We've hit a snag...

...No, I don't mean a sausage; I'd be happier if that was all that was wrong!

I mentioned that M. Huguenot was proving difficult to contact in an earlier post...

Well, today we found out why: he was declared bankrupt on 17th February! At least that's what the Mairie in Verpillers told M. Boyer off the record. [So it's probably true; the Mairies seem to know everything.]

I feel so sorry for him, but a part of me is cross that he didn't give us any warning. Realistically, I know, that's not likely - if you are in difficulties the last thing you want to do is tell people (who will then chose another firm to do the work).

David thinks we are a little ahead on the deal, which is some consolation: we will have to pay anyone that takes over the work a premium. Not to mention the extra time that M. Boyer will have to spend finding new builders.

I dread to think about what happens with the guarantee - I seem to remember that Dominique Drouot's work was not covered by his insurance because he hadn't finished, and so we hadn't signed the "reception" papers to say it was completed to our satisfaction.

Doesn't matter if you've been paying the bills, the insurers who are covering the company whilst they were doing the work don't want to know!

And any new builders are wary of taking on any responsibility for work they didn't do (as they do not know whether it was done properly, which may adversely affect their insurance)...

I don't envy M. Boyer this week!

A small glimmer of hope: M. Boyer has managed to contact M. Smail, who has started with a new employer today. We are hoping that if M. Smail states that the work was done properly, his new employers would be willing to finish this part of our job...

As far as we can remember, it's only digging (and then filling in when the pipes are in place) a couple of trenches, and a hole for the gas cistern.

Hopefully not too scary!

Please keep your fingers crossed for us.

NOT the second-to-last visit?

After an extra week's grace, we went to the house for our usual site meeting on Friday.

Thankfully, it being the 13th hadn't caused any unusual problems to occur; just the usual sort of "glitches" that you'd expect on any building project, particularly one where the clients aren't on site every day!

We had been expecting it to be the "pre-reception" visit... [Reception being the French way of accepting that the work has been satisfactorily completed and handing over the final cheque.]

But judging by the amount of work left to do in the back hall, we both think that there will be at least 2 more visits (if not more).

There has been lots of progress, of course, but very little was different in the majority of the back hall (no cloisons, no insulation, no tambour - "innards" still spilling out of the ceiling & floor); Schwartz are still holding up work by the paucity of electricians/plumbers on site. I'm fairly sure that fitting the partition walls will take a while...

What did stand out was the activities of woodworkers!

Lovely new beam.

I can't remember if I mentioned that (it's most definitely an "extra", and totally unnecessary, but will be so lovely and once we've forgotten the "ouch-to-pocket" factor [not actually too ouch, but it's all cumulative...] it will have been the right decision)... I might have been trying to sneak it under the radar! HeHeHe.

Our imposte and the door from the entrance hall are back (in a fixed-up state), and the cupboard door to the space above the bread oven has returned (again, made good).

The palier is in place (the small landing halfway up the stairs), but was so well camouflaged with protective plasterboard, wood-pulp "fluff", and dust that I took quite a while to realise it was permanent, not a temporary measure to allow the carpenters access to the grenier!

And, my beautiful grille is fitted on the back door! M. Baty quietly told me that whilst M. Boyer & David were concentrating on something else, so for quite a few minutes I lost track of proceedings whilst admiring the gorgeous metalwork...

[Possibly the proximity of the gorgeous joiner contributed to the enjoyment; who knows?]

I will put my hands up to having chosen a far-too-ornate design (for the house; the building's quite grand, as farms/smallholdings go, but it's not massively "twiddly"), but in my defence (a) it was the only one we found truly acceptable (the next closest choice wasn't very nice, and was twice the price) and, (b) I have allowed myself just the occasional extravagance (did I mention my new beam?!!)...

Don't ask me how it works that cast- (or wrought-) iron is fitted by: builders (fire base & fire back), plasterers (ceiling roses), tilers (fire base for poêle), carpenters (wall ties) and joiners (door security grilles & window bars). The only people we haven't had fit any metal are metalworkers; we [reluctantly] knocked the porch on the head at the estimate "pruning" stage.

Obviously fumistes have installed metal, too, but that's a lined flue... So I can see the logic there! I don't know what the English equivalent of "fumiste" is; do we have fireplace fitting/fixing specialists in the UK? And if so, what are they called? They're nothing to do with chimney sweeps; they come and empty your septic tank, too! [Unless, like us, you are lucky enough to be on mains drainage.]

Sorry, I'm not trying to be pretentious with all the French words, I'm just quite tired (and feel as though my head is about 97½% full!) and we've got more used to using the French term for various things (even when we do know the English one!), so it's so much quicker to insert the word I know, rather than finding the dictionary from its hiding place in the cellar & trying to find out what the English is... Apologies.

Also in the back hall we could see the progress of M. Smail and his colleagues: the remaining new stone tiles were laid, and the gap between them and the back door made-up with some of our old stone slabs and the doorway to the "suite" (still known to us at this stage as the "stable") has been blocked up.

Upstairs, it was all change!

The flue for the poêle had been moved, and M. Monnier's assistant was tying it in to the wall, and Laurent Mazij was cutting the new floor away to keep the wood a safe distance from the metal.

One of M. Mazij's helpers was fitting the last part of the lowered floor by the opening to the road. I was totally torn between accepting it as it was (time/cost/hassle-to-workmen in changing it to how it ought to be), and saying "please, would you align the planks so that they are parallel to the sill [of the opening where a window will eventually be] and the edge to the rest of the floor".

My instinct was screaming "No!", but I decided to say nothing. David was perfectly happy with the floorboards all running in the same direction; I will probably either hide this section with a rug, or fit some very thin laminate running in the "correct" orientation at a later date!

I couldn't face upsetting the carpenters when they only had the last bit of wood to drop into place!

I could feel M. Boyer looking at me. I think he was surprised that nothing was said, but I'm mindful that we want work to stop!! And that will happen all the sooner if I don't get carpenters to re-do work that they've only just done.

Who knows, perhaps no-one else will notice it...? [Sorry, MJM, that's your invite cancelled before it was issued! ;-)]

Several things to mention about the floor:

• The floorboards are incredibly light; I salvaged a bit of the poplar before it ended up on the fire, and several bits of similar-thickness oak - the difference in weight was remarkable!
• We had chosen "clous mariniers", which are lovely, for the visible fixings on the planks. I don't think Laurent was convinced... He wanted to use a more traditional squared nail. We were shown a sample of both styles of nail on a made-up section. I have to admit, Laurent was right! Still, he only has himself to blame - we would have accepted the several kilos of round-headed large nails (that he had already bought; thankfully he can take them back) if he hadn't shown us the alternative... I'm not sure how delighted his apprentice was; he then was assigned the task of turning about 1600 round-headed nails into square-headed ones! [Think: big hammer, hit the side of the head (at least four times) to flatten it to have four sides, put it down, start again! Only 1599 to go...]
• We've lost at least 8" of "ceiling" height. Now I will need the lovely ornate grille-work to stop people falling out of the windows. Hurrah! I can go back to GHM... And it would be most odd to have very simple ones, having got the cardoon-patterned grille on the back door, would't it? ;-)

The most obvious progress was noticeable as soon as we walked into the house: M. Suarez was skimming the joins in the plasterboard on the ceilings. He was working along all the joins in one direction, before moving to the next room and doing the same. Once he'd finished that, he was going to start again at the beginning doing the cross direction...

In between being disrupted by anyone else who wanted to do any work wherever he was standing on his plank!

He seemed very good-natured; a perfect complement to the more "firecracker" nature of M. Roncari (his boss).

There was a trench started from the small cellar towards the well. For the water supply, and also the tube supplying fresh air to the VMC; I think that the air supply is the only really bizarre thing about the renovation [other slightly odd things are as a result of taking the pragmatic course], but it will all be hidden, and we will forget... But it's a bit "Heath Robinson"!

Worryingly, M. Huguenot hasn't been seen for several weeks, and is not responding to telephone calls or emails. Here's another instance of me practising "going with the flow": I'm trusting M. Boyer to do any worrying that needs to be done; until I'm told there's a problem, I will believe that it's all going to be OK!

I didn't find time to look in the cellar, so I hope they haven't wreaked too much havoc with our beautiful stone vaulting!

In other places M. Baty has been active: there are door frames between the kitchen and entrance hall, and halfway up where the stairs will be (awaiting the old front doors' return), and to the bedroom. That was a decision of M. Boyer... We're leaving it as it is (for now), but I suspect that I will change that: the door to the bedroom now opens outwards, and can't be fully opened as it will foul the wall lights in the hall.

Hmmm!

Easily changed, but it will mean a new (slightly narrower) door... So that cost can wait!

We've got new glass in the door to the back hall, and the frame has been extensively repaired. It looks a perfect example of restoration (as opposed to renovation); just what I wanted.

Not as keen on the fixing-up on the bedroom door (and what I can imagine has happened to the absent front doors)...

I'm not sure how to communicate "do not do anything, AT ALL, fullstop! I want the old finish EXACTLY how it is"... I tried saying "do not do anything, AT ALL, fullstop! I want the old finish EXACTLY how it is", but that translated to "take off the old locks and handles, and make good. Also make good any ratty-looking bits of wood. Fit new closing mechanisms".

What I wanted was completely untouched history (including any "interesting" bits; at some point a dog must have scratched to be let in... Some time later someone painted over the scratches without filling them!).

I will get used to the made-good woodwork, but I did want untouched woodwork!

How can you get blokes to listen to the words? And not translate what you ask for into what they think you really mean? I'm pretty good at saying what I really mean...!!

We have most of the radiators fitted; they look great!

I had a laugh at the one in the bedroom - it's been mounted vertically (nothing odd there, you'd think), but it really emphasises how far from vertical the wall behind it is!

Various other small changes have been made & decisions taken:

• We're probably going to have small wooden "fillets" between the stone slabs in the back hall and the floor tiles in the WC/shower room/laundry
• The flue to the bread oven has been remodeled; it does look better. M. Boyer is right: the upper bit is not as much of a success, but it's still an improvement

• We're going to ask M. Monnier about the smoking fire in the entrance hall; he thinks we need to raise the fire. I'm hoping we can add a "hood" inside the stonework, instead...
• M. Waeber is going to fit the other iron plaque under the poêle before tiling
• M. Baty wants the staircase to go in after all the work around it has finished. We totally agree, so the tambour is going to be finished, and the tiling under the stairs done before he will install the two flights of stairs. He's going to oil the wood. I'm hoping we can get him to wax the wood in his workshop before fitting...
• The stone wall in the kitchen above the doorway to the entrance hall has been completed
• I'm not sure about the VMC tubing in the stable, but will worry about that later, if necessary!!
• Sadly, we are still going to have to move all of our stuff... Probably on the next visit. Not looking forward to that! It was little-enough fun when the temperature was above freezing

Finally, we've now got a roof on the "cabanon" [interestingly, that translates to "country cottage" in Dicobat; the French must have odd ideas about how we live in England!], and the hinge has been replaced, so the door hangs properly.

I'm so glad we kept it; I keep thinking of alternative uses - it will either be my kindling store, or a potting shed... But I reserve the right to lock David in there if he's naughty!!

;-)