Electricity & EDF & Solar panels rant

You can cath a sideway view of my beautiful bay window... but also the montain of electrical cables. Electricity is something that I have difficutly understanding and no wish to understand but I had to be able to understand a minimum to chat to the electrician. Should have paid attention to those lessons in physics at school....nevermind.
Anyways, so the place was more or less rewired wherever necessary and now it is up to standard. We went from a EDF TRI-phased to MONO-phased contract... that was a long and painful conversation with EDF and the electrician for me. Still not sure how it works but the upshot is that now you can use all the electrical point (washing machine + toaster+ kettle+ lights+ heating etc) without having the lot cutting off which can happen when you use TRI-phased system (not good for holiday rental accommodation). This also means that your Kw contract in Mono should be be less than in TRI. And therefore your contract should cost a bit less. However, EDF just annonced that they are gonna raise the cost of electricity by 20% over the next 3 years. Oh dear.... Maybe should have gone with solar panels... Solar panels would have been good but:
1. The cost is really high. I know it should be looked at as an investement but I did not have the budget to invest... 15000 to 20000 euros (minimum) would give you about 2.2 kw which would have been just enough to power a toaster and the hot water system. That is an expensive shower! So it was out of the question.
2. The use of the house is seasonal so what to do with the electricity not used. You can sell it back to EDF. I think they buy it at a preferential rate now but only for the next few years. Also I understnad that it is considered as a revenue and therefore taxed and VAT- ed. So a bit more paper work...
3. You can get some financial help and tax credit with solar pannel installation. But I am not a french resident so a bit pointless for me.
4. A lot of eco-friendly solution is cost on self- built basis. So it is fine if you are a builder yourself but when like me you have to pay for installation, it become costly....
5. You have to factor in the region you live in. Great for anyone living south of Aix en Provence but not sure about Burgundy where the summer is quite short....(but still very nice don't get me wrong, potential renters!)
6. It is ugly! What is the point of having charming reclaimed hand made local roof tiles if you are going to cover it with metres of dark metallic pannels. It is possible to stick them on the ground but you need the space, and built trenches for the cables etc....

In the end, I think solar energy is great but it has to fit your purpose. If you live all year round in a house where you collect rain water, self recycle, resuse, where you have a huge garden (to hide your panels somewhere), where you are happy with maximum 17 degre living temperature in winter, where you use low volatage bulbs (and become blind) and where the sun shines 300 days/365; and where you have 20.000 euros plus to invest: well, fine. But I am sorry but for our project it really did not make sense financially, pratically and esthetically....

We have a bathroom! yeah

The en-suite bathroom is finished upstairs (minus electricity stuff and paint) and so far I am pretty pleased with the result; particularly with the shower area. It is huge.
The architect and I had many hours of discussion and arguments about this bathroom which was drawn half a dozen times. The difficulty came mainly from the fact that it is situated under the "rampant" (slopping roof) and therefore came the question of where to stick the shower area since you need a least 2.5 metres in height. Also the architect was stuck on the idea of separating the loo from bathroom. Yes good idea but that meant another door and another partition which meant another 1000/1500 euros for me. So no no no...
Also on second thought, maybe we should have put some old style reclaimend sink/matching loo. But those tend to be so expensive....I did not really want to spend 500 euros on a sink. I preferred to spend the money on the "tommettes" (flooring and tiling).
We had to have the all important VMC (ventilation mecanique controlee). Since the bathroom is north facing, it was very very important to include ventilation to avoid condensation/humidity otherwise after a while the place would have been covered with mould. The VMC had to be "coffree" ie. hidden behind insulated plaster board to avoid the noise....This was the result of over 1 hour conversation with the architect, the electricien and Mr M.
Also the other 1 hour conversation was on the problem of shower curtain vs a clean glass door. Not that I lost sleep on it but in the end it will be a shower curtain. Sorry! The glass door would have been inpractical given the set up of the bathroom and again a purchase that was a bit extravagant for the budget. This bathroom is a good example how a budget can go out of hand if not careful....

Bedroom Ground Floor

It is hard to believe this was once a grubby garage. Now it is looking closer to a luxury double (over 20 sqm) bedroom with a great view through the large bay window. Once the bay window is totally open, you bring in the outside inside. Really nice. It will be even better once painted and particularly once the stone foor has been laid.
For more info on the window check out www.bieber-bois.com. Interestingly enough, the price quoted initially in December 08 was 1/3 more expensive in April 09. Talk about global crisis! The architect somewhat had forgotten to forward the final quote...arghargh.
And also be aware that where they say they deliver it is only to the door or in our case to the gate since the truck coulnd't get it. The driver got all p***** off when he had to give Mr M. a hand to bring it all on site. At 7.30 am, it was a bit of a annoying situation.... They also delivered some crappy plastic shutter stopper. Ah bonjour le service!

Bedroom first floor

It is really hard to take decent photos of those two bedrooms because they are crowded with stuff and I don't have a fish-eye. But lets say Mr M. did a very good job on the partition walls. It was very tricky since there are beams everywhere. So altogether in the end we will end up with a double en suite interconnecting with a twin. In the twin there is a "balcon a la Juliette" - ie a door opening with little balcony opening onto the stairway to let the light in. The views from both bedrooms are of the fields where you can catch my neighbours and her goats...

Kitchen

Hidden behind furniture and building material, there is a kitchen, well there is a lovely sandstone sink. I went to pick the hand made tiling which are made in the area and sold by the same guy that sells the "tomettes" (www.terres-cuites-de-courboissy.fr). Not the most contemporary pattern, but I think it will go nicely with the "tradional/rural" look of the kitchen/sink. Hopefully the tiles should be sorted in the next couple of weeks...I have to be patient with the tile-dude since he is very moody....

New Look

This is how the house is looking today. Velux plus the fantastic doors in the old garage area....