Happy New Year!
I had put the computer away in it's box before Christmas; it was in the way of where I wanted to put my little Christmas tree, and I wanted a complete break from preparing/thinking about the visit to the
maître d'œuvre. After Christmas, I really didn’t want to start thinking about things again, so, it's been a long time since I updated the blog. Here goes:
We spent a long time preparing and reviewing the list of «
besoins et souhaits » ("Wants & Wishes") for M. Boyer, and finally sent it off to him last weekend in preparation for our meeting last Friday. We were due to meet at the house at 2.30, but he had emailed us the week before to ask whether he could bring 2 colleagues and spend the whole day there. Of course we were happy to agree to this; the sooner we can get started, the quicker it will be finished!
Remembering how nippy it was when we measured up the house after we bought it (mid-October), we took thermal underwear (long-johns & long-sleeved tops) and thick boots and jumpers, together with our warmest coats. It was the right choice: David got a bit chilled, but I managed to stay completely warm, mainly because I had a trip back to the
gîte to fetch some papers/photos – that was enough exercise to get the circulation going again. Even though it was somewhere around 10°c outside, the house was noticeably nippier. The minimum/maximum thermometer had recorded a low of -5½°c (assuming my thermometer is correct)
inside the house! Not as bad as last winter (low of -8½°c), but considering it’s only been down to that level outside, still pretty chilly; and it felt as though the house had retained most of that cold!
All the neighbours are disgusted with the weather; according to different reports it's either been below freezing either once, or 2 or 3 times. And then only as low as -5°c (or -6°, depending to whom you listen). It should have been as low as -15° to -18° at this time of year. When we arrived, it was much colder in the house than outside, but it eventually warmed up significantly with the doors open for a time on Thursday, all day Friday and a couple of hours on Saturday.
The unseasonably warm weather was not enough to stop us enjoying the log-fire at the
gîte – that’s one of the pleasures we are really looking forward to when our house is habitable.
So much more relaxing than a radiator or gas fire!
M. Lorin has a “weather station” (I’m not sure what the proper word is) in his front room, and he said it had been up to 98° humidity! No wonder it felt so sodden everywhere; we had left a wine box at the house (in case of emergencies! :-) ), and that had sagged, the air was so moist. I’m hoping all my books are OK…
We got to the house in good time for the meeting with M. Boyer and his colleagues, but had difficulty opening the kitchen front door, and some of the windows (to open the shutters to let light in) because the wood had absorbed the damp! We found out afterwards that he was late arriving because he had finally managed to make contact with Dominique… M. Baty had told him to call
early to catch him; but M. Boyer only had the telephone number on Dominique’s estimate and so woke his mother up at 7am – that will teach her to let her address be used as a business address! [Perhaps Dominique doesn’t use his own address because he’s let too many clients down in the past?] Reading between the lines, a cross telephone call from his mother was enough to get Dominique to finally get back to M. Boyer!
Part of the day’s work was to assess what work Dominique had done: what was finished; what was not finished; what needed undoing and re-doing. One of the Philippes told us that the Tribunal route could take two years, not the year we had been advised; that reinforced our decision not to chase the money through the courts – personal experience has taught me that’s one way of throwing good money after bad! M. Boyer is going to have a meeting at the house with Dominique, after his colleague has quantified the works done (and assessed how much they
should have cost). So we’re keeping our fingers crossed…
We walked round the house and discussed what we intended to do everywhere, but ran out of time to discuss any of our carefully prepared «
besoins et souhaits », so will be going back for a meeting when M Boyer has had chance to attach the measurements taken by Philippe 1 to the plans and Philippe 2 has looked at all the financial details, and M. Boyer has met with Dominique. A big thank you to
John Knighton for sending us the plans in Autocad to forward on.
We are hopeful that by the time we next go to France (late next month?), we will have a much clearer idea of what is possible, how much it will cost, how long it will take, and whether we stand any chance of getting some money back from Dominique…
Apart from a lot of discussions about VAT (the law changed a couple of weeks before our meeting; now you don’t
automatically pay 5.5% on renovations – there are hoards of criteria to wade through in the hope of avoiding paying 19.6%, but I have a nasty feeling…!), I don’t know where the morning went! Not being in London (snatched sandwich at the desk), we all went to a local restaurant for a quick lunch. Quick by French standards – but it was lovely,
and they had a vegetarian choice! We could get used to that. The downside, of course being that you’d get a lot less work done. But in France they are only allowed to work 35 hours a week, so that wouldn’t be a problem!
As we were shutting up the house to go to lunch, we found we couldn’t shut the kitchen front door. Panic! So we jammed it shut, and hoped for the best… Not that it would have made too much difference; we couldn’t lock the other front door! The 3 hours that the doors had been open had been enough for the ambient moisture to warp the frames just a little bit more. I was not happy. [Not in a strop; just worried.]
After lunch David called M. Baty, but couldn’t convince his wife we had a problem. [David would have been the one with a problem! There’s no way I’d have left France with a door that wasn’t locked!] M. Boyer called later, and M. Baty was back home by then, so he explained the problem, and M. Baty rearranged our meeting from 11am Saturday at his house, to 2.30-3pm at our house. We had to go round and check the house was OK before I could settle down on the Friday night!
One particularly interesting thing to come out of our discussion was a type of fire that is basically an open fire, but has glass sides and front that you can pull down to make it safe at night. I think that could be the answer to one of our questions. Watch this space…
The next day, watching M. Baty was a revelation; I would have got out a chisel or plane, and started taking bits off either the door or frame, but he drifted the frame in a bit further using a wedge, and even managed to alter the way it was sited. Having checked both doors locked several times, he left us with the advice not to take any wood off anywhere until at least a year from now. David R had said the same thing, but I hadn’t realised that a door that could not be closed could be fixed in such an elegant way. He has promised to readjust the frames after we have got our central heating up and running.
M. Baty’s hair has got longer and curlier; he looked quite dashing! What is it about rugged men who are good with their hands?!!
Along with all the weeds in my garden (
too soggy to do any weeding, so they're all still there!), the first of my bulbs are flowering - little yellow crocuses ("Golden Bells").
As we were leaving, Mme. Bouzenard showed us an old photo of our house; it was quite odd seeing that much colour in the woodwork (we knew it must have been green once!), and M. Thäele (still not sure if that’s how his name is spelt) had a lawn in front of the house. According to the reminiscences of the older people, he used to cut the grass with a scythe – and it was perfectly level and neat. That sounds amazing, but if you have ever tried to use a scythe, you’ll know it’s a lot harder than it looks! My efforts rarely achieved grass-removal, let alone a lawn finish! Another photo taken in 1964 when the Bouzenards were building their house showed « le baron » in their garden; it’s nice to put a face to the name. He sounds an amazing man, bit of a character, but very honest and trustworthy. We have heard stories about him from all the villagers we have chatted with. He wasn’t too hot on housework (but I knew that anyway!), and the girls who visited him used to surreptitiously wipe their glasses when he wasn’t looking, before having a drink with him. These days, sadly, I doubt parents would let their children visit an old man living alone, but all the people our age have fond memories of visiting him after school when they were children. He refused to be interred in the churchyard, as he didn’t want to be among the dishonest as well as the good people, so insisted that he was buried among the vines. He didn’t want anyone to attend his funeral, so asked for it to be at dawn. M. Bouzenard took his coffin up to the vineyard at daybreak, only to find the entire village had turned out to send him on his way; even the children had all got up early to attend. I would have liked to have met him; he sounds rather like my grandfather – heart of gold, adored children, but had his own distinct ideas! What he would have made of us, I dread to think, but I feel we are doing a good thing restoring his house to the beautiful place it once was.
My hair had been falling out in the summer, owing to the stress, I’m sure. Once we made the decision to get the place checked out by professionals (and employ someone to project manage, if necessary), that stopped fairly quickly. I don’t think it’s growing back yet, but at least I never got any bald patches (the advantage of having lots of hair, even if it is very fine!). The lovely thing about being out of London is washing my hair, and it actually being shiny, like it used to be!
However, seeing Mme. Bouzenard put all my trivial worries into perspective; I had admired her nail-polish (a deep maroon/purple colour that went beautifully with her jumper) – I thought perhaps she’d dressed up for a celebration – but she said it was to protect her nails. Apparently dark colours are better at stopping sunlight damaging the nails. But there is nothing she can do about her hair falling out; it’s already thinning (and has gone completely flat; all the curl has gone) and she’s only had one session of chemotherapy so far. She’s still having radiotherapy, (I think; my French is still not great) and has a course of chemo that will last six months, with a treatment every three weeks. We’re keeping our fingers crossed…
As well as taking lots of cold weather clothing, we took a shovel in case of snow, but it seems we missed it by a day! I tried to persuade David to phone in on Monday morning (hi Fish!) and say we'd been snowed in so we could stay to enjoy it, but when it comes to work he seems to be incorruptible; what a shame! The temperatures are due to drop as low as -12°, and snow was forecast for Monday or Tuesday [but as I can’t find a very local weather report, I don’t know if it did snow]. It was a blowy old journey back to Calais, but we had no idea of the storms until I spoke to Karen that night!
We escaped any damage, but the neighbours whose house backs onto ours now have a hole in their roof!
I had drained down the outside taps in London before we left (the doom-mongers were forecasting lows of -12°c here; what happened to that?!), but I was glad I had when we had the snow on Wednesday. Still wish I could have been in the Aube with snow, instead…
Phew! Enough already!
"Urban fox"
Here are just a few example of why we were becoming concerned with the quality of Dominique's work. The darker lines on the concrete of the kitchen floor had appeared the last time we visited the house in October - a sign of the damp coming through where he had not laid a damp-proof membrane under the concrete. We had asked him to lay insulation and damp-proofing under all the floors.
He also let his workmen hide the metalwork on the new windows; I believe he did not know about this before we pointed it out to him. but it's another example of work that we were not happy with. Given the quality of the windows, the surround looks even worse in comparison.
Considering he's a plumber by profession, I think I could do a better job! In fact I know I can do a better job; it's been a long time since I soldered anything, but dad wouldn't have let me make a mess like this! And this is piping that was going to be on permanent display, not something that would be hidden by a kitchen unit.
This is the piping under the vanity unit in the bathroom; given that they don't just have mice over there, but a whopping dormouse problem too, this just looks like a "cat-flap" for the furry critters!
This is the leak that was under the toilet, and if you look carefully you can see the cracks in the concrete (outlined in red). As we only stayed at the house for 3 weeks since the concrete was laid, I wasn't happy that it started to crack so soon.
An example of one of the holes in the concrete; they were there before we arrived in July, so it wasn't my weight breaking through!
It's true, we think in terms of buying & selling or service providing/usage (buying & selling by any other name!) - it's highly skilled commerce - even when I write a (rare) letter of complaint, I tend to focus on how the company can better serve their customer [and how kind I am in helping them achieve that - can I have a refund? ;-) ].
Part of what keeps my spirits up is “House Doctor Make Believe” – imagining what the house will look like when it’s finished… The kitchen (with units, and a floor, oh but without a shower!) with our big round table set up in the corner, and the dresser with Mrs Smith’s china on it. A couple of sofas in front of the insert, and maybe another table that I can do baking at. It’s all real; it’s just not happened yet, but it’s real to me…
nt it Wild Sage?) and use it as a day bed in the entrance hall. Most of that room will have exposed stonework, but I might paint the exterior wall a buttermilk/golden sandy colour. I think that a light colour will go with the green of the windows & door. I’ve also chosen the fabric for the curtains (in winter when we’ve stayed at the gîte the cold gets noticeably fiercer as you open the curtains, so heavy lined curtains for winter are a must!). William Morris has long been a favourite – I was a child in the seventies, and it was popular to have huge prints as soft furnishings, I guess it just rubbed off, so I was trawling through my books, and wanted a large flower print in shades of green and gold/cream/beige.
the paint off the "new" fireplace. It's taking a lot more coats of nasty glop than I was expecting, but we are nearly there on most of it - just two flat sides on the two big uprights yet to be started; we didn't want to wedge these stones (100kg each?) upright in case they fell! There has been some crystallization, that worried me, but it seemed to brush off quite nicely with a wire brush, so
I am keeping fingers crossed that I'm not doing any damage . There are still patches of nasty brown (and some black in places). We have been mixing lessive de soude and wallpaper paste, and painting it on, leaving it for half an hour (or so), before blasting it off with a pressure washer. Repeat as necessary!
ure if it is caustic soda or liquid washing soda (but I think that's just a dilute version of the same thing?) that we're using, but everyone has told us to wear gloves & be careful. We saw some (delightful, Kermit-coloured!) gloves in the supermarket that said suitable for bleach & "aggressive" products - that sounded just what we needed, so we bought a pair each.
rested) and some cyclamens (coum, I think, but they might be hederifolium), wearing shorts & a t-shirt. A bit later we decided that I should carry on as I was wearing gardening clothes (combat-style trousers, long-sleeved shirt & ancient cricket hat) and wellington boots (found a lovely lavender coloured pair; also have a pink pair w
ith yellow & white daisies in the next size up for wearing over thick socks in winter - the neighbours think we're a bit weird anyway [all strangers are in rural parts of the world, I think?], so why not?). Coupled with the plastic safety glasses and the green (seriously green) rubber gloves, I felt I cut quite a dash!
, there's still time (as I don't have a mirror in France, I may not look as fetching as I'd imagined, so reserve the right to withhold any picture!!)
e last two photos show what a mixture of lessive de soude and wallpaper
paste (and probably soot, nicotine, tar, distemper as well as paint) will do to your paintbrush if you are naïve enough not to wash your brushes out immediately after use!!
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