My Home in France
updated 2025

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2005 - 2006

Easter came early this year meaning that the weather was nowhere as warm as last year, in fact just before we returned we had quite a lot of blustery snow showers.

We had just moved house in England, we had 4 nights in our new house, before we set off to France for a well earned rest.

The renovation plans are now moving into their second stage, we had planned a meeting with our Maître d'ouvre, René Langlois due to the closeness of the building work I decided that it may well be worth investing in an interpreter to ensure we fully understood exactly how we wanted to proceed. We have still got a couple of loosed ends which we need to get tied up before the work commences and due to some of the cost being high we have now decided to do a lot of the work ourselves.

The first job was clearing out the barn and putting all the equipment out of it in to something else

We used the oak beams out of the building to construct a shed

Due to the age of the oak we had to pre drill most of the holes to give the nails a change of penetrating the wood

We also had to move the incoming telephone line as at present it runs through the roof of the barn, we also knew that eventually we would need to move the incoming electricity supply again that comes into the barn with the meter on the external wall and the main switch internally. Unfortunately when the work is completed it will leave the main switch situated in the bathroom.

During the first few months of summer both Cath and I terminated our employment in the UK with the intention of permanently moving to France, the plan we had took an eternity to formulate.

The local school contacted and arrangement mad for our daughter to have a trial day.

Our dogs were chipped and vaccinated against rabies.

This pictures shows the kitchen when we first moved in. The one below shows the sink unit fitted.

And then the second unit installed just worktops and hinges and a few final finishes to do.

Then the work top was put on and wood stained. The tiles fitted grouted and a cupboard made for above the hob, wall paper also hung and painted and the ceiling was lowered to insulate the upstairs. A layer of fibre glass was added between the parquet flooring which was the ceiling downstairs then plaster board to finish the ceiling off.

The shutters get a lot of exposure to all the elements, from the baking sun in summer to the wet and freezing temperatures in the winter.

The shutters on the west facing wall get more exposure that the other shutters, after taking them down to initially repair them we found that they needed replacing. These picture shows just how dried and rotten the shutters had become, with some new wood and a few hours a pair of new shutters were made.

Once finished they were tested for size and then treated with wood treatment and varnished.

One of the main jobs we needed to do before winter was to ensure the upstairs was sealed from downstairs.

You can see from the picture below that all that separates the up from downstairs is the parquet flooring. We installed wooden supports.

We used these supports to retain the fibre glass whilst the plasterboard was installed.

The winter allows the hedges to be cut and made tidy and the dry spell has allowed the family time in the garden to enjoy the warm sunshine.

The view across the country side also improved when the thick hedge had a trim the first time for many years.

The Building work made so fast progression starting on Friday 13th January we were spurred on by the arrival of our roofing materials

Later that day the builders came and put the scaffolding up to allow the removal of the fibre cement tiles which was down to us to do.

These pictures taken before we started to strip the section of roof

We started work at 10 on Sunday and by 12 nearly half the tiles were off

After coffee, we started on the second half by 2 all the tiles we needed to remove were off

We are just coming to the end of January and the weather is starting to get very cold, and ended with 10 cm of snow the 1st picture here shows the roof the day before the snow began to fall. 2nd show the first day of snow, The 3rd shows the Tuesday 3 days after we had the heavy snow fall. Although very cold out of the sun, the sun is very warm and is a pleasure to work in.

The snow from the last few days of January is still on the ground, work is well underway on the south facing roof of our barn.

The old tiles are soon gone and the new wood is fitted where needed, then the membrane is fitted. It is not long before the new tiles start to be fitted, once done they return to the north facing roof to fit the velux windows.

At this stage we are tasked with filling the apex of the side wall to seal the old and the new, the weather was very mild, the issue was the wind which held us up for two days. The dormer windows start to get installed, once the first 3 are completed we will need to rebuild the wall before they install the forth one.