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

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....

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!