Ray of light?

So does screaming and shouting get somewhere or is it just timing and the gods sense of irony?

Today and well this week as a whole the process has taken great leaps forward and now we actually have time scales and the ability to get a more accurate cost plan for some of the work now things have been confirmed.

So the good stuff

Excellent meeting with the architect on site.
He’s looked at the plans and there isn’t anything in there that should cause a concern and he doesn’t see any issues getting permission through. This is excellent as we feel kind of validated with the amount of work and research we did with other properties in the area to create something we really love yet in keeping with the local area.

We need to make one small change to the dormer windows but this is more of a design render issues and a problem. You’ll see on the render the distance between the window itself and the edge of the dormer is quite wide. We need to scale this down to make it more traditional. NO PROBLEM! There is also a suggestion on the colour of render to use on the outside that we’ll look into a well, so all that is VERY positive after a few very hard weeks.

Next movement was on the confirmation of what type of beams we need for the mezzanine and an inspection of the beams that we’ll be working around.

The beams that are there are fine which is what we wanted to hear as this is a big cost, we’ll need to treat them but that was always to be expected. Another bit of good news was that the beams we need to use for mezzanine are a standard off the shelf size. Nothing super interesting needed here and this really helps on cost. The “madrier” will be 230cm x 80cm and the placement is suggested to be 60cm apart which is double that i had worked on, which in turn halfs the number of needed beams and the cost. Also in another stroke of good fortune we can get these from a local timber merchant in Nevers.

Dawn is off to see the supplier tomorrow so i’ll then have a very solid idea on costs which will help me sleep. I’m expecting around £200 / €230 a beam but wouldn’t be surprised if they came out close to €300 and we’ll then need 18 of them and not 35 (ish). So again that’s positive.

Now the frustrating stuff
With every plus there is a minus, and in this case it’s just time! Since it’s taken everyone so long to come out and see us, we are now in French holiday season so this is really going to put the brakes on ANY progress until possibly December but you know what? I’m OK with that, i’m just going to roll with this as i understand this is just how it’s got to be.

How do i come up with December you ask?
Plans back from architect with dossier to send to planning September 30th(ish)
Projected time to get approval of plans – 2 months.

That takes us to the 1st december at the earliest and in Montpillard the winters are awesome! Awesome in a “we live in London” type of way, were we don’t get snow drifts. If there is snow in Montpillard there is no way we’ll be able to work in that weather, so while i plan to place the order for the mezzanine floor as soon as we get the go ahead i’m not sure that’ll be able to be fitted until maybe March, but i’m going to try and find a builder for a december fit so i can see end the year with a new level in the house.

What can we do?
Again here’s where things become wooly and my hands are tied. We have a downstairs bedroom that is essentailly a room in the barn that was made, at the opposite end of the barn there is a cowshed, made the same way with free standing wall and beams put up. Now if i want to put the mezzanine in that would mean i need “change of use” permission which i don’t have. However if i want to remove the free standing rooms i DON’T need change of use permission. It seems to get complicated when you want to put something up rather than take it down… SIGH.

So i’ll remove the cowshed and create a big open space , that needs to be done anyway and i can feel like i’m making progress.

So all in all a VERY good meeting and now I really feel finally we aren’t being held back and that’s all I ever wanted. No it’s time to start the hard graft of removing very heavy brick walls, just what i live for ;)