My [current] two favourite people...

...Are M. Suarez and M. Hyvernand (I hope I've got that right!).

We arrived at the house for the Friday meeting, to be greeted by the sight of light falling on our new stairs from the newly-fitted window in the back door.

A few steps closer, and I could see M. Suarez skimming the joints on the stud-partition walls ("cloisons" is so much easier to type!) that have appeared in the back hall.

We now have a bathroom, loo, laundry and cupboards in the space I was beginning to think would never lose its resemblance to that "pipes" screensaver that used to be so popular.

[You might remember the one: different-size tubes with a variety of 'elbows', in several colours, reassembling themselves into new displays whilst you watched... Without ever 'making' anything.]

All the "innards" are now where they belong (inside!), and with access reinstated to the "grenier", the house resembles a house for the first time in ages.

I don't miss that "building site" look!

Don't get me wrong, I loved it for what it meant [work transforming the place into a lovely home], but we've lived with grit & mess for over four years, and that is tiring.

Enough of the past...

M. Baty's assistant, M. Hyvernand was busy in the bedroom (ooh, it's so difficult resisting the temptation to make smutty comments!), re-fitting the front of the cupboard.

There were various assorted bits of wood around the house awaiting fitting: sills; window seats; vaults (is that the right word? For the top of the window embrasures); the old front doors (to be hung as internal doors); hand rail for the stairs.

I love the stairs (just not too sure about the rust on the straight bits of the balusters), and the size of the "tambour" means they feel open enough as well. although it's taken a big chunk out of the space upstairs!

Even with the tarpaulin still covering some of the back door, the new glazed pane lets in a surprising amount of light - definitely the right decision; whatever we do, the back hall will always be quite dark, but having another source of light instead of a solid door will help.

Our small window is back too, and "facing" the right way; much better.

As usual, everyone got in M. Suarez's way and he remained cheerful. He's obviously been busy!

We still haven't resolved the 'missing mason' problem, but, as I said in an earlier post, I am going to let M. Boyer worry about that one...

I could get stressed about that, but it would have to join the queue!

[In fact I am feeling stressed at the moment: we've got too many things going on at the moment, I'm struggling to finish the decorating at home, Windows Vista (if you're a "victim" of this, you'll know what I mean!), etc, etc, but I won't bore you with that. Let's just say that I can't wait for the very nice men to leave my house alone and let me get in there and clean it up!]

We discussed the 'pattern' for the tiles in the kitchen with M. Waeber; we'd wanted just the "ordinary" square layout (like a grid), but both M. Boyer and M. Waeber pointed out that with the non-square room, the regularity of the joints would emphasise the irregularity of room.

And where do you start? Front of the house? Under the beam? Wall by the "poêle"? Whichever choice we made would have made the rest of the kitchen look "wonky"... [It is wonky, but there's no need to draw people's eyes to that fact!]

So, reluctantly, we ruled that option out. The same arguments applied to basket/stretcher bond, so that was out too.

We didn't like the diagonal layout (and we plan that when we can get around to the master bedroom, which is much closer to square).

So, we're going with a 'staggered' design (I don't know what to call it - look at the photo to see what I mean) where the tiles are offset by a third in each row.

Another round of talking about which way it should "go"; at first I felt it was leading you into a corner, but by changing which side the tile stepped out by a third, I no longer noticed my eye being drawn by the joints. And if we do see them when the floor is completed, they will "lead" into the house, rather than to a dead-end by the kitchen.

Sorry if I didn't explain that very well - it's much easier looking at tiles and going "yes", "no", "maybe" or "yuk!" than it is to describe how they look!

Before leaving, we went to see progress in the small cellar: they haven't made much of a mess of the air hole, and the concrete base where the well-water cistern will stand is as out-of-the-way as could be managed.

There are still holes, but they will have to wait for a new builder. [Another new builder!]

That part is causing less concern than the trench at the back: until that is completed we will have no gas supply (and so no heating), and no drains (let's not go into what that means!)...

Oh, well, could be good thing: with the return of some more light & some sunshine I'm hoping to finish the glossing in England & get the flat back to normal (I've also brought the pressure washer back, to clean some of the algae off the garden walls [before we get the hosepipe ban back] and make the outside "green" only where we want it!).

If the French house was liveable, wild horses wouldn't be able to drag me away.