Les choses qui fachent

As the works are nearing the end, I am on a high to see the end of this project. But there are things a little less nice to deal with: ie the invoice from the main contractor Mr M.
Mr M is a nice man, very obliging but now that he gave his final bill, I am not very happy with a number of items and the end cost.
Dispute about final cost is often a problem with buildings works and I hoped to avoid it this time but I did not, once again.

The carpenter

As with painters, carpenters are usually the last on a "chantier". And the carpenter is doing loads of tweeking: boxed some pipes, created a little bookshelf area by the stairs, "baguette" around the doors, made sure the doors closed properly, etc and many other bits and bobs. I was really pleased with his work (and he worked on saturday) and it makes a difference when the "artisan" works well and fast.

Photos

This is something of a pet hate for me. When you want to rent out your property as "gite", it is vital to have good photos and plenty of them (but not too many). Of course, not everyone is a photographer at heart but their are a few things that can help.
For instance, when you take exterior shots, it is best to do it when there is a blue sky, preferably during the summer (when the garden is green). Also make sure the subject is straight... Vive photoshop!
So this summer, I took some photos but a. no blue sky b. there was plenty of crap in front of the house since the works were not finished. Still I did my best with some "framing" with the trees.
Once again I realised that the whole process of taking photos take a while and really I should have picked a day with blue sky. Oh well....

Deer

I regularly see deers around and for once I had my camera. They often come out "en famille" at the end of the day to eat and enjoy the sun in the field . Oh the joy of nature!

Painting has started...

I love this part because it is the begining of the end, hopefully. And also I am in admiration of their work. As an amateur painter myself (15 years of poor quality DIY under my belt), I cannot but be amazed at the dexterity and their steady hands. They have a young guy with them "en apprentissage" who is so slow motioned and witted that you can only appreciate the professionalism of the older guys. Anyways, the house is started to ressemble something!

Tiling

The tiler who i shall call Mr Grumpy from now on (because that what he is) came over to finish the tiling in the kitchen area. In the word "artisan" (self employed workman) there is the word "art" which i think Mr Grumpy does know about. The job is okay but certainly not beautiful! In the end, i don't mind since we are in keep with the "rustic" feel of the house... The other thing is " my clever" money saving way to tile the kitchen: you see that the tiles haven't been put all the way down to the floor. I might regret it but when you chose a tile at 90 euros/m2, i couldn't justify tiling the whole wall....

Holidays are over

Works have started again: the last phase with painting and a few (quite a few) tweeking. I am hoping we should be done by early november. That is only 5 months delay on the original timetable. Despite all of this, I am happy because I have kept to my original budget plus 12% extra which all thing considered in not too bad....
At this stage and after a long summer break here are my latest thoughts:
Global warming: 9th october and it 24 degree celcius in Burgundy. Very pleasant but something is not right. This is beyond the "ete indien". Still it will be pleasant weather to pick up walnuts and apples in the garden.
France is expensive: not only the euros is pretty much on a new par with the pound but also everything in expensive. No wonder everyone is grumbling with their salary here. I would have laughed at my builders bill a few years ago now i am crying...
The cats are hungry: la minette and scabby are hooked on whiskas and are fatting up before the winter. They can't stop eating...
I am not an interior decorator: I am very happy with all the building side of things but as soon as i have to chose color scheme for painting I am losing it. So it took me forever to pick colors well the color: it is going to be eggshell. That was worth me going though 20 back copies of "Maisons et Travaux"....
Digital camera: what's the point to having a good and big digital camera if I don't take it with me???

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....

Bathroom

This is hard to imagine but this will be the shower.....

There is a floor on the mezzanine

Yes, there is a floor on the mezzanine area. In fact this whole area will be partition to create a second bedroom.

First Floor

The first floor is taking shape now that the mezzanine area has been done. A partition is up to create a bathroom (made of BA 13 plaster board& hemp insulant on the left hand side). The velux have been put up which open to really pretty view.
This room will be connected with the other bedroom (mezzanine area).

Cherry/Les Cerises

There is something about eating cherry right off the tree. And this is what we have been doing for the last week so much so that in fact i am sick of cherries! Unbelievable! We have been jamming like mad and also made a few "Clafoutis". Here is the recipe courtesy of Francoise Bernard (the French Delia):
Mix 4 table spoon of sugar, 2 table spoon of flour, a pinch of salt, 3 eggs, 25 grs of soft butter , 2 glasses of milk together to make a sort of pancake mix. Butter a pie dish (best to have a shallow one because the cherry come up to the top during cooking), throw 500 grs cherry with their stone and cover with the pancake mix. Place in hot oven gaz mark 5/6 and cook for about 45 minutes. Can be eaten cold or warm. It taste better if you leave the stone but be careful with young children....
Bon appetit.

Roof/Le Toit

The roof was looking pretty sorry. There is no point doing up in the inside if the roof is not doing its job. A few of the tiles were broken or missing. There were replaced. And there was quite a bit of moss ( due to the tree- see previous posting) which was cleaned off by a waterjet and a brush, a long job but greener that using some chimicals. The roof looks like "new". You can check out the type of tile used in the area: www.ot-pontigny.com/tuilerie.php

Mezzanine

One of the main thing with the works was to add a mezzanine floor. And there it is at the workshop and in place. They have done a great job on those beautiful oak beam. The people who did it is http://www.ecobiomat.com/. They are mainly suppliers of green material like soy-based painting, isulation products etc but they agreed to do this work since we got let down by the other builder. They will be supplying us with the hemp isulant. Nice work. Things are picking up again...

Shutters

While "la maison du coin" is not being renovated, I used the energy from my frustration for something useful. So bought myselft a new sanding machine and started renovating the shutters of the other house. The only problem is that I can't find the right colour paint. "Vert Basque" is repulsively too bright! I tried some other colour but no luck. I am thinking that I might try some eco-frienly paint (soy based) sold by www.ecobiomat.com/. Only 26 more panes to go....

Swimming

That's where we go swimming and so do the locals. We have a taste for adventure...

There is a door way

At least before the builder disappeared, he did some stuff. We have now a doorway between the main room and the new bedroom in the old garage. However, he did it badly so the walls on either side aren't staight...
There is the hope also to have a ceiling in the new downstairs bedroom.

Builder problems

I did not see that one coming... Turns out the builder, Mr M., had laid off his team just before starting works on the house (long story). And since he had another project, it looks like mine was put on the backburner. The project should be about finished now ready for the painter to move in and for me to sort out beds, white goods etc. Instead we have 2 MONTHS delay! So for the whole of April, Mr D (the architect) and I tried furiously to get some of the work sub-contracted to other companies. Now we are juggling 5 others builders....While doing this though, I lost faith in the project and lost sight on the cost... And the house is looking very abandonned.

Spring Time

One of the great thing about the country side ( and you forget about it when you live in town) is how much you notice the seasons. So last visit it was spring time. That some of the trees were is full bloom. I think this one is a cherry tree.

Website

This is a case of "vendre la peau de l'ours avant de l'avoir tue" or "mettre la charru avant les boeufs". Got a site to promote the rental, but i haven't got the house finished!
www.lamaisonducoin.co.uk is going live soon. I rebranded the house because there are too many "La Bergerie".

La Carreleuse/The Tile Woman

Mr D, the architect, forwarded me the quote of the Mrs C, the tile woman. Its over 9000 euros including material and work. She made an error on the quote by charging for 30m2 when we only have 10m2; she also omitted a few things that we discussed. So the quote was misleading and I don't think we are going to work with her. The main thing thought is that she was gonna purchase the tiles via a local builders merchant (that Mr D and I are boycotting because they are rip off artists) and not directly with the tile manufacturer. She did not understant that everyone's margin was being lowered by using an intermediary and that it was important to have a working relationship with the manucfacturer... oh well, NEXT!

Provins

Provins is about 50 km from the house and really worth a visit. This a beautiful medieval town with a great past. Check out www.provins.net.
When we visited the old town, there was hardly anyone in the streets and it really felt like time had stopped somewhere in the 13th century. Atmospheric!
There is also an interesting manufacture of tiles (not that I am obssessed with building material) www.lecarreaudeprovins.fr.

Carrelage

These lovely "vomitus" coloured tiles are staying in the bathroom (I apologise to future occupants of the house). I haven't planned to replace them. They might be ugly but good quality and still very much stuck to the wall. I will try and liven up the bathroom atmosphere with some clever use of wall painting...
However, I couldn't bring myself to keep those in the kitchen. It would put off anyone from their food. So we will use a classic cream and blue tile. Those are hand made and sold by Courboissy, the tomettes people.
Mr M was supposed to do the tiling but there was some delay... so we are hiring someone else. And it is a woman, une carreleuse. Lets call her Ms C. Totally different than working with men. We had a good "chat" about how the tiles was gonna be placed, the joints (colour and size)...and we seem to have a plan. Waiting for her final devis.

Bathroom door

The original door of the ground floor bathroom was in the kitchen. This was odd so we moved it to under the stairs. I am happy with the fact that Mr. M was able to save the existing door and the frame. It takes longer and can be tricky but we saved a tree! Doors can be really expensive. Sure you can buy something in pine, moulded or hollowed for 100 euros. I have used pine doors before, painted them, used a nice handle but they still look cheap and don't really block any noise. So this time, I decided to splash on oak doors. Those are between Euros 400/500. Ouch.... So you see why I am happy when we can rescue old doors...

On the subject of doors, I do have a bunch of old doors in the garage but they don't have the frame. You cannot buy the frame already made in Lapeyre (www.lapeyre.fr - nationwide anything-wood merchant), since those doors have odd mesurement (not the regular 80 or 70 cm), so you would have to employ the service of a menuisier and that would probably cost in the region of euros 300/400.

What are "Carreaux de Platre"?

This is a good question! And here is the answer. This is a very useful material to build walls and partition. Here we can see an old wall (made of flint - typical of the area), layer of "laine de verre" (horrid isulation material but cheap & very common), and finally the carreaux de platre. Electric wire are simply threaded through. Clever thing. A less clever thing is to thread water or gas pipes through those. This actually was done in another area of the house. Normally you should place water or gas pipe behind the carreaux and not in. This can be dangerous if one is planting a nail or screw. The depth to the hole of the carreaux is only 2 cm....

Delais, what delais?

I signed all the devis on 6th February 09. Went back home on 8th. Returned on 26th. So in 3 weeks, what was done?? NOT MUCH. This is why if anyone who is reading this blog is thinking about renovation/building a house in France, I suggest you stay on site as much as you can. In 3 weeks, only a large hole was done in the wall. That is it. I had a chat with Mr D. and Mr. M. Made sure they knew I wasn't impressed and that things need to be a bit fasted despite the white van problems of Mr. M. Ain't my problem...To make matters worst, found out Mr D. was a scientologue for 6 months: oh dear. And that Mr M. is a total chatterbox. Found out he used to work in clothes manufacturing so he should know about delay. However 6 weeks from now to do all the work before the painter can come along, I don't think so....I am planning to return there in 3 weeks and this time, things better have come along....

Roof & Windows

Oh Dear! this is the kind of damages that a tree planted too close to a house can do to a roof (see Trees paragraph) below. Moss, gutter problem etc... Nothing major but it need to be addressed. There is no point doing up the inside if rain water is going though the roof and the walls!

Tomettes/Floors

This is the current flooring in the living room/kitchen area. I thought I should carry on using this flooring which is popular and widely used in this region as in many other parts of France. I have also look at something called Pierre de Bougogne which is a lovely cream coloured stone originating from....Burgundy. I have visited two suppliers and they both have great stuff. La Belle Province is the stone mason with the Pierre de Bourgogne www.nicolas-bonnet.com. And the tomettes can be found at www.terres-cuites-de-courboissy.fr. I am also looking at using the tomettes in the new bathroom in place of tiling. Although the tomettes are porous, it can be treated with some good water repellent product and it should work just fine in a bathroom.

Trees

R.I.P tree. It gave wonderful shade and looked majestic after so many years. But it also destroyed the roof and the floor of the house (roots). So it got cut! And it is without regrets in the end before we found out that it was eaten up from the inside by 5 cm wood worm! Eughghghgh
And we are planting 2 new trees: a oak and a gleditsia (honey locust).

Heating & Radiators

Heating is a problem. There are so many options from central heating (powed by gaz or petrol), geothermal, hot air etc. In the end, I am replacing the electric heating system with....an new electric system. I am trying to save EDF! I know it is not green but it fits the use (i.e occasional) and the main room has a large fireplace. I am going for some modern heat retaining steel ones as opposed to the fan one lovingly known in France as "Grille-Pain" (toaster).

Crack

Umm. The crack on the floor appeared a couple of years ago. After some investigation, turns out it is due to a serie of hot & dry summers. The ground is mainly clay and therefore quite sensitive to dry vs wet weather. Might not have help that a tree was cut down near by. Who knows....

Ca commence avec les surprises

I met the team on Thursday 28th January: Mr D, Mr M and his son who is doing the electric (M&M) and the painter and the plumber. We shook hands, went over quotes, over the schedule, cracked a few jokes about the general strike in France on that day (hahaha), and I rounded off this merry meeting by signing a few deposit cheques. The next day, M&M and Mr D. came by again and we got a nice surprise. There is no need to redo the insulation of the house! What we found was two thick layers of polysterene (complete with cavity). Now it is not the "greenest" material and possibly not the best insulant however it would be silly to destroy something that is in good condition and works satisfactorily. Although i am saving a substantial amount, it is disappointing to abandon the idea of the super insulation of hemp (Laine de Chanvre)...

WE ARE ON!

This is with trepidation that I am packing today to be at the house tomorrow. We are more or less in agreement on quotes and have a general meeting (reunion de chantier) on Thursday. The French media have announced a general strike for thursday. Oh dear! Hopefully this shouldn't affect the project on day 1. Anyway, Thursday is the first day of almost 5 months of work. I cannot wait to transform this poor barn into a welcoming holiday home. It deserves it. I should enjoy the feeling since I know from experience that frustration, rising cost and general annoyance will challenge my enthusiasm. More about this later. Sarkoland, here I come.