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).