Easter fun

Easter was spent sanding the bedroom floors and finishing one of the bedrooms. At least we have a decent place to sleep now!















We did some finishing off in the kitchen and managed to get the final wall unit hung.

When we were sorting out the hayloft above the barn we unearthed an ancient wooden lathe!











We spent some time clearing out the forge of the old ironmongery and got some help to remove some of the larger pieces of metalwork.

Finally, we also got the blinds up in the dining room and cleaned all the windows.

Mid October Developments

Simon, Janet and Jo headed back to France for a few days to practice their decorating skills. We managed to put some of the finishing touches to the kitchen and finally install the gas cooker, gave a lick of paint to the stairway and decorated one of the bedrooms. 10 litres of paint and 5 litres of wine later, and the bedroom was finished!!







Here is a picture of the local village transport and a view of the village in the autumn:

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.

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 ...

Officially Owning the Property

We received notification that we became the official owners of the property on Tuesday 17th June. We immediately made arrangements for the electricity to be connected and an engineer called at the house today and reconnected the supply. We have increased the supply to 12kW to cope with the needs of a more modern house (which we hope ours will be once it's finished). The water supply has also been connected, so we have all the necessary to start work.

Our builder, Jacky, has also started work on the house. He is repairing part of the roof and putting in concrete floors down in the kitchen and new bathroom.

We too have been busy in the UK - B&Q have had a 10% day, so we've purchased some of the things we need to take with us, including a flat-pack kitchen and some tiles, amongst other things. It's a good job Steven is driving over in his van this summer! We have more things to buy yet, so dad will be accompanying me back to B&Q on a Wednesday to make full use of his 10% Diamond Card.

Viewing and Buying

After looking at several properties in the northern area of Creuse, described by estate agents sales pitches as "a renover" and one experience of being pipped at the post by another purchaser, we took another trip to the area to view another small selection of properties.

This time we fell across an old forge. Disused for several years, we were informed by the estate agent that it belonged to an old woman with dogs. Clearly it has not been used at the village forge for many years and had not been lived in for some time. However, apart from one small area, the roof was in good order and the walls sound.

The estate agent had lined up a local builder to give us quotes for the repair of the roof and for other ideas we sprung on him during our inspection visit. The property required quite a lot of work to bring it into good order, however, we could see there was a mains sewer cover right outside the property and the builder and estate agent assured us it would not be a problem to get the property connected to the mains sewer. There was already running water and 3-phase electricity to the site, so this would not be a huge task to get reconnected.

After deliberating over lunch we decided to make an offer on the property, which was immediately accepted. Having been caught out on a previous purchase we decided not to wait a moment longer and signed on the dotted line of the comprimis de vente.

The proud prospective owners of a property in France, we stayed overnight in a local hotel and then embarked on the journey back to the UK, satisfied that our trip had been fruitful and we were now on course to being owners of a property in France.