Our French farmhouse build thread.

[Neilsfirst]

A little late starting this but better late than never. Quick back story.
We sold up in England in 2014 to move to France for what we hope will be a better life for our daughter. Might not be better but will allow her much more freedom and space to grow.
So, house sold on first viewing in February, small 4 bed terrace in Northampton. Tickets booked to France and 15 house viewings arranged.

Agreed that we both thought this place had the most potential so purchased and moved over in June 2014.







This is how it looked when we bought it.

Fast forward 4 months and we have plans in place and roofing contractor organised when the garage roof collapses on top of the MX5. A quick call to the roofer and they come round and remove the tiles and cover it until they can start work in January.

This is the back story and now the build thread can start. I will have to resize a lot of pictures so might take some time to get up to current progress.

[roofer]

[loughran]

Whereabouts in France are you ?

[citizensm1th]

looking forward to this as this is my plan for 12 to 18 months time

[Neilsfirst]

The big barn was the roofers starting point. We decided to go with sandwich board as great for insulation and gives us a finished ceiling from the off. Multiple beams had to be replaced too along the way.



Was not the best weather for the guys but the job they did was excellent.



While they had the roof off the back barn we had organised for a team to come in and do some cutting on the Cognac vats. They started looking like this

We decided to have the tops cut off all of them and the front off 2 while the centre of the 2 smaller ones was cut to make this into one. The plan here is to have the big larger of the 3 vats as a kitchen and the joined ones as a bedroom.

Edited by Neilsfirst on Monday 19th October 07:37

[Neilsfirst]

loughran said:

Whereabouts in France are you ?

We are in the Charente Maritime.

[Neilsfirst]

With the roofing done, we gutted the big barn so just a big space was left. Then had the stonemasons in to create 3 new window openings and 2 doorways between the 2 sides of the barn.

Downstairs opening being finished.


Window opening.


Unfortunately with new window openings a lot more cold air comes in! Makeshift windows were made with polythene stuck in with wooden frame rammed in to stop my fingers falling off.

[sma]

Brilliant! Quite an achievement even getting onto the boat. I'd love to do this with our girls, but I'm not sure my wife or I are brave enough. Did either of you speak French before you left? What are you doing for jobs over there and how about the schooling? Subscribed. I wish you all the best. Tres bien :-)

[Neilsfirst]

sma said:

Brilliant! Quite an achievement even getting onto the boat. I'd love to do this with our girls, but I'm not sure my wife or I are brave enough. Did either of you speak French before you left? What are you doing for jobs over there and how about the schooling? Subscribed. I wish you all the best. Tres bien :-)

Many thanks. Fortunately my wife speaks fluent french having lived in Paris for 10 years. Me on the other hand only had really bad schoolboy french. Even she has had to learn a lot as she really hadn't needed building terms. This is our job for the time being. As will become evident as I post more, we only are paying for trades that we can't or safety wise shouldn't do. Schooling has only just started in September as our daughter was only 3 in July.

Edited by Neilsfirst on Monday 19th October 07:39

[Puggit]

Hope you didn't make the same mistake as us and ask for tiles on the floor. Roof tiles

French have different words for roof tiles (tuiles) and floor tiles (corriellage)

[Neilsfirst]

Puggit said:

Hope you didn't make the same mistake as us and ask for tiles on the floor. Roof tiles

French have different words for roof tiles (tuiles) and floor tiles (corriellage)

Nope, we did have to argue a bit with the authorities to approve our use of mechanical canal s tiles though. Was worth it as don't have to get up on the roof and shuffle them after strong winds as they won't slip.

[Neilsfirst]

One bit I forgot to put in the opening post of this thread, my wife was in marketing and I am an IT geek so not exactly well placed to take on such a big project.

[jjones]

Looks fun.

Are you retired? If not what work are you doing - do you speak fluent French?

[Du1point8]

looks good.

[Neilsfirst]

Due to the direction of the barn and prevailing weather the side windows on the first floor of the barn were blocked up.


Cemented on the outside and stonework on the inside.

That is not a tree growing inside, we had a delivery of plants and needed somewhere to store them out of the freezing temperatures.



I tried really hard to remove all the stones while leaving the cement covering outside but failed miserably.

[Neilsfirst]

jjones said:

Looks fun.

Are you retired? If not what work are you doing - do you speak fluent French?

Nope, just committing everything to this at the moment. I don't but my wife does. Was hoping to learn but have so much time spent on learning new things for this that French is on the back burner.

[mikees]

Bon effort Neil. I so want to do after pvapour thread. Have you looked and contacted him?


I know the area quite well due to 15 years of family holidays. Where are you?


Ps looks great

Mike

Edited by mikees on Sunday 18th October 22:51

[Neilsfirst]

mikees said:

Bon effort Neil. I so want to do after pvapour thread. Have you looked and contacted him?


I know the area quite well due to 15 years of family holidays. Where are you?


Ps looks great

Mike

Edited by mikees on Sunday 18th October 22:51

We are between Saintes and Cognac. Thanks, it looks a lot better now, but still a long way to go.

Haven't read his thread and had a brief exchange with him on one of the forum posts.

Edited by Neilsfirst on Sunday 18th October 23:15

[jjones]

Neilsfirst said:

Nope, just committing everything to this at the moment. I don't but my wife does. Was hoping to learn but have so much time spent on learning new things for this that French is on the back burner.

Best of luck, would love to do the same!

[Gingerbread Man]

I'm interested in the Cognac vats. Is this what the barns were previously used for? Took me a while to get the scale, just how big are they? As you were talking about the roof, I imagined they were in the loft at first!