Our French farmhouse build thread.
Discussion
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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 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 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.French have different words for roof tiles (tuiles) and floor tiles (corriellage)
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.
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.
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. Are you retired? If not what work are you doing - do you speak fluent French?
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
We are between Saintes and Cognac. Thanks, it looks a lot better now, but still a long way to go.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
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
[quote=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!
Sorry, lacking some context here. The Cognac vats are in another barn. Mrs Neilsfirst is 5ft 8 to add some scale.
I haven't got the measurements for them to hand, but the large one held 14,000 litres and the 2 smaller ones held 10,000 litres each.
Sorry, lacking some context here. The Cognac vats are in another barn. Mrs Neilsfirst is 5ft 8 to add some scale.
I haven't got the measurements for them to hand, but the large one held 14,000 litres and the 2 smaller ones held 10,000 litres each.
Measured the vats this morning and the small ones were around 9ft high and the large one was 10ft high.
Not too much land with the farm. We have just over 1.7 hectares. Enough to keep us busy with all the other bits we have going on.
Pictures to keep you all going without jumping ahead of the story.
View from the back garden over our field.
Mowing said field
Our very own bread oven!
Not too much land with the farm. We have just over 1.7 hectares. Enough to keep us busy with all the other bits we have going on.
Pictures to keep you all going without jumping ahead of the story.
View from the back garden over our field.
Mowing said field
Our very own bread oven!
View from the roof of the house.
Joists from first floor coming out to be recycled in the maison d'ami at the back when we get to that.
Velux in and light flooding down from above.
The mess that needed clearing up and digging down to get the ceiling height we wanted. Was back breaking as full of large stones that needed digging out and removing.
Joists from first floor coming out to be recycled in the maison d'ami at the back when we get to that.
Velux in and light flooding down from above.
The mess that needed clearing up and digging down to get the ceiling height we wanted. Was back breaking as full of large stones that needed digging out and removing.
With the roof now on we move onto the floor. My first job was to dig down to get our ceiling height. This took me 2 weeks with a wheelbarrow, pick axe and a shovel.
The floor level was set and marked. Then because of the near 8 metre span and the size of beams we needed this had to be adjusted down.
Once my bit was done, we had our guys back in to do the final level and lay the soil pipes. Once this was down the membrane was laid on top ready for the cement pour.
The holes in the wall are for the soil pipes exists and the electrics incoming.
The box on the floor to the left is our incoming water and meter. When we get to do the next barn, this will have to be split 3 ways to maintain pressure.
Then one morning we have a cement truck turn up.
It took 2 trucks for the whole pour. Over the next week as this set it was nice and warm in the barn even without windows. The makeshift windows I made with polythene didn't stand up well to the high winds we had!
The floor level was set and marked. Then because of the near 8 metre span and the size of beams we needed this had to be adjusted down.
Once my bit was done, we had our guys back in to do the final level and lay the soil pipes. Once this was down the membrane was laid on top ready for the cement pour.
The holes in the wall are for the soil pipes exists and the electrics incoming.
The box on the floor to the left is our incoming water and meter. When we get to do the next barn, this will have to be split 3 ways to maintain pressure.
Then one morning we have a cement truck turn up.
It took 2 trucks for the whole pour. Over the next week as this set it was nice and warm in the barn even without windows. The makeshift windows I made with polythene didn't stand up well to the high winds we had!
Here goes the whole other side of the story.
We had planned to move over to France in May for my birthday. This was of course hampered by the incompetence of the vendors’ solicitor. They had decided that our 1 hectare field was just a back garden even though not fenced. This should have been referred to SAFER who deal with land sales for agriculture. If they don’t sign off on the sale, farmers can complain and buy it off you at the original purchase price for up to 5 years.
Moving over a month and a bit later meant we also missed out on the S1 form from the government that only pensioners now qualify for. This is the reciprocating health agreement that means we are here without national healthcare. Easy we thought as cargeekswife (Mrs Neilsfirst) had lived and worked in Paris for 10 years and as such had the equivalent of a National Insurance number. Here we are a year and a bit later still fighting to get just health cover.
We started trying to get roofing quotes as we knew all the barns required replacement rooves. Having contacted 5 roofing companies we eventually managed to get only 2 come and quote. Of the 2 we guess one of them didn’t want the job as their quote was double the other!
We engaged an architect as recommended by our English neighbour. He was an Irish guy so at least I could converse with him. 2 months later after chasing him constantly we gave up and went with a local lady who does a lot with local councils. Plans were drawn up and approval applied for. The only part that they are interested in approving is the exterior so we could do what we want inside. Originally we were set to have just 3 bedrooms but with the space we had 4 fit in so are able to sleep 8 at once.
The planning office came back as were missing a piece of paper! Missing paper sorted out and approval was given for the 4 bed, 2 bed, studio and the main house.
Everyone here who is English are very quick to give advice, most of it can be discarded but one valuable piece of advice we did get was you will need a trailer. So with this advice ringing in our ears I started looking at pickups so I had the trailer with me at all times. Flight booked back to England and I spent 2 days travelling around the Midlands looking at Ford Rangers. Found 1 and headed back to France after buying loads of supplies to haul back.
The truck behaved well and arrived home at midnight fully loaded. Tried to park it up in the back barn so could leave it to the following day to unload. Damn thing was just a foot too long to close the doors. Emptied the contents into barn instead.
That’s July to September 2014. Now have to go and do some more work.
We had planned to move over to France in May for my birthday. This was of course hampered by the incompetence of the vendors’ solicitor. They had decided that our 1 hectare field was just a back garden even though not fenced. This should have been referred to SAFER who deal with land sales for agriculture. If they don’t sign off on the sale, farmers can complain and buy it off you at the original purchase price for up to 5 years.
Moving over a month and a bit later meant we also missed out on the S1 form from the government that only pensioners now qualify for. This is the reciprocating health agreement that means we are here without national healthcare. Easy we thought as cargeekswife (Mrs Neilsfirst) had lived and worked in Paris for 10 years and as such had the equivalent of a National Insurance number. Here we are a year and a bit later still fighting to get just health cover.
We started trying to get roofing quotes as we knew all the barns required replacement rooves. Having contacted 5 roofing companies we eventually managed to get only 2 come and quote. Of the 2 we guess one of them didn’t want the job as their quote was double the other!
We engaged an architect as recommended by our English neighbour. He was an Irish guy so at least I could converse with him. 2 months later after chasing him constantly we gave up and went with a local lady who does a lot with local councils. Plans were drawn up and approval applied for. The only part that they are interested in approving is the exterior so we could do what we want inside. Originally we were set to have just 3 bedrooms but with the space we had 4 fit in so are able to sleep 8 at once.
The planning office came back as were missing a piece of paper! Missing paper sorted out and approval was given for the 4 bed, 2 bed, studio and the main house.
Everyone here who is English are very quick to give advice, most of it can be discarded but one valuable piece of advice we did get was you will need a trailer. So with this advice ringing in our ears I started looking at pickups so I had the trailer with me at all times. Flight booked back to England and I spent 2 days travelling around the Midlands looking at Ford Rangers. Found 1 and headed back to France after buying loads of supplies to haul back.
The truck behaved well and arrived home at midnight fully loaded. Tried to park it up in the back barn so could leave it to the following day to unload. Damn thing was just a foot too long to close the doors. Emptied the contents into barn instead.
That’s July to September 2014. Now have to go and do some more work.
While waiting for the work to start in January I threw myself headlong into doing odd jobs around our house. First up was some more wiring. New consumer unit bought and plenty of research on how the French wire.
Having learnt how they wire I looked at what was currently in place. We had bought the house from bodgers! This will all be sorted out as time goes on but first up we had bought a new induction hob that required a dedicated 32amp feed. So I set about drilling holes for the 2 feeds I was running to the kitchen area and 1 more on the other side of the room. Off to the local DIY shop to get the wire and a drill bit to get through the walls. Drill bit was 600mm long, much more than I had ever needed in my life. 3 holes drill from where the consumer unit was into the hallway. The 2 kitchen leads had their holes drilled and were wired up. Now the bottled gas range could be removed and our new hob and oven installed.
Now to drill the last hole to feed the TV and other sound and video units. As the hole was further along the wall it turned out that the drill bit was not long enough. So the search for a longer drill bit starts. €60 for one 1 metre long bit. Onto Amazon UK and got three in varying sizes for £25 delivered to France and arrived within the week. Another hole drilled to take a feed upstairs so we could have sockets in our bedroom.
Having learnt how they wire I looked at what was currently in place. We had bought the house from bodgers! This will all be sorted out as time goes on but first up we had bought a new induction hob that required a dedicated 32amp feed. So I set about drilling holes for the 2 feeds I was running to the kitchen area and 1 more on the other side of the room. Off to the local DIY shop to get the wire and a drill bit to get through the walls. Drill bit was 600mm long, much more than I had ever needed in my life. 3 holes drill from where the consumer unit was into the hallway. The 2 kitchen leads had their holes drilled and were wired up. Now the bottled gas range could be removed and our new hob and oven installed.
Now to drill the last hole to feed the TV and other sound and video units. As the hole was further along the wall it turned out that the drill bit was not long enough. So the search for a longer drill bit starts. €60 for one 1 metre long bit. Onto Amazon UK and got three in varying sizes for £25 delivered to France and arrived within the week. Another hole drilled to take a feed upstairs so we could have sockets in our bedroom.
In October we are starting to think about winter. In the house we have 1 wood burner in our kitchen/living room. Our room sizes that we live in are 6.5 by 6.5 metres in the kitchen/living room, the same size for our bedroom and our daughters room is about 5 by 4 metres. Ceiling heights downstairs are roughly 2.5 metres but vaulted ceilings upstairs. We have no idea how much wood we will need to keep warm over the winter months. So we ordered 10 steres of wood, a stere being roughly 1 cubic metre.
This is delivered and moved by hand into the mini forge at the back. After this I ended up with strained elbows which still aren’t right. A couple of weeks later we borrowed an electric wood saw so we could cut it all in half. Much more efficient than a chainsaw but still haven’t bought our own one.
When winter started the house got cold very quick. We were keeping our living room warm and the bedroom benefitted from the chimney running through it and only have floorboards between the 2 rooms but then it went straight out the roof. As it got colder it got worse. We now understand the point of a 4 poster bed, very small area when curtains are closed to keep warm.
We insulated the ceiling of our daughters’ room and put curtains across the outside wall to retain as much heat as possible and placed an oil filled radiator in to maintain as much heat as possible overnight. As her room was in the single story part of the house we had screwed chipboard flooring to the joist and pushed insulation into the void created as there was no way to get above the room (or so we thought). Quick jump forward in time to nearly the end of winter where we were trying to plug as many draughts as possible in our bedroom. A wardrobe had been left by the bodgers and we traced a draught to behind this. We moved it to see where it was emanating from to discover a door way into the void above Millie’s bedroom! Red faced we hung a load of insulation off the top of the wardrobe and pushed it back against the wall. Back to the timeline of this instalment now.
We wanted to host Christmas for the family here, so needed to heat the future dining room for cargeekswifes’ parents to sleep in. I removed the metal facing from in front of the chimney to see what we had and what was living in our chimney. To my surprise it was clear all the way up. After recovering from the shock I dug a fire grate out from the garage and put it in place and lit the fire to see if it would draw ok.
What a belter it worked to heat up a metre and a half around it. The room though is 6 by 6 metres. A wood burner was required. Searching the classifieds and we found one about 45 minutes away with all the pipework too. We trundled off in the pickup to look at it and bought it. Thrown in on the deal were 100 prepped for eating snails and 2 large jars of raspberry jam. Result.
I wasn’t happy with the pipe work we received, and we needed to reduce the size by 10mm to fit up our chimney, with the stove so went out and got some more. After bashing 7 shades out of the chimney to remove all the years of bad maintenance I fitted the stove.
Now we could raise the temperature in the room to a decent level for sleeping. Unfortunately the 4 walls of this room give out to the outside, the draughty hallway, the garage and the workshop. A great Christmas was had by all and due to the cold the in-laws decided it was far too cold for their grand-daughter so we got her an air source heat pump (reverse cycle air con) to be fitted by me. Now her room is perfect all year round. This was also oversized so when we complete the house and she moves up to her new bedroom it can still heat or cool it.
After the in-laws left we viewed our rather depleted wood stock and had to go out and get another 5 steres to get us to the end of the cold weather. The rest of the winter was endured and work was starting in January so exciting times were ahead of us.
This is delivered and moved by hand into the mini forge at the back. After this I ended up with strained elbows which still aren’t right. A couple of weeks later we borrowed an electric wood saw so we could cut it all in half. Much more efficient than a chainsaw but still haven’t bought our own one.
When winter started the house got cold very quick. We were keeping our living room warm and the bedroom benefitted from the chimney running through it and only have floorboards between the 2 rooms but then it went straight out the roof. As it got colder it got worse. We now understand the point of a 4 poster bed, very small area when curtains are closed to keep warm.
We insulated the ceiling of our daughters’ room and put curtains across the outside wall to retain as much heat as possible and placed an oil filled radiator in to maintain as much heat as possible overnight. As her room was in the single story part of the house we had screwed chipboard flooring to the joist and pushed insulation into the void created as there was no way to get above the room (or so we thought). Quick jump forward in time to nearly the end of winter where we were trying to plug as many draughts as possible in our bedroom. A wardrobe had been left by the bodgers and we traced a draught to behind this. We moved it to see where it was emanating from to discover a door way into the void above Millie’s bedroom! Red faced we hung a load of insulation off the top of the wardrobe and pushed it back against the wall. Back to the timeline of this instalment now.
We wanted to host Christmas for the family here, so needed to heat the future dining room for cargeekswifes’ parents to sleep in. I removed the metal facing from in front of the chimney to see what we had and what was living in our chimney. To my surprise it was clear all the way up. After recovering from the shock I dug a fire grate out from the garage and put it in place and lit the fire to see if it would draw ok.
What a belter it worked to heat up a metre and a half around it. The room though is 6 by 6 metres. A wood burner was required. Searching the classifieds and we found one about 45 minutes away with all the pipework too. We trundled off in the pickup to look at it and bought it. Thrown in on the deal were 100 prepped for eating snails and 2 large jars of raspberry jam. Result.
I wasn’t happy with the pipe work we received, and we needed to reduce the size by 10mm to fit up our chimney, with the stove so went out and got some more. After bashing 7 shades out of the chimney to remove all the years of bad maintenance I fitted the stove.
Now we could raise the temperature in the room to a decent level for sleeping. Unfortunately the 4 walls of this room give out to the outside, the draughty hallway, the garage and the workshop. A great Christmas was had by all and due to the cold the in-laws decided it was far too cold for their grand-daughter so we got her an air source heat pump (reverse cycle air con) to be fitted by me. Now her room is perfect all year round. This was also oversized so when we complete the house and she moves up to her new bedroom it can still heat or cool it.
After the in-laws left we viewed our rather depleted wood stock and had to go out and get another 5 steres to get us to the end of the cold weather. The rest of the winter was endured and work was starting in January so exciting times were ahead of us.
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