Sunday, January 27, 2013

Update - late January

Another busy spell - builders hacking bits out of the house and more slowly putting other bits back together and we've been out shopping for stuff to keep them going.

The builders opened up the chimney from what will be the new salon / sejour, to the sky, which gave us a nice surprise as it appears to be in remarkably good condition and just needs a flue liner inserted and then resealing. Unfortunately we've had a lot of rain and its been pretty chilly so not ideal to have such efficient 'ventilation' just at the moment.  They've also opened up two holes in the back wall of the house to take drains from the new en-suite out into the chai, further increasing the ventilation. Just what we could do with!  They've taken down the built-in wardrobes in the two rooms that will become the master suite and the ceiling didn't fall down, so more good news.  We nipped out (merely a 5 hour trip!) to Leroy Merlin in Bordeaux yesterday to buy new doors for the rooms - remarkably good value and they'll paint well - plus an electric heating mat for the floor which we're hoping will not need too much use, and some new light fittings for the new kitchen.

Speaking of which, the granite worktops are now in place and look terrific. They're a nice blue-ish tint that contrasts well with the cupboards. The kitchen supplier came back last week as well with most of the missing bits and I fitted and plumbed in the sink and dishwasher (having already completed the electrics) so we're using it as the proper kitchen now, although the wall cupboards have yet to be fitted. The old kitchen has become the bureau and storeroom for tools and materials.

The hall now has new wall linings all round and three quarters of a ceiling, and all the electrics in, and the salon has two new wall linings and a new floor, just waiting to dry out sufficiently to lay tiles. But the tiles have to wait until the stone mason has installed the new fireplace - at least the hearth - in the next week or two.

So its all good progress but we need to source new floor covering for upstairs, keep the builder on track finishing off what can be finished and catching up on some of the details that have slipped, before laying the floor tiles downstairs, finishing the flue and chimney, doing the en-suite and opening up the hall ceiling / landing floor ready for the staircase builder to make final measurements and get cracking. Then we'll have a staircase for sale ... and so it goes on.

My mother seems to be settling down well, putting on a bit of weight and really storming ahead with her correspondence and phone calls! Our carer, Andrea, has taken her out for a few walks and drives into Jonzac as well as us taking her out more often ourselves. We took her out to dinner on Thursday to the Hotel de Bordeaux in Pons on Thursday and we all enjoyed a nice meal there. She even went to the hairdressers in Jarnac Champagne this week. (Dentist and chiropodist to follow in the next week or two!)

We're getting through our firewood at a considerable rate this year - the wet weather makes if feel colder than it really is, and we need to keep the house warmer than we'd usually do, for my mother - we can't just leave her in her warm apartment all the time.

Monday, January 14, 2013

New Year Update


Gosh, what a long time since we updated this!  A lot has happened, so here’s a summary (though its still a bit long!).

We’ve had a mostly grey and wet autumn and winter so far, with occasional beautiful bright days, but looking on the bright side we’ve had very few sub-zero nights and no snow (so far) and there are some signs of spring in the air as many plants are sprouting.  Rhys pruned the grape vines today.

Although the builders returned later than planned, mid-November instead of October, the house has made significant progress. What used to be the dining room is well on the way to becoming a super kitchen. The base units are in and once a local artisan stone fabricator turns up this week with the new granite work surfaces then the rest of the units can be fitted. The room no longer has a ceiling that looks like it might fall on your head mid-meal!  It also has new patio doors that are twice the width of the old ones so they let in lots of light and give a great view of the garden and pool.

The hallway is now back to being a proper entrance hall and no longer contains granny’s ‘wonderful’ dark blue bathroom.  A local craftsman, Philippe Jolly, is making us a new oak staircase and Rhys has been busy doing the re-wiring with our builders fixing the floor, walls and ceiling.

The salon is starting to take shape and the same local artisan who is doing the kitchen work surfaces is making us a stone fireplace to give the room a focal point and a source of heat as we’ll be installing a wood-burning stove in there. We are busy trying to scrape blue and green paint off the original stone window surrounds; it is a mystery to us what possessed people to put thick layers of gloss paint on the beautiful pale stone.  We need to change the wood burning stove in the other room as well because apparently the type we have there became obsolete and was condemned in 1993! However, according to the stone chap, the fireplace itself is quite modern as it’s only about 100 years old!

We’ve had a number of jobs done outside as well so our hangar, cellier and pigsties no longer flood when it rains, which is a bonus, due to a new concrete floor and proper drains to take any rain to a soakaway. Our half-demolished barn is still only half demolished as we’ve not had the time or the weather to complete it but we’re sure we’ll get there before too long.

We still seem to be of great interest to the locals as cars slow down to take a good look at what is going on (we’re surprised there hasn’t been a accident yet!) and we seem to get local groups of walkers who blatantly stand at the fence pointing out things to each other, but our French is not quite up to challenging them yet.
One of our neighbours, a cousin of the chap from whom we bought the house, told us that it was actually built in 1856. We have no idea how he can be that accurate but it fits with what our stone artisan has told us – he guessed at just before 1860 to 1870 when the phylloxera plague wiped out most French grape vines and destroyed a lot of wealth here.

We still haven't got chickens of our own but the ones from next door are regular visitors and the red squirrels have been very busy in the garden this year, so we’re expecting oak and walnut trees to spring up all over the place as they keep planting nuts and acorns.

Rhys’ mum now lives with us in our apartment; she came out here on November 25th and because she has quite poor health we are much more frequent visitors to the doctors than we have been before so we know lots more about the French health system than we did. So far it’s very good and she’s impressed. Hopefully we won’t have to test it too far ourselves for a while.

The village now benefits from a new boulangerie, where they seem to be very busy with customers coming from many of the surrounding villages, and we hope they'll be successful. The restaurant/bar/café has also re-opened and it also serves as a shop for basic supplies, and we hope these people can make a go of it, unlike the previous 2 proprietors.

We had lots of visitors last year and are hoping for many more this year. We’ve made many new friends here but very much want to maintain our old friendships and have family and friends to visit especially as we’re no longer able to get about as much as we’d like due to Rhys’ mum not being able to be left to fend for herself for long.

We'll try not to leave it so long till the next update.