OK with the emails we are getting with questions we thought it maybe easier to do an “About Us” post and answer some questions here.

About Us
I’m (Lee) a 34 year old IT Support contractor , Dawn is 29 and a Training Co-Ordinator . Neither of us have renovated before and at present neither of us have any building skills outside regular DIY so this is going to be an interesting journey.

Questions

Can You Speak French?
That’s a yes and a a no. Dawn is a fluent French speaker and I’m not. I can understand more French than i can speak but i guess that’s down to the expressionism of the speaker rather than my talents.

YES I do plan to learn French and while i have my French iPhone Apps and my Learn French PodCasts i am finding it hard to do so while in the UK surrounded by English speakers.

It’s worth noting that even with Dawn speaking French we have had to buy a book on French Building Terms as this is way outside normal conversational French.

Is this is holiday home?
At the moment yes! We say at the moment because when we have finished the renovation we do plan to move to Montpillard and raise a family. This is the reason why we aren’t just plaster boarding the walls for a quick fix and sale.

Would you sell after renovation?
I thought about this, but to be honest the answer is NO! The reason i thought about selling was due to my London mentality of buy it, build it and sell it for a fast profit but you spend any amount of time on “the hill” and in the garden and the views as I soon realised that i was NEVER going to find anywhere like this ever again. It’s not about making a quick buck it’s about making a home.

What skills do you have?
My “skills” lay in computers. You need a network rolling out, or a mail server building then I’m your guy but building that’s not me. As for Dawn she is an AMAZING organiser and researcher and will be a fantastic project manager (and a great cook) , but plastering or brick laying are not her best skills.

So how are you going to renovate?
It’s a combination of a few things.
1) DADS are a FANTASTIC resources of skills. Both our dads come from a time where physical skills were the norm. Watch and learn is the key here.
2) Very expensive and somewhat unreliable French labour of course.
3) Courses! I’m off on a plastering course, and Dawn is off on a general DIY course. Check out TradeSkills4U , we’ll do a write up when we get on the courses.
4) Our architect is an Irish guy who has lived in Paris for 30 years and speaks both languages perfectly.

House questions
We are currently writing up the process of buying the house along with all costs, contacts etc etc so we’ll be dealing with : How much did the house cost, What is your budget, How did you find the house, Can you recommend an agent. But very quickly the whole process including fees cost us about €101,000 ( Dawn may correct me later ) . It was a long drawn out process and we almost lost the house to another couple and we already know that two of our neighbours had over the years enquired about buying the property so we feel very lucky.

More soon…..