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.

Final Quote

Well made a visit to the house and meet with Mr D. Look like we have a final quote (almost) and a possible start date. A few things have change: the plan for a mezzanine changed 4 times, the plan for the number of internal door changed 3 times etc. But it looks like of the whole we have a general idea at least for the big works ("gros oeuvre"). I am quite careful also not to lose sight of the finishing touches (ie type of tiles, flooring, door handle etc) because those can simple double your budget if you are not careful. Mr D. told me that the contractor can be moody which can be a bit of a worry but we deal with that in due course... This part of the project is alway fun because it is full of optimism then once the work has started is all different...
Should be commencing work in the new year.

Some Autumn News

Well, finally things are somewhat moving along. Had some news from Mr D and we seem to be close to a final quote. It is only 2 month late! Ca promet!
Must go down there. I am missing the countryside and beside it would be nice to take a few picture of autumn before winter strips all the leaves off the trees and before all the walnuts disappear!
Finally it is with sadness that we are gonna have to destroy a mature tree. Some idiot planted that tree too close to the house some 25 years ago and now it could damage the house. What a shame!

No news!

Still no news of Mr D, the architect. Oh well....In the meantine got some nice picture of the house.

The local restaurants

"La Lucarne aux Chouettes" run by Leslie Caron (starred in An American in Paris) in the lovely village of Villeneuve sur Yonne.
"La Madeleine" in Sens; had one of the best meal of my life there. We went there just before their annual closing time so they had to "empty the fridge". It was a feast!
"La Cote Saint Jacques" in Joigny. Joigny is famous for his market but also for this 3star Michelin restaurant. Great setting!
"Hotel de Paris" in Sens. They did the catering for my wedding and it was really good. Haven't been to the restaurant in town for year but I hear it is pretty good.

Expect snails on all the menu!

Going over plans & quotes

I had a meeting with Mr D, the architect. He gave me a preliminary quote & plans. We are already 10% over my original budget! Not surprising since my first one was not realistic. Anyway I have reviewed it all and also added some 15% contigency fund (just in case).

Probably will have to do the same thing with time frame (les delais)...

Anyway this preliminary stage is really important. It gives me a chance to review all the aspects of the project, more or less in details since I am not on site. I went through the quote meticulously: heating (chauffage), insulation (isolation), doors (menuiserie), plumbing (plomberie), floors (sols), bathrooms & kitchen (salles de bain et cuisine), roof (toiture), partitions (cloisonnement), electricity (electricite), painting (peinture). I checked prices and materials on different web sites. The followings ones are particularly useful:
www.leroymerlin.fr
http://produits-btp.batiproduits.com
www.pointp.fr

For general the look, I bought a bunch of magazines but I also found a lot of inspiration on www.marieclairemaison.com.

So after a week or so, finding out all there is to know about Velux windows, ceramic tiles, heating systems etc and redesigning the house in my dreams, I sent a 2 pages email to Mr D.
Now waiting for feedback. We should be meeting end of August to finalise and signed the docs before it all kicks off in October.