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 just the break Dawn needed and with the added excitement of having explored the area and found far far more on our doorstep than we’d previously thought it’s really given Dawn a 2nd wind and a small reminder why we want to live in Montpillard.

Here is just a small sample of pictures of everyone working away. Unfortunately there were no “before” pictures taken only during and after so you can’t see how much progress they made, but lots of progress they did make and taming the jungle that was the garden was a priority while Dawn & Eric (her Dad) started to dismantle the cow shed.

Dawn & Eric - Hay removed from the cow shed.

Jules about to get strimming!

Looks like Eric's had enough of someone!

All this has to go.

Hmmm what's in here?

Non! Nothing of interest.

Clearing the cow shed (Eric's quite the beef cake).

Digging out the cave stairs.

Almost cleared.

Somehow Dawn is still clean....

They’ll be more pictures soon, but I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you to every for their help. We really couldn’t have done this without you. From my Dad and his ability to plaster, plumb and eternal patience, to Eric, Maureen, Julie & Judith and all their hard work in chopping, strimming, painting, lifting and lumping. Weeks like this when our friends and family are REALLY helping us out. I know it’s an old saying but many hands do make light work, however even it’s ifs just one set of extra hands they all make things progress so much more smoothly..

With that in mind if you fancy a trip to our house for the summer then you’re all most welcome (family, bloggers, readers etc etc), but come armed with old clothes and a pair of gloves as you’ll be needing them

1. Learning – I love to learn about everything and
2. Food/ cooking. I LOVE food.

I love food more than most things and I love fresh ingredients. You probably don’t know how much of a keen  gardener and cook I am too… probably because currently we live in South-East London and we have no real garden to speak of – but that doesn’t stop me thinking about it.

Unfortunately our garden in London doesn’t get any sunlight. I think it’s north facing and therefore trying to grow anything is near impossible.  Two years ago I bought some grow bags and planted some tomatoes in them. I bought 2 different varieties (bull tomatoes and gardeners delight) to see how they’d fare with my green fingers – they didn’t work out so well.

The lack of sunlight was a problem and so my love of gardening was squashed at an early stage. Still, I haven’t let this stop me but my love of food spurs me on. To be able to have to best and freshest ingredients for my meals is such a incentive! – and I also want to know everything that goes into it.

In France we have a garden which is about 140 ft x 100ft and I have plans. I want to make our garden in the same image as the house – self-sustainable and eco friendly. I am planning to grow our own fruit (to some extent), vegetables and herbs.  Therefore I am collating as much information as I can about: organic growing; location of plants; rotation; sowing; composting; soil etc…  I want the garden to be able to provide a good amount of our food on a daily basis.

Did I tell you that my food God is Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall? I think he is living my dream. I find him inspirational and motivational. I believe that living off our Land is invaluable to the way Lee and I want to live our lives. I’m not sure I could eat all the food stuffs he does but kudos to him for going the whole hog (pun intended).  He did a couple of series (Spring & Autumn) where he goes through the life of his small holding (not so small now) with his sheep and pigs and all his fruit and veg. I remember watching him pull a carrot from the ground and washing it off under his outside tap, eating it and then exclaiming that it was a extremely tasty carrot! The pleasure on his face from eating this carrot made me want to learn everything he did about food. If you didn’t manage to catch these series you can download them on iTunes and watch them again and again.

He also has some incredible books on Fish,  Meat and others about his small holding.
I recommend them ALL.

When we were out at our house last week (April 09) I spent some time designing what the garden will look like. It then gives me plenty of time to think it all through and start planning and learning and investigating. I plan to dedicate part of our French Renovation blog to my investigations and learning and help educate not only me but our readers too. This project isn’t just about building a house, its about building a way of life that we simply can’t get here in London. It is no longer enough buying organic food from Ocado (although I do LOVE ocado) or from Abel & Cole (supporting our local suppliers) and supporting other businesses – its about supporting ourselves and eventually passing on our teachings to our children.

So first things first, this is a rough picture of what the garden is going to look like (this is a rough sketch and the dimensions are wrong).

The basic principles of the design include:

3x 2m2 raised garden beds (to start off with – this might grow as I learn more and require more space)
A chicken coup for fresh chicken (yes, that’s right – fresh chicken) and fresh organic eggs
a greenhouse for housing seedlings – and safe guarding them from our strong winds (we are on top of a hill after all)
The reason I’ve chosen raised garden beds is because ground is very very muddy and raising the beds means I can add my own soil and compost.

As for the chicken coup – every small holding has to have chickens!! We would have sheep and pigs but alas currently we don’t have enough space. We might buy a cow and get our neighbour (the cow farmer) to look after it though. Ideally I would like to buy a whole dead sheep and cut it up myself and store it in the chest freezer in the utility room (sounds so dodgy!) like MFG (My food God) does…. but that’ll come with time.

And of course no garden is complete without a greenhouse. For me this is a vital and important ingredient in any garden (unless you have an alternative way of growing your seedlings). I have fond memories of my grandfather’s greenhouse in Kent and how it was always warm and full of tiny sprouting, living things. I loved the smell of the soil and the scent of the new seedlings.

Ok so that’s the context and an insight into where I’m coming from. More shortly…

On the cards for these 4 days is a full program of painting, plaster-boarding, demolition, shower fitting, plan redesigning & meetings with builders. No rest here but there will be lots of updates as rooms, buildings or plans progress.

More updates soon.

Lee

PS: The weather here is stunning right now, here’s a sneak peak.

Well Dawns been busy reading and now writing up her views on 4 excellent books we have got. Most are excellent, 1 is indispensable and one is now giving her sleepless nights.

Click on the Books & Reference section above to get to these MUST READ reviews.

Enjoy

It is split into 2 sections: French to English and then English to French

I REALLY wish we’d had this book with us the last time we went over as it would have been so useful – instead I was carrying around with me my dictionary which didn’t have any of the words I was looking for.

Here’s why this book would have saved us time and money:
We took back 3 tins of paint at one point on 3 different occasions and each tin was completely different and certainly not what we were looking for. We wasted over 6 hours going back and forth to the towns to change the products, along with this lost time I’d say we lost €30 in petrol costs.

I will definitely be taking this one out with me.

It even has 35 different definitions for any type of glue you could wish for! Amazing!

5 out of 5

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Purchase Note: To purchase any of these books simply click the image of the book and it’ll take you to Amazon using our reference. By doing this we’ll get 5% of the sale cost to help towards our renovation. Many thanks Dawn & Lee

I found it useful even though I had lived in France periodically since I was very young. There is a lot of information here you take for granted, some of the most important is what you need to do to open a bank account, how the health care and social security works and everything in between.

While this book is a FANTASTIC start I would say that your best source of information are the people you meet in France and on your journey. We are very fortunate that we have friends who live close by and they are a wealth of information. Not only that but one of them is a pharmacist – this is the best person in France to know as they are held in very high regard in any village/town/city since they dispense all medication and are a fountain of biological knowledge. However in the event you don’t have a “Pascale” this book comes a close second.

3 out of 5 for this one.

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Purchase Note: To purchase any of these books simply click the image of the book and it’ll take you to Amazon using our reference. By doing this we’ll get 5% of the sale cost to help towards our renovation. Many thanks Dawn & Lee

This book is GREAT! It describes everything from how to go about getting planning permission to what sorts of plaster are the best to use for certain types of houses. It gives a little bit of information about everything and its certainly the type of book you read and then re-read the bits that are relevant at the time.

If you don’t know already, the biggest thing you can learn about France is to play the system. Fill in their forms, wait in their queues, don’t be impatient. If you become impatient you will soon learn that they don’t tolerate it and you will be ostracised from any small community, NOT the way forward. So this book will help you on your way – therefore its invaluable!

5 out of 5!

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Purchase Note: To purchase any of these books simply click the image of the book and it’ll take you to Amazon using our reference. By doing this we’ll get 5% of the sale cost to help towards our renovation. Many thanks Dawn & Lee

Each house details how much was spent on it, with floor plans too and useful contacts relating to the build.

Despite there not being any French conversions in it we both found that it gives us plenty of ideas and food for thought. We found some good ideas for use of glass for our big barn door and possibilities for how to turn the upstairs into bedrooms and bathroom.

All in all I’d give it a 4 out of 5. Not 5 out of 5 only because it made me realise just how much these conversions cost and I had a sleepless night.

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Purchase Note: To purchase any of these books simply click the image of the book and it’ll take you to Amazon using our reference. By doing this we’ll get 5% of the sale cost to help towards our renovation. Many thanks Dawn & Lee

More soon but please enjoy these :