since early last month. It’s great for the gîte clients though and we are full for all month.

We continue work almost exclusively on the barn, but take some time on the garden with the long overdue removal of the big pine and a dead cherry tree. The pine, a Christmas tree which must have been planted one January as quite a good idea at the time some 30 years ago, is taller than the barn and completely dominates the view from the two new first floor gable windows.

Plasterboard Paul arrives with a trailer containing a ladder, three chain saws (bonus points on the manly power tools front), lots of rope, assorted hand tools, one of the anchor chains from the Queen Mary and a helper named Anthony who plays guitar.

Just some trimming to the hedge

Progress is rapid and 30 years of slow growth is disappeared from the landscape in 30 minutes. The rest of the day is spent in reducing the tree to handy lengths to fit in the oversized trailer and following several trips to the tip, a garden is revealed appearing at least twice the size it was pre-tree. The additional usable space is remarkable and makes a valuable contribution to how we can better enjoy the garden. 

Meanwhile, a large Tonka toy was skilfully reversed through the gates and delivered 15 tonnes of crushed stone outside the barn and Dan and I set to in moving it inside and then compact it with a neat little vibrating plate, called a whacker. Yep, it does exactly what its name suggests and woe betide anyone who runs their toes over with it!

Half the stone fill left to get inside

Getting there

Whacked!!!

Concrete next . . . well soonish!

The fill all in and compacted means that we can finally plan getting the concrete floor slab laid and as this entails almost 8 cubic metres of concrete, we’ll be using ready mix. With the best will in the world, I cannot bring myself to believe that our gîte guests would see the visit of a huge ready mix truck with a 50 metre hose snaking along the courtyard pumping concrete, as a worthy holiday attraction, so we wait for the height of the season to pass before we can pump the concrete floor, so back up to the first floor. 

September 2013: Upstairs, albeit no actual staircase yet, progress has been spectacular, thanks not only to the great team, but also the lack of any need to chase the walls for pipes and cables. This was achieved by our desire to have to put as little heating effort into the building in winter as possible and so all perimeter walls have been faced with insulated plasterboard on a timber framework. This has saved a good 2 weeks of programme and by the end of the month, we’ll be ready for 2nd fix electrics and then decorating! 

Insulated plasterboard is then plastered

Meanwhile, I’ve begun decorating the upstairs suite of our little gîte, in readiness for baby sister's big birthday bash in October and we’ve begun the planning stage of the rear gardens with loads of great ideas from a nearby garden centre open day, not to mention a few more plants! 

So more soon as I try to post more regularly, despite the workload!

Wow, I clean forgot to mention my recent experience of the French Health Service, following a little mishap (absolutely no manly power tools were involved!) and am pleased to report that outstanding service and treatment was obtained, so bye for now and thank you for reading.

A bientôt,

LC