FANTASTIC! It’s been a long hard road and we’ve made many mistakes but today we had some fantastic news and now we can really start to get together full quotes, project plans and time scales to turn our current 1 bedroom flat into a rather large open plan 3 bedroom family home.

Don’t worry all the work we’ve done on the inside of the house isn’t going to go to waste, we’ll be doing this for a few years yet so we’ll be renovating from right to left so we can still live (or rent) the flat out for some time.

You’ll now start to see more and more detailed plans on the site but below are the ones we sent for approval and we got everything we asked for, not a single change was requested and not a single question about the plans. The architect really did a fantastic job considering the CAUE told us the we MUST leave the concrete stairs, we would never be allowed to change the outbuilding design and the house had too many windows.

Thankfully they weren’t speaking for the planners in our area.

So here comes the open plan house with a suspended mezzanine first floor and with a new useful side building and lots and lots of light.

It’s been a very big week for us, with the 1st baby kicks, completing on the new family home and now this. We couldn’t be happier at present. More plans when we get our breath back.

WOW

• Bathroom now finished & painted, there’s even a toilet roll holder to add some luxury to the experience
• 2nd kitchen sideboard & cupboards installed ready for new appliances
• The rear bedrooms new ceiling is up & plastered
• New lights & power sockets run into the new bedroom
• 1st wall totally pointed ( this is VERY time intensive )
• Old electric, phone & data points replaced & secured
• 4 new windows ordered to replace the current rotting ones
• 1 new stable type door ordered. Delivery & fitting the windows & doors should be 4/6 weeks
• Roofs on the grange & the house repaired (again)

I’m sure i’ve forgot something but i’ll be speaking to dad in length tonight when he returns from his mammoth renovation trip (it’s Good Friday today), the write ups, photos & podcast will be hot on the heals of this post.

There’s at present no further work planned for the next 4/6 weeks until Dawn goes to the house to supervise the windows being fitted but we are on the cusp of achieving what we wanted to for this year and IT’S ONLY APRIL :)

There was no paperwork, no inspection, no photographs just a chat on the phone with some figures from our builder with a cost to repair and then a “Yes Mrs Caller that’s completed, the money will be in your account on Monday”… WHAT WHAT WHAT?

Yep that’s it! The quote from our builder has been accepted and he’ll be starting work in the next few weeks to repair the roof on the house and the grange (again) and this time they’ll be using a different technique to make sure the tiles stay on since this will be the 4th time of securing them. Maybe lessons have been learned.

I LOVE OUR INSURANCE COMPANY and that’s something i NEVER thought i’d say about any insurance company.

You can read the original post HERE and see latest pictures of the roof :

This week top of the hit list was the bathroom, while the shower has been in for a while we’ve lived with a few bare wires hanging out of the wall for light, no loo roll holder, no mirror and the toilet seemed to buck like a bronco if you sat down without thinking and then there was a gaping whole in the top of the wall so privacy was always a premium.

It’s a real shame we never got any good photos of the old bathroom as it’s hard to explain how horrible it was, how (or why) anyone used it before we purchased the house still a mystery. Sure the new shower made a massive difference but you needed to be a member on MENSA to work out how to fit it in such a small space and the somewhat fitted new toilet made life liveable but it was never quite like it should have been. Now with the new accessories fitted a proper light finally fitted and the wiring channeled into the wall and not forgetting that the toilet is now anchored down it’s fantastic but to top that all off the opening in the wall had now been sealed so that is very much job done on the temporary bathroom.

The next job that is coming along nicely is the 2nd part of the kitchen. You’ll remember THIS POST i wrote about fitting the kitchen and while we were in the house every few months it was fine,  I even cooked Christmas dinner (link) on the current stove so there is no complaints, but there isn’t is a washing machine or an electric oven (we’ll use the gas one as a backup) and that’s now whats being worked on.. A €100 new work surface from Brico Depot, some leftover cabinets from MFI (UK) and now it’s time to buy a washing machine and small fridge. This will be luxury like we’ve not experienced before.

So 1 week in and that’s the bathroom finished except a bit of painting and the kitchen is ready for appliance fitting…

FANTASTIC for just 5 days from my Dad working on his own.. Kudos Papa

This renovation task is to finish off making one large liveable bedroom out the the two tiny, dark and damp rooms that were there before. Below is a picture of when Dad and myself could hide our pleasure making these two rooms into one and this is the 2nd push to rebuild this room to make it an enjoyable space.

Dad wasted no time today in getting stuck in to ripping down the old ceiling as we need to rewired the room, replace the insulation and put up some plaster board plus we had an idea things were living up there, and unfortunately we were right.

While removing the wood cladding (that we hate so much) it soon became apparent that the old roof above this ceiling wasn’t sealed at all and every animal seemed to have taken a chunk of the old insulation for bedding and some wildlife had taken the liberty of just moving right on in and were living up there, breading up there and of course crapping up there. Yes unfortunately that black stuff you see in the photo is rat faeces (ewww). I am so glad we’ve never spent months living in this room :)

Finding what we have, we are so glad that we are now at a point to renovate this room and especially with the new windows coming can really start to make this a fantastic, liveable, cosy & clean room.

I’ll be updating this page through the week as there is progress on this room so check back regularly but here is todays instalment of Dads hard work with some before and after pictures.

Don’t worry the wallpaper is going as well as the wood.

We’ll be opening up this to have a nice big window overlooking the garden.

Making solid progress.

Oh my! Is that what we think it is?

All down time to remove the insulation now.

Here’s a quick picture of the hole we now have in the barn and the damage to the grange will look all to familiar to regular readers as these are the tiles that were repaired and replaced previously. It’s no surprise the insurance company and the builder are now looking to use a different technique to make sure they stay on this time for good, a welcomed bit of logic.

Total price of repair just over €1300, thankfully we’re fully insured.

The Barn

The Grange

I’ll post more pictures next week when we are on site so keep tuned :)

Previous storm damage posts can be found here : http://www.montpillard.com/?s=storm&x=0&y=0

Here are some before, during & after photos with the bigger sets below.

With the roof now cleared you can really start to get a sense of size of the space we will have available to us. The timbers that we removed we are offering for free to anyone who wants to collect them (see HERE) and the cattle feed rack on the left we’ve given to Jean Luc our farming neighbour so he’s got use out of that. We are also trying to rescue the trough (at the bottom of the picture) that has a water irrigation system still fitted but given the time it’s stood unused and the rust its infested with it looks like it’ll only good for junk, which is a shame. Also not sure what we’re going to do with the old tiles as yet but i’m hoping i can at least crush them down and use them as hardcore rather than taking them to the dump.

Below are the remaining photos from the work carried out by Dad and I, unfortunately the two photos which would have proved popular if we’d captured it we don’t have…

These were :

1. I slammed my head off the main roof beam
2. One of the beams rolled and slammed the side of my head…

How i wasn’t knocked spark out is beyond me, but more to the surprise of Dad i didn’t lose my rag.
There must be ZEN in them bits of wood ;)

And that’s it. That’s where we are at the moment, we’ve got the wall to remove of course but i need to figure out what to do with all those bricks we’ll remove. There isn’t such a thing as a skip hire company around here and taking it all to the municipal dump is going to take many many trips with a car and a trailer so I need to get my thinking cap on!

Do you have any ideas?

Task 1 – Repair the rear window.

Somewhere in a storm in the last few months we appear to have lost a pain of glass, so Dad has task #1 of fitting a new piece of glass to this rotten old window. Easier said than done as he had to be so careful not to either break another really thin 2mm thick piece or damage the window itself. Time & patience paid off and he got this done. Looking forward to the part of the renovation where we replace all the windows :)

Task 2 – Get the bloody car out of the barn!

This car is starting to be a right pain in the arse. The owners haven’t turned up, we don’t have the right paperwork to take ownership and we’ve got a guy waiting to take it but we can’t give it to him (at the moment) , plus it’s not been out of the barn in around 8 years we’re told, so starting it isn’t an option.
Now i don’t know a great deal about these Citroens but Jacque Chirac loved them and they have some great funky hydraulic suspension but after all this time it’s sunk and is actually below the level of the barn so getting it out proved to be a mission for NASA, a structural engineer and 2 English guys sheer stubboness..

An hour later, with some pushing, pulling, choice words and creative ramp building it sees the sun for the first time in just under a decade and now the barn clearing can really start.

The barn is full of hay as you’d expect but its not been used as a hay loft for as long as the car has been in hiding and there is a LOT of it.. With the help of the local farmers tractor we cleared most of it away ready for burning.

Take it from me any romance you had about growing up on a farm in Smallville moving hay like Clark Kent well forget it… It’s horrible, itchy, gets everywhere..

Task 3 – Rehome the wild life!

During the move we found a next of hedgehogs hibernating. Now being a city dweller i’m sure i was a little over sympathetic about their plight and rather just turf them out or burn them with the rest of the hay i found the Nature Channel watcher in me and we rehoused them. Seriously we rehoused them! I’m not going to be taking that part of the barn down till next year so we moved some hay, had a new bed then physically moved the rather cute rodents to the new area and buried them again. Not so much as a thank you or an uncurling ( see below ) but it felt really good and a dose of positive karma all round.

And that’s my good karma deed for the day well except feeding the local wild kitten

So a good start to the week, tomorrow is a very busy day of pipe lagging, tile removal, mowing of lawn (my first time with a ride on mower) &  fitting a new wood burning stove, so forgive me while i sit back here put my feet up and have a Leffe beer.

Lots more tomorrow…..

In order to start this we need to empty and ultimalty dismantle the cow shed and our current bedroom, but with people staying in the bedroom the cow shed was a good place to start.

The “cow shed” is covered in hay at the moment, lots and lots of old hay. While this is providing insulation on top of our bedroom it is and was never going tobe a nice job removing all this, do to the sheer amount there is and the dead animals in there (so far we found two) .

Here is a reminder of what the top of the shed looked like. Covered in hay and other items like the Pony Trap orginally (however this went when we purchased the house). In the shed itself were old paints, tins, machinery and even a solid set bag of concrete as well as the old cow feeding rack.

That's a lot of hay to shift!

I'm sure there is both life & death in here.

Most of this is going to the tip.

The feed tray for the farmer.

While everything else went to the local tip, the cow feeding rack is going to be used by our farmer friend so it was good to see some items go to some use.

Hay starts to cover the car.

One of may trips to the garden with lots of hay.

So with that sorted it was time to start shifting the hay, and you can start to see how much there was as it covered the car that’s in the barn.

The floor looks mildly decent!

Finally clear, now to remove it.

Finally after lots of trips to the bottom of the garden to where this was bring burnt, Eric was greeted with a somewhat decent floor, however this was made up of old briquette tiles some just laid down and others full of cement.

Starting to see some light.

Getting them stacked.

They all need taking down but....

These can be removed another day. Wine anyone?

Now starts the prying, prodding, bashing and stacking! Soon there started the be light and in keeping with trying to keep everything we remove and not just stash it to pieces Eric started stacking the useable briquettes and soon large chunks of upper roof could be seen.

The next visit it’ll be time to get all these down and then start to remove the roof joists to open this space right up. This hopefully will be done on a time-lapse camera so you can see it getting removed, but once this has gone we’ll start to get a real feel of the space that is available to us which is going to be come a nice sized living area.

This was a hard exercise to go through so when we started to look ahead to see how would two adults a few kids and a dog live in the house things became easier, we became more practical about where we wanted bedrooms, bathrooms.  From here we went down a planning route which ultimately has clashed with what is deemed as “French Enough” and not in keeping with the area.

There seems to be a fine line between wanting to move design forward as we see it and using lots of natural light to a somewhat invisible tipping point where this is not “French Enough” and is rejected out of hand.

We’ve posted the below render before, and while taking advice from the CAUE we’ve been told the house looks too “Alpine” and specifically the changing of the pitch of the roof of the side house is not acceptable.  So while this wasn’t a major shock to have scorn poured on the initial plans what did strike me was a lack of understanding as to why we would want to do things and the outbuilding is a great example.

The outbuilding as is, is not useable for anything except storing maybe cattle feed.  The roof is too low, the walls are falling down and it has zero foundations.  Taking the chance to increase the height and change the pitch to match the house seemed logical.  Changing the pitch meant that we could actually use the new roof space as a storage/dressing area in the master bedroom, while creating a utility & entrance room downstairs, which ultimately meant we could move the kitchen door so you didn’t walk directly in from the muddy drive into the kitchen.

This just isn’t going to happen.. The pitch of the roof isn’t allowed to be changed however we may be able to heighten it.  The reason we were told for the reject was “This was un-French, and when we come to sell the French wouldn’t get it”.. REALLY? Wouldn’t get the extra space and practicality it offers, but OK deep breath and think about fighing the battles that actually need fighting.

Where things start to become sticky is when plans start to suggest the internal layout of the space.  Now the CAUE may well just be being over helpful but coming from a small 1 bedroom flat in London all my life I want to create open spaces for family and friends to gather.  For this reason I found it amazing that the CAUE architect arbitrarily chopped 12ft off the lounge, move the front door and created a hall way that had no natural light.  Why would you do this? The house is dark right now and the idea of windows is to open this up not to darken it down..  Is to have space & natural light “un-French”?

While we are talking about light, gone are the skylights in the new bathroom and with the internal changes gone are the dormers windows altogether and this is where I think that looking at plans without explanation can be cold, harsh and ultimately wrong.

The below image shows a quick bastardization of the work done by the contact at the CAUE so please forgive the roughness.  The top one is his “suggested” design and our compromise is the bottom and here is my explanation as to why this should be more than OK.

Ground floor Windows
The on to the right of the front door the window isn’t actually an addition it’s actually restoration of one that was there.  Sometime ago it seems to have been blocked up and we’ve since been using it as a HiFi cupboard (see image) but unless you talked to us about this you’d just assume we were adding a window.  That said it does need another window in there, the light in the kitchen is poor and this would really help.

Bathroom Windows
Seems simple enough, for light and ventilation.

Dormer Windows
Both our neighbours have these so it is indeed in keeping with the area.  The dormers would be in two new bedrooms allowing light and views.  The dormer on the far left is actually in the 1st bedroom where we could move our children too when they are old enough to not sleep in our room so they ahve their own room but are close enough to us for anything. Again without knowing this logic I don’t get why it would just be OK to move the bedrooms to opposite ends of the house.

Ground Floor Right Door
This needs to go! The suggestion of making this into a window to me is bizarre.  The window would be at ground level and maybe it’s the Londoner in me but this is just not secure.  Take into consideration this is where you park the car and you’ll get no use or light out of it.  Closing the door and adding a window that is away from the car port and at a decent level to allow in light seems a natural way to go.

Lean to / External stairs
So this is where I can see some difference of opinion and will be the easiest area to compromise on.  The external stairs were put back on the suggested plans with the explanation of  ”this would help with heavy furniture”.. Unfortunately nothing here as lost in translation and this seems to be pure opinion as to function.

The stairs are a later addition to the house.  They are made with poured concrete and is definitely not an original feature, they are also coming away from the house and the ivy, moss and water that pour down the gap are damaging that corner of the house, so it has to go.  Also for me again I see this as a security risk having a set of stairs leading directly to what we wanted to change into a glass widows to allow more light into the top floor.  Luckily for me no permission is needed to remove the stairs and these WILL be going.

Now the compromise
The suggested rebuild of the lean-to and pitch change of the roof is not in keeping and makes the look “alpine” in design is the opinion of the man at the CAUE, now he used to work in planning so should know what will and will not go through.  So OK I’m not overly precious about this, it would have been ideal to create more space but if this is a sticking point given the other spaces we are creating then I can accept this. Unfortunately it could be easier to remove it completely than to make use of it.  Currently it’s in a state and is falling down in-fact we’ve done a few posts on removing the roof and taking down the wall.  Again it’s under the size I need to have permission to remove so if it does become a hassle then it’s going, however we feel personally it is really a part of the house we do want to keep it.. The jury is out on this at present.

Conclusion
This is anything but concluded! Design is such a personal issue and it’s hard to strike a balance between allowing design to move forward and yet keep the integrity of the area so there isn’t something that stands out like a sore thumb.  So while for instance i’ll agree that the roof pitch change may be too much, I’ll not agree that putting in windows to allow more natural light in (thus reducing the need for lighting and reducing it’s energy bill) is a step to far, there has to be a balance struck between 21st century living, technologies and environmental concerns with that of keeping an old stone building just as old cold stone building.

I guess what I’m getting at is before we pruchased it, it was sitting there rotting like it was doing. While we don’t expect to be able to be outrageous with it, it has surely got to be better restored, lived in and come compromise has to be reached to the benefit of everyone.

So it’s now time to go back with some suggested revisions so they’ll be more news on this shortly we hope.  In the mean time below is the evolution of the plans, from where we were, to what we’d hoped for to where are are now today… WOW how plans change ;)