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.

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?

You can download your free app from iTunes or in your iPhone & iPod touch HERE

If of course you want to show us some Google add clicking love that would be great too… More shortly, lots and lots to tell you .

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

Get the balloons, party poppers & the orange juice as we are about to have ourselves a wrap part!

Introducing little Miss “Petite Assistante” your personal French renovation dictionary, translater and all round life saver.

The app is a dedicated English to French to English translation dictionary however this IS NOT your normal batch of French words. You’re not going to be flirting with the ladies or buying groceries but these
6,000+ dedicated building/renovating words covering everything from fractions in English to French to tools, materials and so so much more.

We’ve even gone the other way and you can search French words (by alphabetically scrolling if you’re that way inclined or using the search function) so if you come across a word you’re not sure about when you’re out and about then you’re not lost. We don’t think there is any point in just having the English to French translator as when you actually have no idea what the French words are on their own. All that is now a thing of the past.

Here comes the some FAQ’s :

• Where can I get it?
  iTunes App Store. As soon as they approve it we’ll post the link here and on @Twitter.
  Petite Assistante will work on ALL generations of iPhones & iPod Touch’s.

• When can I get it?
  Apple say about 2 weeks from submission if we’ve managed not to break any rules.

• How much is it?
  NOW FREE (see post as to why) £1.79 or €2.00 depending what iTunes store you are connected to.

• How many words do you have & are you adding more?
  At launch we have over 6,000 translations in both English & French and YES we are adding more. We are going to keep it tight to renovating, renovation and building as this app is here to help you with these types of terms so we’ll not be cheating by swelling the word base by putting in basic French conversational words.

• Is there a “free” or “lite” version to try?
  Since we can’t do time limited trials we “may”  release a “lite” version for you to try. This will have around 500 words maximum and will just be a taster. This app will not be updated with all the extra words we are adding week on week.

• What do you mean English to French to English ?
  Simple … You look up the word “Paint” in English and you’ll see “Peinture” in French. But if you’re out and about and you see the word “Peinture” then how do you go about finding what that means.. With “Petite Assistante ” app you simply either drop into “Français à l’anglais” mode and search to word or scroll to it and that of course will bring up “Paint” in English.

If you have any questions about the app at all please either get in touch or drop us a comment and we’ll answer each and every one of you.

We are recording a demo video for you now and will post it shortly however here are some screen shots of the final layout and graphics. Enjoy

]]> http://www.montpillard.com/2009/08/french-renovation-there-is-an-app-for-that/feed/ 4 http://www.montpillard.com/2009/03/renovation-week-overview/ http://www.montpillard.com/2009/03/renovation-week-overview/#comments Sat, 07 Mar 2009 07:00:28 +0000 Lee http://www.montpillard.com/?p=1064 This week my father and I are over in the house for seven days, this will actually be the longest time we have spent here in one swoop and it’s borne out of the frustration that my wife and I have that we just can’t tinker with stuff on the odd weekend.

A quick recap :
While we are finalising the plans for the house we are working on a “Petit Renovation” first. The house in it’s current layout had somewhat of a  “livable” area consisting of Kitchen / Lounge, Shower room and 2 bedrooms both approx 11ft x 10ft each, however given the actual state of disrepair to all of them we really needed to fix up these area’s so we can comfortably stay in the house for holidays etc etc, and that by itself is no small task. Welcome to our “Petite Renovation”

The plan for the week is quite ambitious and we have a LOT to get through. This is actually Renovation Week 1 of 2 with the next week we are out here being Easter however this is the week where we must try and get things done to the bathroom as the wife can’t be without a toilet or at the very least a toilet door. Me and my father can just resort to being Neanderthals when needed

Plan for the week:

Bathroom
Remove and replace the bathroom. Everything in it from the WC to the 1/2 Bath / Shower need to be replaced. There is the option to level the floor and retile as well as remove and replace the awful foam square polystyrene ceiling and insulate.

Kitchen
Fit a kitchen of use! The “kitchen” as it is right now is a sink and a mobile gas cooker. A small kitchen has been purchased along with a new sink, natural gas hob and work top. This will enable us to have a functioning kitchen so we actually stop eating items cooked in one small saucepan and one small frying pan.

Plaster
The walls in the house are either covered in yellow stipple pain / artex or wood cladding. You by now have already seen the images of the walls we bought back to their original stone, and the plan is to finish this off where we can and then plasterboard, seal and paint the rest to create a clean space.

Fireplace
Rescuing the fireplace is one of the items that is on the top of my list that really shouldn’t be. This house has stood for over 300 years and the fireplace is very big, functional and the large stones used to create it have been painted over in yellow stipple paint and it angers me every time. While this is not urgent (as the fireplace works) this is on my hit list.

Rewire
I could write about the electrics in the house all day. Needless to say that they are badly done and very unreliable. While we re-plaster we’ll be relaying cables & adding data cabling as well. Given the ease of the French system of “Spurring” and the small size of the “Petite Mason” this actually sounds harder than it should be.

Plumbing
See above -  but just replace electricity with water! Everything is either bursting, pained or ready to rot. I’m looking forward to this as it gives us the chance to replace it when we fit the new bathroom and sink. Also some isolation values would in the past have been great as at present the water is either on or off to everywhere.

So you can see there is a LOT planned for 1 week, however we do have another week here in 3 weeks time but this is the week of long days, dirty work and no doubt a bit of swearing. Oh and of course I’d better let you know my budget: €2000 sounds fair

Drop in all week for running updates and photo’s ( there will  be LOTS )

A judicial review would have tied up planning for a decade and the proposed solution was to drop the house by 1 to 2 meters (up to 6ft), remove windows and change balconies. These changes would have been catastrophic.

While the guy had planning permission and agreed heights and designs etc etc some critical aspects were not written down and when challenged by a neighbour the planning permission was revoked and that’s when the troubles started.

3 years later and the house is almost finished but the guys dream has been shattered and his desire to live his dream that he had for 20 years is destroyed.

There are two lessons here which both I believe are as important as each other.

Lesson 1 – Neighbours!

Those next door to you or those around the corner from you. You have to take into account neighbours.

I’ve entitled the post “The importance of good neighbours” but it could easily be entitled :
“The importance of being a good neighbour”.

We have a set of neighbours called Sid & Liz who are amazing. They have welcomed up with open arms, they have helped us every step of the way and are a fantastic inspiration to what we’d like to achieve.  It’s not just the big things like planning advice, electricity and water connection they help us with but it’s the small things that are simply lifesaving.

With this in mind this is why you MUST MUST MUST develop or renovate with those around you in mind. We know we’ll be making some noise and sooner or later they’ll be some inconvenience and at this point you need people on your side.

Renovate or develop with those around you in mind. Work to enhance and add to where you are, after all you/we have decided this is where we want to spend the rest of our lives and those around you have the same idea so keep that in mind with everything you do.

Lesson 2 – Get everything in writing

With all property development there are rules and rules need to be followed.
When things are agreed make sure you have them in writing and stick to what has been agreed.  These rules are there for a reason mainly to protect everyone’s quality of life so stick to what has been agreed.

We are in the middle of getting plans drawn up, these plans will go through changes, edits, improvements and no doubt setbacks.  It’s to minimize these set backs that we are being meticulous about making sure these plans show the house before and after the renovation and that whatever we want to do is clearly shown on the plans what we will be submitting to the planning authorities

GRAND DESIGNS UPDATE
I found a link to the episode I was talking about above, please take time to give it a read.
Chilterns Water Mill: The Story

We’ve watched in stunned silence at the way some people have run their renovations, with all the good will in the world and enthusiasm failing to plan has cost people £1000’s or even worse their dream houses.

Project management can be done in many ways of course and using many programs however when it comes to a being Mac user your options initially seem limited. I’m used to using Microsoft Project, it’s extremely powerful, very easy to pickup and of course bloody expensive.

None of that helps me in the Mac user world, and I was starting to worry about not having a Mac version of MS Project.

Let me introduce you to Merlin 2.0
Merlin was super easy for me to get my head around. If Microsoft were to make MS Project for the Mac then surely this would be the outcome of that venture.

The ability to easily input tasks, assign dates to them with critical start and end points and well as very easy task linking ( so you know that item C cannot start until B is complete ) gives you a very clear and quick overview of your critical items on these paths.

Gant charts are a very clean and important way to show you what is happening when and what the impact will be if something clips. The ability to put in critical “End By” dates helps you keep track of your timescales.

A few things I found easier to do in Merlin than in the other packages was assign HOURS to tasks rather than full says or a % of a day. For instance I know the screed in the bathroom should take 3 hours to set and to be able to add “3 Hours” in the time window rather than say 65% of a working day ( normally 8 hours ) was nice. I want to get on with planning – since I’m not Charlie Epps.

Other things that I’m used to that seem overly complex in the other apps I tried was assigning costs to a resource. If I have a plasterer coming in at €150 a day I can put that in the planner again his time and get a report of the estimated or the project maximum costs. Very nice.

Below is a sample snapshot of the Gant chart function that they all do and to be honest this is what I find the most useful function in all these programs.

Fill the items out, see the plan and then print if off in A1/2 or 3 and have it on the wall. This not only focuses me but it also keeps my contractors’ minds on how much time they have set for the work.

Alternatives
By no means is Merlin the only package out there, in fact on the Mac you seems very spoilt for choice and it comes down to personal preference. Merlin is certainly not the cheapest software at $225 out there but I felt it was by far the best of the bunch and while Omniplan was cheaper at $140 but it’s a boxed product that you can’t buy online so as a European user I’m crippled. It appears that I was wrong and have since found a webstore for Omniplan. You can get it HERE

There are also a lot of online programs and my favourite would be Basecamp from the guys at 37Signals, but the total online nature of the program limited the choice since we need to be able to use it offline in the house. If only it used GoogleGears to do some sort of offline mode then we’d switch in a heart beat.

Sharing Plans
As with most of the things we are going to try and do on this renovation we’ll be sharing items with you. We are in the process of creating the relevant plans for the small “tarting up” renovation for March & Aprils and we’ll post those plans online for you to download and examine for yourself.

Links
You can get a trial copy of Merlin HERE

What made this more disappointing was the fact that we thought we’d found an architect that understood us, the house and the vision. The architect even came to stay with us for a few days to measure up and talk through the ideas, and while i “think” ultimately we got what we asked for (plans of how the building is now) we really thought we were starting a relationship that was going to continue as the house grew into our home, so when things fell flat it was a major personal blow to us both.

Time came and went and plans didn’t materialize however 50% upfront payment was made so we hung in there. Heated words were often exchanged in our house and tensions were running high. Months after due date and with me basically on my way to the guys house drawings arrived. I say drawings and not plans as the drawings are missing some key parts (as I’m now painfully aware….need i say “bathroom”). But onwards and upwards.

I’m a HUGE believer in the power of the internet and am now turning to the online communities to break out of the traditional mold and challenge people to think openly. We have the basic layout and the files are in digital format and are looking to post them in some architect forums to let people run wild with their own personal vision of what the house could be like.

Now we are fully aware and expect some of the ideas, layouts and designs to be far fro our taste or practical for that matter but somewhere in there we are hoping to find some true inspiration and someone we’ll choose to work with closer before we then get the plans finally looked at by a French architect.

So in time i’ll post the raw drawings and CAD files on here for you all the play with (they are in ArchiCAD so you’ll need to do some converting) but for now i’m just going to go over and measure the sides of the house again and let the internet hopefully throw some interesting inspiration out way..

UPDATE : We are getting some excellent idea’s thrown out at us from people at ELance and some great feedback from the Architect community on what we should have done BEFORE we got anything drawn up ( or not ) and i’ll be approving all these comments shortly and will try and do a full write-up with the help of these contributors as advice to others before they find themselves down a blind alley like we have.

THANK YOU ALL