My Home in France
updated 2025

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2002

Since 1992 I have visited France more and more until in 2002 my family purchased a property near Chateauroux. And now in 2005 we are living here permanently. This web site is here to show you what we have done in the time we have had the property, tips on what you could do in similar circumstances and to show what we can offer if you would like us to work for you. I use the word us instead of me as the work carried out on our house involves all of us

Pictures: The first section were taken when we viewed the property in August 2002.

A little over grown but my family and I were up for the challenge, the next page will show what is possible in 4 days. Do not be misled by the size of the property there is 90m 2 of habitable space: two up two down.

The last 3 pictures show the out buildings some 100m 2 of floor space with loads of potential. With a lot of hard work we should be able to make this into the main dwelling in years to come.

October 2002

When we arrived the grass and weeds were much the same as we had seen in August. Our fist task was to clean the house and make it habitable we were used to camping so this was not to bad. We did not have full plumbing we had water and electric we had camping equipment for tea and eating, the weather was like a cool English summer with temperatures around 21 degrees.

The plumbing had been disconnected or split apart from frost, it was clear that nobody had lived in the house for a while. French copper pipe is not annealed so it is very difficult to solder the French tend to use a brazing set, nowadays they use plastic or push fit.

Once we had established our selves inside we treated the garden to a minor makeover.

A little cluttered but it is home and ready for Christmas, the heating works so come December we will be on our way back out for a fortnight

The gates had been modified by the previous owners. They had never been fitted as they found the existing gate post style could not take the weight.

The hole was dug out on Christmas Eve, the hardcore and cement purchased on Boxing Day as this is not a holiday in France and all the shops are open as normal.

First some beds: notice the old French bed we found in the outbuilding, the single beds were purchased from 'BUT' in Chateauroux.