Tiles/bath

David received a call yesterday from the really helpful lady at CVS - our tile samples have arrived, and she will hold them until we can go and check they are what we want.

We're thinking that in the 'grand scheme of things' a quick trip to look at wall tiles could prevent a much greater amount of hassle in a few weeks. Although M. Waeber assures us that tiles only normally take three to four weeks to arrive [obviously excluding if you want to order any around summer time; our last lot took about three months!], we really want to avoid the scenario where work is delayed because the tiles haven't arrived/been fitted yet.

That may not be a problem, but with the catalogue of excuses we've already had, we don't want our delay in choosing tiles to be a cause for any further procrastinating.

Obviously, if those tiles are OK all will be well! But we've seen too many badly printed tiles to make the decision based on a thumbnail in a catalogue, and if we need to find another alternative, that will take time...

So, we're hoping to squeeze in a visit in the near future.

We've also [finally!] made a decision on the bath; despite a (near) life-long desire for a ball & claw footed cast iron bath, we don't think there is enough room for it to look as elegant as it should. That, coupled with the fact that when I tried out several of the modern baths the angle of the ends is so steep that my chin is pushing into my sternum, mean that we've chosen comfort for long soaks over gorgeousness.

We've also chosen the more ugly-looking squarer-ended bath as a round-ended one in the hotel in Seefeld was pushing my shoulders in.

I'm a bit sad that we won't get the "dream" bath, but the whole point of having a bath is so that I can soak away the aches caused by too much gardening/d-i-y etc, and if the prettier-but-uncomfortable one is going to look shoe-horned into the space, it's not going to be the effect we would want anyway.

That also means I can have the wall mounted taps and will make cleaning so much easier; not to mention the storage we can fit under the bath - since moving from Brixton I miss the cubby hole to hide the spare loo rolls/shampoo/bleach etc, etc, etc!

I know getting a cupboard under the bath will be a struggle, but am hoping that it will be easier this time around without the project manager's reluctance to let us have what we want because it' not something he's done before!

Wow! Having finally made the decision, I feel quite relaxed.

I think I'm off to do one of Solara An-Ra's wonderful meditations!

I got some photographs published!!

Clean Slate Magazine, Winter 2010, issue 78 features two pictures of our kitchen in France!

Or, more precisely, two photos of the hemp-lime insulation in our kitchen to illustrate an article on hemp-lime insulation.

A lady from the Centre for Alternative Technology in Machynlleth [ooh, I remember visiting there in the 1970s, probably not too long after it opened to the public!] contacted me via Flickr having found some photos I'd posted there.

I don't think it's a testimony to my wonderful photographic abilities, as she said it had been really difficult to find any photos of hemp-lime insulation, but hey, I'm not proud!

Whilst I understand that people might get paid for having their photographs used for publication, it seemed a reasonable thing to let a worthwhile charity use my images if that helps to encourage people to use better-insulating/less-energy-consuming building materials!

And I got my name in print, and a few more people will have seen photos of our lovely house!

Working outside

It was beautiful weather while we were in France, so we decided to take advantage!

For me that meant a "spot" of weeding, and David was very kind and let himself be persuaded into joining in...

He would much rather have started chopping down trees/scrub, I'm sure, but the speedwell is starting to flower [and therefore would be spreading seeds in a week or two], whereas the more rufty-tufty stuff can definitely wait!

We spent about four hours on each Saturday and Sunday [before leaving to come back to London], and apart from a very few weeds that we up by the fence against the road I think we've covered the whole garden!

I ended up cutting the elder bushes back to about 2-3' - we want our view back, and it made weeding under them so much easier!

I think the twigs laying around has confirmed the decision to buy a shredder!

I know it's too soon to have cut the perennials back, but some things were starting to grow, and I just needed to gain a sense that I have control over something.

It's a risk I'm willing to take - frost might cut some plants down, but it made weeding so much simpler, and it looks much tidier.

We had a look in the pré for some seedlings from the little red plum tree - it's looking pretty precarious, and given the fate of the other plum that tumbled in last winter's winds, we want to transplant a "successor" before it's too late!

We found a couple of sprigs that we are fairly sure will be from the right tree [there are loads round where the other tree fell], and David transplanted them to by the fence/hedge.

He also move a couple of (what I think are) lizard orchids. I'm not sure we're doing the right thing, but he took a huge ball of soil with them, so hopefully enough of the commensal rhizome [or whatever it is] that the orchid needs will go with it.

The hay cutting stops the orchid from seeding, and if we could save a couple of plants it will be worth it.

We're desperately hoping that the French equivalent of "credit crunch" will put a stop to all the verge tidying that seems to have become epidemic in the last few years; it all looks very tidy, but stops all the wildflowers from setting their seed and we see a fraction of the varieties we did four or five years ago.

Another "fingers crossed" occasion [for my lizard orchids and the Department's verges].

Meeting on Friday

We went to France on Wednesday evening, and had a MUCH better journey down there - no snow/snow ploughs/gritters and the Shuttle was working fine [unlike for the poor people who got stuck last night!].

First thing Thursday morning M. Antoni fixed the télécommande on the boiler - we now can phone it up and get it to heat the house before we get there! It was 7°C in the kitchen when we arrived; not warm enough, but thankfully the poêle soon got it up to a bearable temperature.

On Friday we had a meeting with Messrs Torelli, Mekki & Luparello; sadly, J-M either lied to us [again] or got his facts wrong [again], and what he promised would be done with the housing for the loo cistern is not possible.

Unfortunately, now we can't go back to the less-preferred (but still better than what we have now) option; if he'd been honest, we would have have made the room a little smaller to avoid having a bulky housing sticking out.

So now we have to do what Jean-Marie wanted; instead of having an elegant room, we will have one with a "feature" shelf niche. Project manager 1, client's wishes 0.

I'm fairly certain I know why he has clients [to give him money and manage all the tedious project managing he can't be bothered doing], but I'm racking my brains as to why we have a project manager [we do all the project managing and give away money that would be useful for more building work]...

WHY?

NOT happy, but am getting pretty good at not stressing the sh!t that guy has been shovelling our way. Apparently, M. Torelli told him that there was no way we could have the smaller housing, and suggested exactly what I'd said about moving the wall in about 1½". J-M insisted that he do what we didn't want, and refused to countenance the second-best option.

It's too late to do that now as the shower base is done.

I know that's all hearsay, but I've seen his previous drawings/him instructing other workmen to do the "wrong" thing, so I'm inclined to believe M. Torelli over J-M.

Everyone is much more content to continue working without him.

We feel a bit happier about everything else - M. Torelli seems much more amenable now that we have seen him without J-M there, and Messrs Mekki and Luparello are as accommodating as usual!

A little later we saw M. Waeber - how lucky to see him before he used battleship grey grout on the shower tray [that wasn't going to dry any lighter!].

He's now done it in the same beige colour as the grout between the tiles, the tiles and the dry pebbles in the shower.

I think it's not the right sort, but at this stage I don't care; if it "goes wrong" very quickly it will be really easy to rake out & replace, and it if lasts a decade I'm not going to worry!

I have to admit to a mini-meltdown, but my excuse is that since mid-October 2004 I have been working to get this house to a liveable state/finished and it's not going to happen before Easter [if we're lucky]. It's NOT been a massive drama all of the time [or even most of the time] but it HAS been going on for far too long!

Not to mention costing a lot more money than it should have done!

On a final note: we mentioned to one of the artisans that we have only received one bill from any of the firms working on the project since June, and that was three months late because it had got "stuck" at St Mesmin. Another set we know was sent in July/Aug/Sept, but we received a copy direct from Schwartz when we chased them [still haven't received the original bills from T+B], neither have we received a promised credit note...

This unnamed artisan reckons that J-M is deliberately withholding the bills from us in order to make us look like bad payers - I think he's wanting us to come across as "nightmare" clients. If that's not the case, he's just being massively incompetent; I'm not sure which is the "better" scenario?

David has written a really nice letter to all the artisans asking them to send any communication to us direct, as we risk looking like bad payers because J-M is not handing on invoices... I wonder how many more bills his letter will flush out!

Oh, I forgot to mention: in the fourteen months that this job has been going on, the tiles we chose for the bathroom have been discontinued; another little irritation!

Fingers crossed: a very helpful lady at CVS showed us a very similar-looking example in a catalogue and rang up and ordered a sample of both colourways while we were there. She says they should arrive next week, so as I say fingers crossed!

Phew!

Photos sorted; backed up to disk; documents backed up to disk.

That feels a weight off my shoulders.

Now all I need to do is hope I get to take some more house progress photos sooner rather than later!

Right, I'm off to take advantage of the sunny afternoon and have a walk; happy sunny winter afternoon!