Renovation... at a snails' pace... but, we're really getting there!

Yes... renovation at a snail's pace...That's how life in Brittany has seemed so far for us. Most enjoyable of course. And all of the peripheral stuff that goes on, the 'time off for good behaviour' when we knock off at 4 O'clock in the afternoon for a drive to the coast for Moules Marinieres or to Lake Guerledan for a woodland walk around the lake; you have to have a sense of balance - so progress can sometimes be painfully slow over time with intense short bursts and, yet tempered by gentle relaxation.

We spend around two months of each year there in bite sized (two week) chunks. Infuriating at times because I always feel that we don't have sufficient time 'at the coal-face' to get the required amount of work done each trip. It's a slow burn toward job satisfaction. But first I have to roll out once again... that we have done 6 return trips each year for 16 years now. So that's 192 crossings of La Manche (that's what our French cousins call what we know, pretentiously, as the 'English' Channel) lol. 192 trips WITHOUT an upgrade to the 'smoothy' Commodore cabin with proper beds, TV, en suite and free part stocked minibar. Now that would never happen on Virgin or BA!

But sorry... I digress (as usual)... Renovating! Our house was worth a lot more than we paid for it back in 1999, but we weren't complaining about that. It had water it had electrics and someone, I'm guessing a friend of the family had spent a lot of time 'improving' things apart from a dozen or so holes in the roof that were beginning to allow nature in... the 'friend in the trade' had begun by taking out Breton fireplaces and the stone or timber corbels set deep into the walls that supported their superstructure. Tragedy! Well not impossible to replace, but almost a step too far. The work had been designed to turn an 18th Century farmhouse  internally to a'la Parisienne', to cover the rustic stone walls with flat walls that any home counties Barratt home would be proud of... and there were many other examples of the artisan's craft if, often, in the wrong direction for the preferences of many would-be Breton longere owners. But thank heavens we came along when we did! And it was all there to be uncovered and to revert to using original materials and maybe also techniques that would have been used 250 years ago. It's beena real privilege.

Initially there was roofing work, extension of electrics, extending water supply to 'next door' (for bathroom 1) solid floor for the lounge, creating a temporary kitchen (which actually hasn't yet been converted to a permanent one - but we're working on that. We have tiled throughout the ground floor (it took us 4 years before we actally found the tiles that we always knew we wanted. I did spend 6 weeks in residence on my own - way back now - fitting up the bathroom in what we call the low-loft... Now most people would think that was a long time to be messing around with a few copper pipes. In fact if you have to create the floors, walls/ceilings, fit the doorway as well as the obvious plumbing for bath, basins, bidet and loo, well it's actually not that long single handed. I thought my mouth was going to heal up from lack of use as I was so into it that I went out very rarely and, by getting up early and going to bed late, managed to lose two and a half stone in weight! Only to be recommended as part of a calorie controlled diet. I did though manage also to update the websites - even given that in those days our software was steam driven and the simplest amendments were very long winded... Oh for an eight day week!

So now we have a 60sq metre loft over the kitchen and dining room (where the previous owners had just a store for things they no longer wanted) but now it includes a bathroom, a lounge area and bedroom area meaning that visiting family or friends have a self contained suite. On the other side... the three storey part of the house, we have replaced the lounge floor (this was an oak floor that whilst it looked good superficially, had been laid directly on to earth and also had dry rot) that went straight out and was burnt - without even warming the house up) we smashed down the terracotta internal walls from the 1960s and used them as hardcore for a solid concrete floor which is now tiled. Regrets? Yes...Why didn't we lay the wiring for underfloor heating? OK... too late for that now - so thank heavens we now have the biggest woodburner it's possible to get and it fits snugly into the hearth where the 'paris style' mahogany (it offered about one tenth of the heat needed for the 35sq metre space).

Most recently we have begun reclaiming the last loft, the one above our preferred bedroom, on the 3 storey side of the house...I have skimmed the oak roof timbers to remove excess worm ridden areas and generally clean them up and Xylophane treated thewhole loft twice. An original spiral staircase which had been badly sandblasted (all the softer grain had been blown out leaving razor sharp hard grain)...and anyway 250 years of use had taken its toll. So a new oak spiral has been made and installed but until our last trip it remained a couple of treads short of the new top floor level. With my O'level woodwork from 52 years ago I have finished the job off by chasing into the central pillar to support the inside of the step and cut stone out on the wall side it has come together well. We have already laid 35sq metres of tongue and groove flooring on new chevron/joists to level up a new top over original oak boards which have never really offered what modern occupants expect of a floor. Next we will suspend insulation to sit between the tile batten, membrane and roof slate and the plaster-board which will sit at purlin level. We will repair and rebuild the low external walls to meet the plasterboard before building cupboards and shelving to skirt the edges of the room.... More later... But I don't know how much later!

But...we're getting there!