Nice Little Earner?

We were told on Wednesday that the insurance company was not going to repair our car and they would pay us out the book value (less the excess).

They deemed it an economic write-off - not irreparable, but not worth the cost of fixing.

David tried to appeal this on Thursday - we would have happily paid the difference between the book value and the actual cost of repair.

Given that the cheque we received is about 2/3 of the replacement cost, it would have made sense to top up the repair, but the insurance company said they couldn't do this.

So, we went out on Saturday and bought another car; we'd done some searching on Autotrader and found a car that sounded OK, and it seemed potty to hire cars for our needs when we'd got to buy a replacement anyway.

Apparently our type of car is holding it's value well; I don't think that was just spiel from the dealer, as all the other similar cars on Autotrader were around that price, so no bargains for us...

If we'd wanted a similar age Laguna, he'd just sold one for £1700!

But we like economical cars that double-up as vans!

;-)

The only fly in the ointment was the road tax: you cannot tax the car online without the V5, which the dealer (like a law-abiding citizen) had not given to us, but was going to send to the DVLA. You can tax cars at the Post Office without the V5 (if you have proof of purchase), but not on a cover note from the insurers; you need to produce the original document.

I bet you can guess where this is going...

Yup, insurance certificate showed up today (oh we love getting second class postal service even for first class prices!! Blenheim Gardens is pretty much notorious...), around the same time that the car got clamped for not being taxed!!

What a brilliant system...

For the Revenue!

The "system" wouldn't let us tax the vehicle until today, but I'm guessing it's not against the law to sell a vehicle that's not taxed?

We did try (twice) to tax the car before today, but fell foul of the enthusiasm of the local clampers (who have a reputation rather like that of the local sorting office!).

What a shame the "system" doesn't take off the road all those millions of uninsured vehicles that we keep hearing about...

Mind you, the money raised from insurance doesn't go to the government, does it?

Top Tip...

Update Flickr more often than once every four months when taking hundreds of photos of house & holidays in those months!

Getting to know the house...

Seems bizarre, but every time I go to the house, it feels as though I'm getting to know it better.

Probably helps that we've seen so much of it "deconstructed"!

I was looking at some photos of the vaults in the cellars; once, I would have had to puzzle which cellar the picture was taken in, but now I recognise them instantly!

I am thinking of treating myself to some really good quality paint brushes - I've used my (very) motley collection of cheap/second-hand ones for many a decorating job, and I just feel like a touch of luxury!

That seems a non-sequitur, but I was painting in the kitchen (at home), and thought: "Soon, I'll be getting even more familiar with the house as soon as I start painting!"

I seriously hope, though, that the hemp/lime coating on the walls doesn't need painting:

a) We've seen the "nude" coating, and we really like the finish as it is, and

b) I don't want to do any more painting than I strictly have to!

I'm going to have to paint the temporary doors (until we can afford the [planned] oak doors), as they are a mix of hardboard/fibreboard, with one 70's style "glazed" door.

I say "glazed" because by the time I've finished with it I will have somehow filled the rectangular space for the glass and made good.

I want to panel them in the same style as the original ones and find some proper French "door" wallpaper to put inside the panels.

Despite David's helpful suggestion, I am NOT going to wallpaper the ceilings, but that gives you an idea of what sort of wallpaper I am looking for!

Got to be extremely floral, and suitable for (a French person to paper): walls, ceilings and doors.

We both turned our noses up at narrow tongue-and-groove pine cladding to the walls, and carpeting the walls (or ceiling!), but I do want the house to retain some "French" feeling.

And having rejected a brown kitchen (brown sink, brown taps, brown oven, brown hob, brown tiles, brown cupboard doors, etc. etc) and brown light switches/sockets, I'm happy that wallpapered doors is a compromise I'm happy to make.

Plus, the doors will be changed as soon as I can afford to!

I've calmed down, now!

We went to France on Thursday, for our meeting on Friday morning.

It was a massive relief to get to our hotel and stay there on Thursday night; it really was third time lucky!

The carpenters were in the process of installing the beam in the kitchen (and the supporting pillars), so the kitchen was still open to the rafters.

So odd how small the room seemed.

I suppose a 27-35' ceiling would make most rooms appear smaller...

Sorry, can't remember exactly how high the roof pitch is, but it's a long way up.

It really did feel poky, when we know it's not!

It was a real privilege to see M. Mazij Jnr and his colleague at work; we'd seen people on Grand Designs have oak framed buildings constructed and thought "Wow!" and there we were seeing our very own green oak beams going in.

As I say, a massive treat.

I'm now sanguine about the loss of our floor [it's gone there's nothing we can do about it; get on with life], so we really did manage to enjoy seeing the progress that's been made in the house.

I love the shields carved on the uprights (not so sure about our initials carved into them!); it's why I love Victorian houses - totally unnecessary ornamentation that just gives character.

The fireplace is installed, and the new stone tiles laid in the entrance hall.

It all looks fabulous, but really emphasises how out-of-true the house is!

It's like when the windows were fitted; a lot of what I could see was the non-horizontal/vertical parts of the house.

Now I'm used to it, so I guess I soon won't notice the difference between the right angles in the floor and every other angle in the house!

Our very sad floor...

We are thinking of going with the suggestion of a new poplar floor laid in the old style.

Apparently, that was included in the estimate (I had my suspicion that they had no intention of saving my floor!), so it would save money [and masses of time] compared to sourcing another floor...

I did put my foot down very firmly about the other remaining floor upstairs!

Our touch of excitement: missing "Bambi" by a whisker on our journey home.

David just managed to brake and swerve in time to avoid a young deer that leapt onto the motorway in front of us coming back.

I'm so glad not to have had another accident!

Our car is being written off, sadly, owing to the economics of repair.

:-(

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!

More Chaos! ;-)

Seeing as life isn't stressful enough, what with doing a (fairly) major renovation project, (in another country, in a different language!), we are in the process of decorating at home.

[Belovèd, if you are reading this, that is the irony you have such trouble spotting!]

I was planning to put it off a while, after the accident. What with the flat containing too much stuff that I wanted to put into storage before starting, coupled with not getting an excuse that good very often, postponement seemed like a great idea!

[Let's not call it procrastination!]

Not injured, but a bit sore feeling, and not really in the mood for all the contorting that 'cutting in' would entail.

That was before the phone call from Chris whilst we were trying to get from Paris to London - tiler on standby, would be here Friday (today).

So that put the decorating back at the top of the agenda!

David was planning to go out after work Wednesday and Thursday evenings, so we unplugged the washing machine and dishwasher and parked them (with all the other clutter we haven't yet been able to take to the storage depot; no car) in the dining room.

Together with the door, and all the kick-plates I could remove from the kitchen.

It was Wednesday before I felt up to starting in earnest - Chris recommended getting the glossing done before tiling - so I needed to paint the ceiling, paint a coat of white on the walls as undercoat, stain-stop the skirting, undercoat the skirting, cut in the wall colour, and gloss the skirting & door frame.

And preferably get a second coat on the ceiling so I could reattach the light fittings!

Oh, and it all needed a good clean for starters...

Needless to say, I didn't manage half the things on my list, so Chris had to start - with a promise from me to 'cut-in' the gloss with great care.

Anyway, to cut a long story short [what you are waiting for, dear reader?], mess everywhere, nearly all the whole tiles laid, and Chris gingerly treading on them as he cut the surrounding tiles.

I'd got no more packing done - Chris is entertaining enough to chat to, I seized the opportunity to escape packing away stuff (Karen, forgive me!) - and it was lovely to watch someone else working.

He was going great guns, with the likelihood that he would finish today, and manage to seal round the bath for me before leaving.

I had spent hours yesterday removing the old silicone sealant, so was pleased as punch when Chris said he couldn't have done a better job himself.

Sadly, all the banter came to an end with a phone call from his wife: they'd had a visit from the burglars.

Despite me trying to push him straight out the door, he stopped to use up the bucket of adhesive and glue down most of the cut tiles.

Very kind of him; the floor is much less likely to sustain damage over the weekend.

I wonder if I'm some sort of jinx?

At least Zoë wasn't at home when the bastards broke in, and thankfully it was now (rather than in a couple of months time - she'd have been there with a new baby, then), but looking on the positive side seems to be becoming a bit of a habit!

I was far less worried than Chris about when he will come back (you get a good craftsman, you hang on to them!), but it does mean that our visitors will find an even bigger mess than I'd warned them about!

Looks nice, so far!

I do hope Chris gets everything sorted out quickly, and that the burglars meet with their karma in a fitting way.

Interesting Times...

I'm sure I've used that title before...?

We were heading off to the house for a 9am meeting on Friday, and successfully got over the channel (Yay! After our last trip that felt like a result) on Thursday evening, had dinner at the first motorway services and were heading towards our hotel.

And then it all went wrong!

Firemen, police, SANEF (the guys who run the motorway) trucks littering the motorway, and there we were sitting in an ambulance...

The fear seeing two guys pulling out the portable stretcher was only eclipsed by the horror of seeing four men struggling back under the weight of the body bag on the stretcher a few minutes later.

But I'm jumping the gun.

Let's start at the beginning: We saw a (huge) lump in the road...

Just about had time to think: "What the ....?"

(I don't think I managed to get to the missing word; it all happened so quickly - lucky, it probably wouldn't have been a word I could print!)

And then we'd entered an army obstacle course: the car was up & over, and we think we took off, then skidded on landing.

Which morphed into a fairground ride - we spun round & round, before hitting the armco and bouncing back to face the way we'd come, straddling both lanes of the motorway.

I always hated fairground rides - that feeling of being out of control, spinning & waiting for death - and I've not been converted!!

We were in shock, but thankfully fear of getting caught by the flics for not showing our warning triangle overcame the wobbling .

We got the triangle out, and the high-viz gîlet (irony of ironies: I'd suggested buying another one when we were on holiday, but we didn't!). David put on the waistcoat, and pushed the car to the side of the road whilst I was walking to put the triangle out to warn other drivers of the accident.

How far away do you put them?

Thankfully the A26 is a really quiet motorway, and by the time we were aware of what was going on, there were two trucks blocking both carriageways & holding back the traffic from us.

On a busy road, we could have been hit whilst spinning out of control; it could have been so much worse, in so many ways - I'm really thankful to be just left a bit achey!

I spoke with the lead lorry driver, and asked him to telephone for help (David was walking to the nearest emergency phone, but we weren't thinking really clearly at this point).

Either that lorry driver or another chap told me we'd hit a wild boar, and that someone else had hit one as well.

I was terrified that someone else would have an accident if they hit it too (we were doing 65-70 - well less than the speed limit of just over 80mph, so it could have been much worse), so I was walking back to see if I could move it (I told you we weren't thinking properly!).

Someone pointed it out to me - just a hint of buttock & tail poking through under the armco by the side of the motorway - and some kind souls had moved it out of the way.

Thanks unknown guys!

What surprised me was how much it was steaming, but thinking about it, of course it would! They just don't show that on TV...

By the time I got back to the car, we had a SANEF van by the car, he'd picked up & brought back our triangle & I was just explaining to him what happened as David got back.

Piecing together what we were told/heard, after we'd got to the hotel: we think that a lorry had hit the boar & killed/stunned it, and he'd pulled off at the next junction to call SANEF/the police (wild boar are a protected species). Probably also CB radioed other drivers on the A26, which could be why the lorry drivers knew more about what had happened than we did...?

That would also explain why the SANEF vehicle got there so soon after David calling for help.

The absence of a second corpse (if our vehicle was the only one needing to be towed, and the driver of the tow-truck had to take the beast to the fire station so that they could start the process of reporting the death & autopsy [to see what the state of the health of the boar was before it died], it seems odd they didn't give him the second body, if there had been one), coupled with the fact the boar was lying stationary when we hit it, makes us think there was only one boar, but 2 accidents!

Wish driver number one had dragged the body off the road!

We're very thankful, for lots of reasons:

• we're both fine;
• no other person/vehicle was involved;
• it was all so quick, we didn't really have time to be frightened!;
• I wasn't driving (so won't get any new complexes about driving - I'd nearly suggested it; glad I didn't!);
• I was awake (so got thrown around less than if I'd been asleep);
• the boar was probably dead before we hit it (not too much guilt);
• we had emergency contact numbers for T+B (I left a message apologising that we wouldn't make the meeting);
• we had the number for the hotel (who, for the second time in 3 weeks, were good about us cancelling at short notice!);
• the car was virtually empty (I could have been taking a huge load down to the house);
• we'd been doing at least 10mph below the speed limit (dread to think what effect that extra 10mph would have had on our trajectory)

Apparently the boar was a whopper - 90-100kgs, according to the various estimates. Sadly, he won't end up as steaks & sausages (the paper work to certify him 'fit-for-consumption' would make it too expensive).

And I still haven't seen a whole wild boar! Seeing a body bag in operation was pretty horrible; would much rather have seen the animal itself.

The tow-truck driver kindly phoned around & (eventually; all the hotels in Laon were full) found us a hotel, and took us there. We got to our room about 12.50am, and decided to phone the recovery services (I've seen on TV/in the press, in the past, too many cases where people's insurance claims were turned down because they didn't follow to-the-letter the claims process).

All the people at the breakdown and insurance call centres we spoke with were very helpful - we were taxied to Paris (much) later that same day, and booked on a flight at 9.55pm. Another irony: we probably got home earlier than we would have done if we hadn't crashed!

We're hoping that continues - we really want our car to be fixed (and French prices are lower/it is a French car), and not written off.

Fingers crossed!

Needless to say, we didn't make our meeting!

M. Boyer must have heard my answermachine message by the time he phoned David back after the meeting - he was very concerned. [I try my best with French, but stress/tiredness can make it much more interesting! And I'm sure I sounded a bit more random than usual.]

We believe progress is being made, but will have to wait till we get an update/see it in a couple of weeks before I can tell you what...

I'm personally hoping my philosophy ("Third time lucky") trumps that of my mum ("Bad things come in threes")!

;-)

Oops!

I (clearly!) forgot to post about our meeting on the 12th of September.

And now we're off for our next meeting, so better late than never...!?

I'm just going to post photos randomly - apologies if that seems odd.

I know that July 18th to September 12th seems like a really long gap, but you have to remember that most of Europe shuts down for August; personally I think that's a great system, but what do I know?

So, a quick reminder: work had started just in time to finish for the August lay-off, but that meant that by the time we went for our meeting in September progress was obvious - everyone was back from holiday and into work mode.

Hurrah!

A brief word about our journey: we left the flat about 2.45pm, and got to just before the sign announcing "tolls in 300m" at 4.20pm.

Thankfully, a kind colleague of David's had phoned to say breaking news was saying there was a fire in the tunnel. By the time we got Tony's call, we were already so close we thought we'd go to the Tunnel; we didn't know what else to do.

We limped the 320-odd metres to get to a kiosk in an hour (thankfully Eurotunnel were diverting staff from their call centre to man [person?] the kiosks; how easy would that be if the call centre was in India?).

The lady gave us the option of catching the next available ferry or having a refund - if we hadn't been going for a week's holiday straight after the meeting, I think we'd have gone for the refund option.

Not having an emergency contact phone number for the project manager also influenced us a little...

Well, we got to the tunnel kiosk at 5.20pm, and got to the ferry kiosk at 10.20pm; according to the AA routefinder that journey is 10 miles & takes 21 minutes.

Not sure about that: we saw signs for Dover being over 20 miles away...?

We'd cancelled the French hotel long before getting to Dover! Most of the time we sat there, with the engine turned off. I think the highlight of the trip might have been the broken down Lamborghini - immense top speeds didn't get him there any faster ;-)

Anyway, finally got on a ferry about 12.20 am (00.20), and left England at 12.50am. The delay boarding was great - meant we got a yummy, nutritious meal of crisps and biscuits (all food shops long since shut! Thankfully we'd [uncharacteristically] stopped at the services on the way to the tunnel and had a sandwich).

We got to France about 3.30am local time, drove through the night, stopping only for a quick loo/biccie stop, and then a very quick wash/breakfast at Troyes.

We rolled up to the house at 9.00am exactly, but the brains weren't of the first order during the meeting!

The meeting:

It was lovely seeing all the builders' supplies spread over the front yard! And they'd kept them all off the garden; result!

The downside of writing about a meeting nearly 2 weeks after it happened when you have a memory like a goldfish? I suspect you can guess!

The doorway into the stable (which we are going to have blocked up - the rise in prices in France, coupled with the weakening of sterling against the euro means that part will have to wait; probably until the credit crisis eases...) is nearly finished, and the wall next to it is almost up to joist height.

All the digging out is complete for the floors, and the insulation/damp-proof membranes/reinforcing mesh in place; Schwartz were in the process of laying pipes & cables before the concrete was poured when we left.

The staircase is gone - makes getting upstairs more interesting! ;-)

The holes between inside and outside that had been blocked in the small cellar are back...

Various places look particularly naked - door frames missing, cupboard missing, fireplace missing, plaster missing in the kitchen - you can work out where this is going!

The kitchen wall is gorgeous, but sadly we will lose that to hemp-lime insulation; it would be madness to have an exposed stone exterior wall. When the heating chap was talking us out of the air-source heat exchanger (reliable down to -15°C) he said in 1986 it got down to -35°C; we want all the insulation we can get!

Minor boo-boos: we've got an air inlet pipe in the wrong place, and my niche under the sink has been blocked. Easily fixed, we hope!

Also we don't like the radiators the heating people want to use - they showed us a sample, and the grinding-off was really (REALLY) messy. If a manufacturer can't be bothered to make a neat job on a sample to be sent for approval, what kind of mess would the 'off-the-shelf' article be?

We revisited the original radiators we'd liked (just clear-coated steel), and they were as neat as we remembered: all the grinding was in the same direction, the same width and very smoothly done - no obvious gouges in the metal. So I think we're going to insist on Zehnder rather than settling for Arbonia!

We went from visiting radiators (after a quick supermarket café lunch) following the meeting to the start of our holiday. We'd planned to go to Lake Constance, but hadn't booked (until we'd had final confirmation of the meeting date, we didn't want to pay for accomodation we wouldn't use) until we tried to on the Wednesday.

On Tuesday evening, the Bodensee website showed over 200 flats as being available for the following week; on Wednesday evening it showed 24!! And we knew at least 4 of those weren't available (David had made calls during the day)!

It all seemed too much hassle; if all the accomodation was booked, there must have been something going on - and we just wanted a quiet break, so we gave up and booked a gîte in the Vosges - semi-detached (vs apartment) with fireplace, for the same price!

We were especially glad not to have to travel the extra few hundred miles after our journey to the house!

Lovely break, far too short, a bit worried about getting back into the country... [Thanks to the lovely MJM for searching Eurotunnel website for advice; we subsequently got a mail from Eurotunnel, but it was good to know earlier in our holiday that we would get home! ;-)]

It all worked out well - we came north a day early & got on the first train on Sunday morning - home before lunch.

And time for David to do his ironing!

"Before"

We had to clear the "salon d'été" as the floor is going to be replaced; apparently the joists are just too far apart to hold the weight of the floor above, safely

I had wanted to leave it as it is, as I loved the old, uneven, much patched look, but the project manager and carpenter won this argument!

All our belongings needed to be out of the way, so we had a couple of tiring days getting everything away from the "larch lap" wall, and then putting it back again.

Neatly!
The floor above the shower room and laundry needed to be replaced...

I'm looking forward to that; I'm hoping it will be rodent-proof!

It's going to be a bit weird...

Not having a shower cabinet in the kitchen!

Mind you, I suppose we could get used to that ;-)


The fireplace has already been stripped of its tiles...

And the fireback is in the stable, waiting to be re-installed.

Whilst we were there the bricks above the mantel went - looking to see how deep the recess is; we were hoping for a prefabricated metal hood (rather than a brick one).

Already the door from the bedroom (and its frame) have gone.

But we don't yet have the hole into the cellar "restored"!



I'm looking forward to the new stairs...

And having the really strong old front door on the landing to close off the grenier.

I don't feel very nervous staying at the house on my own, but know that a strong door will help with that!



M. Huguenot's workmen managed to remove all the fittings without mishap.

Although we have got another cracked stone slab.

Still, that's nothing compared to the damage Dominique's workmen managed!

Watch this space for some "during" photos!

Work starts at last!

During a fairly intense week, I managed to trim about €150,000 off the estimates. Which shows firstly how "ouchy" the figures were, and secondly how many flights of fancy the project managers had succumbed to! This meant we had brought the cost down to a level where we could afford to go ahead.

On June 23 we had a meeting at the house with all the trades involved to discuss all the bits that we had "trimmed" from the job specification, and agreed to officially start the project, with a meeting planned for yesterday to sign the revised estimates.

M. Huguenot (the builder) had agreed to start work before the estimate was signed (both sides being comforted by the project manager being involved), so we arrived to a new, improved pile of rubble (either they had removed Dominique's rubbish, or buried it) in front of the house.

During the course of our meeting (3 hours), a second pile of rubble started in a different place!

Sadly, because the work on the floors was of such poor quality, everything has had to be ripped out of the house (all the wall insulation was mounted between rails screwed to the floors).

We are basically starting again from scratch...

All our sanitary fittings and other materials we intend to re-use (doors/frames, huge stone floor slabs, kitchen sink, etc) had been neatly (and cleanly) taken out and stocked on site to be re-fitted later, and all the plasterboard, insulation and rails had been removed.

The workmen we digging up the concrete in the kitchen. And lowering the soil to provide sufficient depth to properly insulate!

The whole place looked quite naked!

I didn't take any photos (the workmen looked as though they were waiting for us to leave before going for their lunch), but am hoping M. Boyer will email me copies of the ones he took, so I can post those.

We're very excited; it feels as though work will really happen this time.

And for the cynics amongst us who have asked "which Christmas?" when I said it should be finished in time for Christmas: 2008!

Stressed!

I have been feeling really quite flat - the prospect of trimming masses off the estimates has been daunting.

I was unable to sleep very much on Friday night because my neck was so painful - I think that that was my body's way of telling me how stressed I was.

At least this time it didn't go down the alopecia route, for which I'm thankful!

And then I stood on a screw!!

We'd tidied as well as you can with 2 useless vacuum cleaners, (one of which, despite being brand new, won't suck for more than 20 seconds!), but we'd obviously missed a bit!

Could I get a screw to stand on its head (and tread on the point) if I tried?

I doubt it, but managed to do so in the middle of Saturday night!

Blood everywhere, and quite an impressive lump...

Which, of course, prevents me from taking my favourite stress-relieving exercise: a nice country walk.

Oh, well, I'm getting there.

Crossroads

We'd received the figures (but not the detailed estimates) last week, but hadn't really had chance to talk about the numbers till Sunday morning.

We were driving down from Leeds services (we'd stopped overnight after a wedding reception nearby - staying there gave us a shorter journey after the bash & saved us having to get out of London twice in less than 24 hours!), and spent most of the journey to the tunnel and the time under the sea discussing what to do.

We'd pretty much made up our minds to cancel the whole project!

To finance what is proposed in phase 1, we would have to sell the flat (and still borrow quite heavily).

We figured that if we have to sell my flat, we might as well do that and move into Ormonde Court and wait for the housing market to "adjust" and then buy a house in England.

We'd spend a lot more time there, for a start, and it would probably work out cheaper in the long run!

We could just fill in some of the holes in the house in France, and paint the floors (to stop the demoralising concrete dust) and camp here during the summer months...

What we've done for the last 3 years, in fact!

The last couple of days, though, I've been plugging all the figures into a spreadsheet (easier to see what effect deleting items has on the total), so it looks as though we haven't quite abandoned the idea yet.

It's nice in one respect to find the odd error in the estimates (lose that EUR 600, yay!), but irritating in other ways - the project manager stressed that they'd checked the figures...

Even I don't need 10 power sockets in the bathroom!

[Unlike the UK, you are allowed to mix water & electricity here!]

Once I've finished the spreadheet, I'm going to get out the red pen...

Various friends wonder whether we've been given the "rich foreigner" price; I can't help wondering that myself...

But it's the starting point we've got, so I'm going to get cracking.

PLEASE keep your fingers crossed for us!

How do you find Polish builders??

We've had the quotes...

OUCH!!

So today I am loading it all into a spready so that we can easily keep track of the costs as we go through deleting items!

The temptation just to build a new house is there, but we'd have to go back to the beginning of the process...

Save a lot of money, though!

Slow progress...

...but it is progress!

David spoke with M. Petipas, and he is collating all the quotes he has received/thinks we are likely to receive, so we are edging towards the point where we will find out how much it is likely to cost!

Hmmm...

We shall meet that when we get there, so I am busy not thinking about it.

I think we will be going to France mid-May, so it seems very unlikely that work will start at the beginning of June, but I'm at the stage where I will be rejoicing whenever work starts.

Because that will mean that at some point it will finish!

And that's what I'm looking forward to.

Robin's antics

I knew the robin in the garden was reasonably smart - he hangs around when I am moving the pots on the patio, waiting to grab any bugs exposed.

The fact that he doesn't get more I think might be owing to poor eyesight & quick grubs!

But I wasn't expecting prima-donna behaviour, but I'm sure that's what happened...

I was drying up the glasses in the kitchen, when I heard incredibly loud cheeping from the garden. Thinking it might be the wren, I was scanning the garden to see where it was...

Then I saw the robin on a pot - he was the one making the racket, and I felt he was looking directly at me.

I looked around to see what was disturbing him (I have never heard him make a row like that before), but couldn't see anything. He kept on making the noise and looking at me.

I was starting to think I was imagining this [weird, right?], and then I remembered the bird-feeder (now know as "robin feeder" because of the critter's aggressive teritorialness with the other birds!).

OK, I'll admit to talking to the robin (I don't have any cats!), so I was asking him if he was hungry & wanted me to fill up the seed hopper.

The response I got was he flew onto the kitchen windowsill & looked directly at me & carried on yelling!

So, feeling I was getting the message, I went outside to fill up the feeder. The robin flew into a viburnum (about 4' from the feeder - the garden's only 12' long so nothing is far from anything else!).

At this point he'd stopped chirping. I moved away from the feeder & he hopped to a pot nearer to it, so I went back indoors.

I'd just got back to the kitchen window when he flew onto the feeder - no noise, no giving me a beady eye, he just grabbed a few grains & went.

I used to have a squirrel that had got me trained to take out food when she banged on the window, but was the robin really calling for me?

I think so...

But who knows?

Letterbox!

It has now become clear why M. Lorin was so keen to arrange for M. Quinot to fit our letterbox - all our post has been going to him when we are not there.

There was no need for him to have a letterbox at the house when he owned it; the postlady just delivered anything to his other house (where he was living whilst doing up chez le Baron).

Simple!

The postlady has still been delivering any post to his house, but obviously if he's sold it that can't continue!

We don't know if he has sold the house (that bit of gossip had to wait as we were busy when he visited), but still we need our own letterbox.

And now we have one!

Yay!

Some sad news...

Well, it's sad for us!

We saw M. Lorin when we were at the house in December (we didn't see him on our February visit), we thought he looked a lot happier...

We wondered whether he might have found a girlfriend!

We couldn't see what else would have changed...

He appeared on Thursday morning (he came to apologise because his friend hadn't fitted the letterbox, and arrange for him to fit in whilst we were there), and dropped a bombshell!

He no longer lives in the village - he moved out in mid-December, and has moved to a village near to Troyes.

Apparently the damp at his house was being caused by a wall his neighbour had built (without proper damp-proofing) that was drawing moisture into M. Lorin's house.

The damp was exacerbating his arthritis, and giving him asthma attacks.

He looks so much happier & healthier, so we're really happy for him.

But not so happy for us! :-(

I really hope that we will manage to keep in touch and stay friends...

Tile-hunting...

By the time we'd finished with our meetings on Thursday afternoon, despite having enough time to fit in a quick visit to a tile showroom, we decided against trying to finalise our choice of tiles for the bathroom.

We were all set for an early start on Friday morning, just waiting for David to get the croissant-munching out of the way, when Mme. Bouzenard collared him with a message that M. Boyer was trying to get hold of us because a carpenter was coming to visit at 11 o'clock.

David eventually managed to speak with M. Petipas, and found out that the carpenter was coming after visiting their office (probably about 11.30, by this time), so we decided to wait for him rather than heading off to the one showroom that's not near Troyes.

We were waiting at the house (in the car, with the engine running - not warm), when Mme. Bouzenard appeared at the gate.

Another message (bad mobile coverage because of the fog? Normally at our house [rather than the gîte] the signal is pretty good); the carpenter would be about an hour late.

So we went back to the gîte and had an early lunch, and went back to the house to find the carpenter waiting (fortunately, he had only just arrived).

He didn't take too long (half an hour?) and then we were on our way to another tiring day...

How difficult could it be to choose some tiles?

Very!

We wanted something fairly neutral, in a large size, that will go with the floor tiles...

After over six months of trying to get a sample of the floor tiles we have chosen (we said that if the manufacturer wouldn't supply a free sample, we would buy a box), the sample had finally arrived at the builders' merchant...

Only it was the wrong colour! :-(

The lady was pointing out that that was the colour on the display, and we explained that we wanted the other colour - could she please check that the warmer shade was still available, and order one of those please?

I think the action of looking it up in the catalogue must have jogged her memory (we had asked those questions when originally ordering the sample in July [or was it June?]).

We then got a sincere-sounding apology, and she said the other sample should be there in a couple of weeks.

Fingers crossed!

We really could have done with the lost morning - we ran out of time to visit the showroom that was not near Troyes (but fortunately the "sister" showroom told us that they didn't open on Saturday - that really would have been a waste of time).

Had we known that the carpenter wasn't going to arrive till after 12, and the showroom in Mussy wouldn't open on Saturday, we would have headed off on a quick trip before our Friday meeting at the house, but perhaps the rest did us more good?

We still ended up going back to Troyes on Saturday, but we'd really narrowed it down by then, so it was quicker and less "painful" (OK, that's an exageration; it's not painful, but our heads hurt by this point!).

And we got a free sample of number one choice there and then! Also ordered a sample of the number 2 choice.

Having seen the (bluey) grey marbled tiles that we think will work, we are just waiting to check they don't look horrible against the more beige tones of the floor...

But there's also the (dove/elephant) grey tile that either needs ruling out or reconsidering!

Until the tiles are bought, we still have time to change our minds! ;-)

Meetings with builders, carpenters, plumbers, etc., etc.

We had an action-packed day last Thursday: M. Petipas had set up morning and afternoon meetings with the various trades he had invited to quote for the work on our house...

They had got 2 firms representing each trade to agree to come and give us a quote, and had split them into morning and afternoon visits.

We had a list of all the people we were expecting to see - needless to say there were a few last minute substitutions/cancellations.

I, for one, was quite worn out at the end of the day; trying to talk to 20 or 30 people about different aspects of the project (never really got to grips with who was who; just working out what trade they represented by the questions they were asking!), and listening in French for 2/3 hours at a stretch was quite a challenge.

I can remember at school (and later at poly/college) being told that humans have an attention span/can concentrate well for about 40 minutes (which is why most classes/lectures last less than an hour), but after that you might as well be talking in a foreign language!

Well, it was a challenge, but we both feel much more positive; it actually seems possible that work might one day start again...

Which would mean that one day it would be finished!

Flying visit!

Earlier this month we went on a "flying visit" to the house to meet with a builder and a chap who was a cross between structural engineer & carpenter.

We left Brixton mid-afternoon on the Wednesday, arriving at the hotel just off the motorway about 11.30pm; by mid evening Thursday we were back home & unpacked - a glorified day trip!

At 8.30 on Thursday morning we arrived at the house to find the two builders waiting! That's got to be a good sign.

Once we'd apologised for not being there before them (we weren't late), we started opening up the house to let in some warmth & light.

My thermometers (I've got a small collection of minimum-maximum ones) showed that outside & upstairs it had dipped to -8°C, but downstairs it had only dropped to 2½°C - that's got to show that the insulation & new windows/doors/shutters are making a difference, surely?

I'm hoping that when it's been properly insulated (including under the floors; see below), and the gaps under the doors are blocked, the difference will be even more marked.

M. Petipas had the builders drill through the cover of the well (took 2 goes, as they hit a reinforcing bar the first time - the only one that day that would inconvenience them!), and they dropped a line to try and gauge how far below the water is and how deep.

The well seems to be 22.6m deep, with (I'm not sure I'm remembering this?) about 10m of water - everyone agreed this will be plenty for us to connect to for flushing the loos/watering the garden.

If we want to use the water we will need a filter - one level for loo-flushing/garden watering, a higher level if we intend to use the water in the shower/washing machine (which we do hope to do), and an even more rigorous one if we intend to drink the water.

We will need an analysis by a laboratory before thinking about using the water for drinking - and the well will have to be pumped out for a long time (to clear the standing water & re-establish the flow) before that can be done, so we might put that on hold till later; it will depend whether that is possible.

We will have to be guided by the plumbers when we have the forthcoming meeting with all the firms that the project managers have lined up to give us quotes...

So we started the day on a bit of good news.

Lucky, really, because everything M. Huguenot looked at after that just reconfirmed our suspicions about the corners Dominique had cut!

M. Petipas had the builders dig holes in the concrete in the kitchen (no damp-proof membrane, no insulation), the bedroom (damp-proof membrane that was thinner than the supermarket bags they put out for fruit & veg - NOT adequate! - no insulation).

We'd already seen from the hole that appeared by itself in the back hall that that floor was like the bedroom one.

No floor was laid correctly: dug out; hardcore compacted to form a stable base; sand to provide a smooth surface that wouldn't puncture the damp-proof membrane; thick damp-proof membrane; non-compressible insulation (of adequate thickness); at least 10mm of reinforced concrete.

Oh, well, next time!

Pretty much what we expected behind the plasterboard that the builders removed - not enough insulation, inadequately fixed in position (one piece in the bedroom had crumpled up & slid down the wall because the gap wasn't narrow enough to hold it in place).

One interesting development that we hadn't expected: one of the joists in the back hall ceiling didn't quite meet the wall!

Instead of the joist supporting the floor boards upstairs, the floor boards were holding up the ceiling joist!

It happens!

The ends of joists do rot/get eaten away, especially in older buildings that were constructed before wood-treatment became widely available.

But that doesn't change the fact that no reputable builder would leave a joist like that and attach plasterboard below it!

A joist hanger would cost less than £10 & would cure the problem in less than half an hour; the rest of the beam looked completely solid.

At least we've found out at this stage!

But it does make us wonder what else is waiting to be discovered...

The carpenter/structural engineer took a look at the roof timbers, and pronounced that the mezzanine will be OK being supported on the truss beams (not sure if that's the correct term - got it from a French/English translation of carpentry terms).

Great news that we don't need a steel cage constructing within the house to support the mezzanine - in terms of cost and time.

So, we ended the morning on a high!

Quick look around the garden - quite a few bulbs coming through, and primroses popping up; with the sunshine it felt quite spring-like - and then back to the motorway.

We were at Troyes having lunch at the service station in good time.

Our next visit will be to meet with various trades who are coming in two parties to quote for the work.

Please keep your fingers crossed that this means we will get work started sometime soon!