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Here’s what’s been going on…

Lee — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 18:34:53 +0000

They say a picture is worth a 1000 words and we’ve got lots to tell you, almost too much to be honest and that’s what has caused the delay to posting so it’s time to play a little catch up and also unviel what’s been keeping us busy since March..

If at the start of the year you would have said i would be in a new job (yep i changed jobs), we’d be moving to a new area (yep we have bought another house) and that we’d have a baby (didn’t we tell you about that?) on the way, i would have said you were smoking something herbal but that’s exactly what has happened.

The new job keeps me away from home 3 or 4 days a week and while we’ve been looking for a house to resolve this Dawns bump has been getting bigger and bigger and when i’m at home i just haven’t felt like writing but now we’ve past the 20wk pregnancy mark and we know we are having a girl we also have a date to move into the new house and with those two things sorted there is once again some space to be able to share everything with you.

So while i get my writing head straight here’s what has also been going on and what to expect from me this week :

The new English family home :

Final plans are in and have been for a good few weeks now: Rear bedroom is 99% renovated, just paint to go : New floor laid in the rear room : 2nd part of the kitchen built : Appliances arrived and installed in the kitchen : Final plastering on bathroom finished :

All these are going to take me a few days as there of course has been a lot of work around the quick pictures posted here so i look forward to sharing them with you. If you can’t wait then click on the Flickr gallery link on the right as that’s were most are. Once again thank you to Dad who spent another couple of weeks in the house and made massive progress, the last visit in France really felt like home.

GALLERY – Removing an outbuilding

Lee — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 06:37:22 +0000

GALLERY – House Plans

Lee — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 22:04:39 +0000

UPDATE 08/02/09 : Please note these plans have now been superseded with the use of a new architecht. Please see newer posts or search PLANS in the search box ( top right )

As promised we are posting up our house plans in an “as is” state at present.

These small images below click through to the main Flickr gallery where the full size images are housed.

These particular images we have issued online as Creative Commons so you can download and alter them but not for commercial use. You will not be able to do a great deal but it may help you follow along as we discuss moving walls etc etc.

Beamed Structure

End Elevation

GALLERY – Two rooms become one

Lee — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 13:50:33 +0000

GALLERY – Removing the 70′s wood

Lee — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 08:04:08 +0000

GALLERY – More Citroen pictures

Lee — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 07:15:53 +0000

We’ve got no further news for you about the car but we’ve now got all our photo’s together to show you the little “unexpected gem” we have in the barn.

If you’ve not seen the first post it’s HERE

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If anyone knows a Citroen dealer or club in England or France that could help me out with as much information as we can get please feel free to contact us.

GALLERY – We bought more than we thought… (updated)

Lee — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 07:15:56 +0000

So we did our due diligence, we knew what we were buying and we even knew that there was a horse cart stuck on the cattle feed shed roof and we’d have to chop it up to get rid of it, hell we even knew we had an asbestos pipe to get rid of so we were prepared for everything and come the day we signed all 121 pages of the contracts. Except…..

When we got on site after spending hours signing papers as you can image in rushed on in all excited. We’d already taken somewhat of a chance and got the utilities put on before we officially bought the property so we were ready for a cup of tea.

Now I know I’m dragging this out but it’s only to give you a sense that we had no idea what we had gained in the barn. That said I don’t know if “gained” is the right word or a bloody big headache would be a better description.

A CAR! A 1973 Citroen in dusty condition, open with 23,000km on the clock and somehow we’d taken ownership of it with the house.

This is going to be an issue! The previous (now deceased) owners of our house had been looking after it for years for a friend who went traveling and as yet has not come back.

So is it ours?
This is of course France and things may not be that easy. Yes it came with the property (unannounced) but it wasn’t the vendors right to sell it to us. We don’t know if the owner is still alive and we can’t (aren’t supposed to) dispose of it without ownership papers either and to make it worse my dad want to restore it

So that’s it for now, we have 1 house 1 barn 1 feed shed 1 grange and a bloody Citroen that’s older than me!

Right now that’s all the information I have on the situation, and while I try and work out what to do and while my dad keeps buying restoration manuals you can enjoy these photos and marvel at our unexpected addition to our French purchase. I bet you wished you had one

Now there will be more photos of the car when I get time to post them, and you’ll have to forgive the “moody” HDR photos of the car, after my shock had subsided somewhat I decided to get creative

Any Citroen owners clubs out there want a project for fancy giving me some advice?

Sunflower Fields on Montpillard

Lee — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 22:05:21 +0000

Just while we get out gallery and local information pages written we thought we’d like to share some images with you that just captures why we love Montpillard and it’s surrounding area especially at this time of the year.

More soon but please enjoy these :

Far far more to come of course but we just wanted to break up the monotony of drab house pictures as we know nothing too exciting is happening right now ( well for you guys anyway )..