Before and After

The working "holiday" now over, we made out way back to the UK. Simon, Mark, Danni and Liz returned on 11th August and Steven and Michael returned in the van on 14th - making it back to the UK on a wing and a prayer with the clutch on the van about to give out.

Here are some before and after pictures of the house. We have lots more yet to do, but at least we have a sound roof, a functioning bathroom and an almost finished kitchen.

Brocante

We visited a Brocante today and bought a few bits and pieces. We found a fantastic dining table which will go well in the dining room (former shop) when the room is completed. Mark enjoyed himself with the old farm machinery and the french classic cars. It was a really hot day and we all caught a bit of sun.

Getting on with the renovations

We have made some progress with the internal renovations.




Getting to grips with the French wiring systems was challenging as the wire is much tougher and connecting to and fitting the sockets is quite different to any UK wiring we had undertaken before. However, the existing wiring supported only 5 working sockets and initially 5 (later on 3) working light fittings - something HAD to be done. We rewired the house completely, ripped out the old wiring and connected it all to a nice new fuseboard according to french wiring regulations, with 30mA RCD (Residual Current Devices) protecting the two phases to supply the house (the third phase will feed the old forge, when we convert it to living area).







Reassuringly, all the circuits worked perfectly first time. This enabled us to connect the water boiler, which Steven had fitted in the utility room, when he created the bathroom.




Work continued in the kitchen ...

Clearing out, plastering and general renovations with the Motley Crew

Internal renovations started, which involved patching up some of the old plaster, which had departed company from the walls; in other places we left the stonework exposed.

In the hallway, the small rusty firegrate was removed and some of the plasterwork fell away to reveal a large stone fireplace which added great character to the hallway.



Danni sanded down the wooden "shopfront" windows from what was formerly a bike bits-and-pieces shop. A lot of the nails were removed from the beams in the "shop", although some required the use of the angle-grinder.



Meanwhile, Simon H discovered the joys of making a hole through a 30" thick stone wall to allow us to fit the waste pipe in the bathroom to the sewer outside!

Tour de France

We took a day off to visit Tour de France 2008 in Montlucon - here is what we got up to:

Take a video tour around the village

Courtesy of our neighbours, you can now take a virtual drive around the village and surrounding areas and find out about some of the strange things the locals get up to. Choose one of the videos below:

Look ma, no roof!

The builders had started work before our arrival in France, but where a little behind schedule. As you can see from the photos, they had stripped off the old front roof and had begun replacing the structure with new wood in preparation for re-tiling.