Why I'm Glad I Never Got To Meet Kevin McCloud

Many moons ago, when we started this project, lots of our friends and family asked whether we were going to go on television with our story.

I know you have to approach the TV companies, and they then have to select which projects to feature, but that long ago it seemed as though everyone with a renovation project was the subject of at least one telly programme!

[Probably on Channel 4]

I said at the time "No!", and "one day I will be there in tears/'throwing my toys out of my pram' [delete as appropriate], and I do not want my distress/hissy-fit [delete as appropriate] providing entertainment for millions of strangers".

There have been plenty of times when I've been frustrated/bewildered/tired and every single time I've been glad that no cameras are following our progress.

Or "progress", if I'm remembering back to the times when Dominique Drouot was "working" for us!

Yesterday, though was the moment I knew would be televisual magic: woman whose house is in the process of being ruined dissolving into tears like a five year old.

So glad Kevin wasn't there!

But, again, I'm starting the story near the end!

When we were meeting up with the various trades (back in March) to decide which companies we could work with, the carpenter we chose suggested taking the floor down between the kitchen/lounge/dining room and the grain-loft upstairs.

Why?

Well, apparently the joists are too far apart, and they were worried about our plan to use the grenier for a summer sitting room [at some distant future time].

My view was (and is) that if people in the "olden days" could store corn up there, it could cope with a couple of sofas and 20 or so friends!

That's assuming I could rustle up that many! ;-)

So I vehemently fought against the plan: if we really needed more joists, they could be "retro-fitted" from underneath.

We were already changing the beams (from steel to wood) in the kitchen, so it was only the end of the joist meeting the walls to consider, and they have joist hangers in France (sabots)!

The project manager and carpenter said it would be much quicker and only a bit more expensive to take the floor down and replace it...

I really wasn't keen as I think the less structural "messing" you do to an old house the better...

Especially if it is unnecessary!

And I really didn't want to lose my lovely old floor upstairs.

They told me we would gain about 6" in ceiling height in the kitchen (which would give me space for curtain poles above the windows, and having experienced the cold over there, any barrier to cold is welcome), and that they would re-use as many of my original floorboards as they could & just make up the numbers with some old timber, to recreate the floor as closely as they could to the original.

Yes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but that floor is wonky, patched (with old tin cans!), put up roughly to serve an agricultural purpose (as opposed to being a 'living' room floor), and spattered with paint.

But that's the point!

We bought the house because of its character, not because it had been renovated to within an inch of its life, and we wanted to keep the character. Not unreasonable?

David had a phone call on Saturday: they are only likely to be able to raise the ceiling by about 3", and they "can't" use any of our floorboards.

[Personally, I'm suspicious that "can't" means "don't want to; it's too much effort" or "can't be bothered"...]

David didn't tell me about the call till we were going through paperwork relating to the house on Sunday afternoon.

At 1am on Monday I woke David up to say: "Tell them not to ruin my floor, the gain in ceiling height is not worth losing the character that we love about the house".

[They've already broken too many of our stone slabs to be able to put them back in the entrance hall, so we are having to have "new" there as they can't find enough reclaimed ones to match ours.]

After speaking to David I managed to relax; I felt we had made the right decision - a pathetically small gain in ceiling height is no trade-off for having a new floor.

Especially a horrid one!

They are planning a really nasty-sounding fake 'old' floor (new, made-to-look-old boards in differing widths, all mixed up & laid without overlapping the joints).

If we need a new floor, I would rather it was 'honest' - obviously new & laid "properly", rather than preteneding to be old.

So David's phone call to me yesterday morning to say they had already ripped out the floor (& couldn't re-use any of the boards) left me feeling filletted!

[I did write to a friend that I was 'floored', but I'm really in no mood for bad puns :-( ]

I'm so angry with myself for not insisting in the first place that they leave the floor alone, and I'm furious with the project managers/carpenter for making such a major change to our plans/costs without at least checking with us that it was OK.

They must have known by the time they'd taken up a few boards that they would damage them all irreparably if they continued... It's not as if I didn't make it plain I wanted to keep the floor!

And I'm angry at myself for trusting them!

We don't yet know how much it will add to the cost, but that will be something to rub salt in the wounds at our meeting on Friday.

I'm tempted to insist (foot-stampingly, if necessary) that they put a temporary covering over the joists whilst I try to source reclaimed timber.

I don't know how difficult that will be, but a reclaimed floor will be better than what T+B are proposing.

Thankfully David spoke to me before I looked at my email yesterday - seeing the photo montage without notive would have sent me over the edge!

At least Kevin didn't get to see my blubbing last night!