Sunday, December 25, 2011

Merry Christmas 2011 & Happy New Year 2012








Merry Christmas 2011 & Happy New Year 2012
Our 6th in France...already! Best wishes to you all AN i & a



October 2011 saw the south & north face of the barn get rendered - pierre apparent chaux. The east & west (much higher!) will wait til next year now.

North face now rendered needs window & door painting and wood cladding over old doorway & it will possibly be the first bit of the place completely finished!


Southside, Let painting commence....plenty more to do though... Oct 2011
Our view south through the big glass doors :o)

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

2011...bon continuation...


Bathroom-to-be upstairs tiled & painted & loo in. The rest will have to wait! July 2011

Living room/kitchen/dining room - Rendered wall ready for wood burner March 2011.
Plasterboard & insulation ready for taping, filling & painting June/July 2011 sometime...

5 pieces of local cut stone bought to make hearth October 2011Insulation, batten & oak flooring going down by crack team Alex, Isabella & Amelie ;D Who needs a telly when you have a tame fire breathing dragon to watch :D

Saturday, November 12, 2011

OK ok.....best plans and all that...

Blimey...it has already been 10+ months since I last updated our progress on the 'North Barn' needless to say we are now living in it!...
Between a busy 2011 summer season of full gites, a pair of increasingly independent daughters who require regular taxi services...the gardening work going well & the renovation of a home for us in our 'spare time' we have had little time to 'blog' :o)








We have still snapped away (in between trashing a couple of cameras...oops) & will now add the photo's to the blog so friends & family get a glimpse before we next visit them..... ;D
May 2010 March 2009 after tempete Xynthia...




May 2011


We had made all the holes for the windows in the barn and fitted the windows by the end of 2010 but the two existing 'big holes' had to wait to be filled until May 2011 as they were non-standard & large & therefore breathtakingly costly...

All the windows will 'enventually*' be painted the same light grey colour as the big window**.

* Isabella starts ALL sentences relating to our renovation projects with 'eventually...' Amelie prefers 'one day...' :o)

** The grey is a compromise between the most standard (cheaper) & the least offensive colour from the list of approved colours from the planning dept. ;D



Oct 2011..got as far as the primer on the hideous orange hardwood.


The outside has moved on during the summer with all the old render being picked off the stone in readiness for the end of the gite rental season.



South face - Oct 2011 - picked off stones & please note..paint! The North face..... Sept 2011



Alex has now completely re-rendered the north/south faces (the east & west will wait now til at least after the winter)....now typing on the 12th November 2011....south face will be finished on 13th !


The render is the local version of a lime mortar (chaux). The finish is known as 'pierre apparent' or 'pierre vues' depending on who you talk to but mostly it depends on how evenly laid & shaped the stones were by the person who originally built the place.
We have mostly render with the odd stone poking through & very nice it is too...it will
certainly be more weather proof & strong for a few years ahead.
South - during North - done :o)
West face- enjoying sunsets & al fresco dining til the end of Oct ;o)
ttfn....I will be back....

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

And they say it is all work...

We do tend to work with the weather and as the Spring felt like summer and the summer was good & hot then the summer stayed til Autumn and the Autumn is still with us we have been outside quite alot in 2011 :0)

As you can see from the photo's throughout the blog...the girls are not to be seen when there is any real work to be done, but riding in trailers, driving lawn mowers, lying down in the leaves all draws them out with offers to 'help' ;D






Oct 2010 Nov 2011

Nov 2011 Amelie Aged 8 1/2 now being the most expert & experienced of all work shy!

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

dimanche 13 juin 2010

Here we go again....1st night in the North Barn!
Ok...it is not ready for us to 'live' in just yet...it will take lots more posts before that ;D But today Sunday 13th June 2010 is the day we moved in for a summer of 'glamping' or 'camping luxe' as it has been referred to locally :D
Photo's to follow are a trip down memory lane for us as we have dug out all the 'stuff' we have used each time we have been living in a 'project' - especially now as the 'good stuff' gets left behind in the gites for the guests.
Isabella announced this evening that it was 'just like living in the LT but with more space'..(LT=van we lived in on our arrival in France :S)

The back step (view west) great sunsets, the odd passing cow and corn this year.

The open plan kitchen/Dining space 'House & Homes' would be proud of :D
Note: Germany - Aus on the box...television provision SORTED!

'Loft living'....space for girls to play and a very open plan wardrobe...view of the rest of what is still very much a barn...complete with winged livestock, old nests....etc...
The kids pit...
The master suite...The enticing living area...
Publié par chezANIA à l'adresse 12:36 1 commentaires
Libellés : , ,
if (window['tickAboveFold']) {window['tickAboveFold'](document.getElementById("latency-1098327823972815939")); }
samedi 29 mai 2010

bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb
Publié par chezANIA à l'adresse 06:42 0 commentaires
if (window['tickAboveFold']) {window['tickAboveFold'](document.getElementById("latency-2569719391518368172")); }
mercredi 19 mai 2010

The day arrives.... for the North barn!
I will eventually get a 'round tuit" & post some photo's of the barn in its raw state, our work on it since 2006 & then the damage caused to the 'North Barn' which will be our home one day in the not too distant future. For now to satisfy the requests for 'more pics' I have finally got some photo's on line of the action of our roof in the making :)Monday 17th May - Christophe le Roux and his team arrived to strip what was left of the roof!
By Monday evening we could stand with a beer in the south side of the stripped roof & think of all the other sorts of great new ideas to perhaps keep the south half of the roof open & incorporate a big glass fronted roof top terrace...another budget, another loads of planning, another lifetime!
The views over the gites and fields to the south east from our future bedroom, the nursery
beds and fields to the south west from the girls bedroom will be quite sufficient (PERFECT!);D Note we have already got one window & one glass door in place ready for our summer
of 'camping luxe' :D The southside of the roof was completely recovered with the 'panneau sandwich' by Tuesday evening. This is a one-hit solution providing weatherboard ready for tile and battens on the outside, an inner core of high performing solid insulation with the 'hydrofuge' water resistant plasterboard stuck in the inner side of the 'sandwich' The interior could well be finished if you like a stripey green plasterboard ;D The inside face is ready for 'taping and filling' then painting.
Publié par chezANIA à l'adresse 01:20 3 commentaires
Libellés : , , ,
if (window['tickAboveFold']) {window['tickAboveFold'](document.getElementById("latency-5783409521112841261")); }
jeudi 15 octobre 2009

Autumn is on the way...


http://www.franceholidaycottage.com/ The middle of October & we are yet to use the fire...but the wood is piled up, dry & ready to go...Could I possibly be wishing for an end to this lovely warm sunny weather?

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Its is Saturday morning and I should be sanding..

It was all set...the girls are both pooped and therefore having a TV/PJ morning.

We have done a deal & I have promised I will be back in to make pasties with them for lunch....and instead of joining Alex out in the barn...across the cold windswept garden from here...

What am I doing???? Blogging...... still I do think it is a better avoidance strategy than eating Peanut butter by spoonful, surfing all the sales on-line or just climbing back into that warm and inviting bed I left hours ago (honest ;D).

ANYWAY, anyway, anyway....enough chat, am going to dispel further descriptions and just upload a load of pics for you to digest...please leave comment and/or questions if further explanation required!

Love to hear from you....back to the 'mighty sander'.. well perhaps I will make a coffee first ;D

http://chezaniagardens.blogspot.com The day job







Saturday, January 15, 2011

The girls loft with a view...


Double glazed lozenge to fit the hole in the stone...sorry no longer access all areas you pesky bats!

The bridge between our side and there's..

Above the landing..
Below..

The stuffing underneath..

Monday, January 10, 2011

Stones and more rubble...

Old render knocked off to make way for new pointing....fireplace to be :D

Old render knocked off to make way for new pointing...kitchen to be :D