EN SUITE BATHROOM FINISHED !!

BEFORE - the sink area was cramped and crowded.

Nick always hated the blue glass blocks.  I didn't mind them too much.

The sink itself was resin, not porcelain, was scratched, discoloured and worn.

The handles on the mirror doors had fallen off and were held on with sellotape.

The switch for the lighting was inside the cupboard and very fiddly to turn on.

AFTER - new sink unit and the return wall with the glass bricks has gone, creating more space.

The sink is porcelain and the light is now a wall light with a switch where you would expect it - on the wall!

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BEFORE - on the shower side there were flimsy contiboard shelves crammed with stuff.

The floor was tiled in the same tiles as the shower cubicle and were uneven and broken.

The old toilet was not screwed down, just glued on top of the tiles.

Years of limescale deposits due to the very hard water meant it never really looked clean.

The lighting was an old fashioned spotlight above the shower and we suspected it was actually not designed for bathroom use.

AFTER - the dark grey floor tiles have been replaced with a lighter laminate floor.

The new toilet is neater and most definitely fixed properly to the floor.

The lighting is now a proper bathroom light.

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BEFORE - the wobbly shelves were very useful but full of stuff that never got used.

AFTER - new painted wood shelves, half as deep.

We have given away piles of towels and loads of unused toiletries.

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BEFORE - the ensuite bathroom was dark, cramped and very tired looking.

AFTER - the new one is more spacious, light and fresh.

We had to make a difficult decision about the shower cubicle.  It's hard to argue for changing something that functions perfectly but is just old fashioned.  

The en suite is open to the bedroom and I really wanted to have a door of some kind across the front of it.  That meant we would have to change the shower cubicle to make space to either build another wall or hang a sliding door.  We dreaded to think what plumbing surprises lay behind or underneath the shower and would almost certainly have had to have it all done professionally.  All of that would have added a huge amount of money to the cost of the project. The en suite is, after all, literally in the bedroom so we compromised and decided to stick with the old shower and the curtains that we added a few years ago.

We're very pleased with the end result after a lot of work but minimal expense.  We could have demolished everything and had a showroom en suite bathroom which would have cost ten times as much and been the best room in the house!  Hard to justify for somewhere that you brush your teeth, take a shower and spend a penny!!  Not to mention that was unlikely to add much to the value to the house when we do come to sell it.

Now at least it looks clean and neat and not something that a prospective buyer thinks they're going to have to fix immediately.  I call it my "forty shades of grey" bathroom!!

GREAT EXPECTATIONS

The weather is perking up again after a few cold days.  Our daffodils have more or less finished but the tulips are in full bloom.  I'm sure we used to have more tulips than we do now but presumably some of the bulbs have either rotted away or been eaten.  The aubretia is fabulous as always and lives up to expectations.

The bathroom is almost finished.  "Finishing off" always takes much longer than you expect and especially so when none of the walls are either straight or level.  Putting up shelves is a complicated task, cutting them to fit and fixing them to wonky walls!  The expectation is that it will be finished by the end of this week.

The clematis that was a gift from a friend four months ago is still flowering and looking gorgeous on the kitchen windowsill.  We struggle with indoor plants as the rooms downstairs are all fairly dark due to the small windows yet the only two windowsills we have can get too hot in the warmer months.  This plant has survived well beyond our expectations.

At the weekend we went to an "Irish evening" where we were not quite sure what to expect.  French onion soup followed by fish and chips with a slightly Irish twist was a first for us but very good all the same! The proprietor said she was nervous about serving fish and chips to a table of English people and hoped they would meet expectations.  They did!  We were the only non French people there but the fish in batter, although not as good as you would get from the local British chippy, were the best we’ve had so far in France.  I find it odd that the French clearly love fish and chips (around here anyway) but they don't really know how to cook them!

After that we went back to the village to watch the France versus England rugby match in the bar.  You would be surprised to hear that I have an interest in rugby and you would not be wrong!  However, Nick wanted to see the second half of the match so I was happy to indulge him.  Watching a France versus England match in a bar in France where supporters from both nations are present is a full on experience!  Nick didn't expect England to win the match but even I could see that it was an exciting finish and to lose by just one point seems tragic.  There were shouts of "we was robbed" from the English!

 We have had a bit of excitement chez nous.  A new neighbour moved into the house behind us last autumn and we didn't quite know what to expect.  When we went to say hello and introduce ourselves he seemed nice enough.  Mostly he is only there at the weekends with his dog who is called "Ganja".  

Early yesterday morning a van and a car turned up, followed quickly by the Maire and then two gendarmes.  The neighbour wasn't there so they soon left.  We have a number of theories about what was going on.

Last but not least, we are on tenterhooks again as we are expecting the imminent arrival of the SMS message summoning us to attend the Préfecture to collect our residence cards.  The interval between the email and the message last time was nine working days.  Today is the ninth day.

A BUSY WEEK.

The gorgeous weather of my first week back was bound not to last, but it was great while it lasted!  I got loads and loads of washing done and dry on the line outdoors, including bedding, curtains and dog beds.  

I find there’s something therapeutically old fashioned about drying washing on the line in the fresh air.  The whole process gives me huge satisfaction - unless of course there’s an unexpected shower!  Having to fetch it all back indoors in a hurry is fundamentally disheartening but then I just put it all on the airer in the dining room where it’s out of the way and the warmth from the log burner at the other end of the room finishes it off.

This is all completely baffling to a friend who doesn’t possess a washing line and dries everything in a tumble dryer.  When I explained that I've always dried washing outdoors whenever possible and that now it feels more important as it saves me money, saves on electricity and in turn goes some way towards saving the planet she thought it was pointless.  "Someone else will have to do that for me" she said.  There’s no wonder that the planet is gradually burning to a crisp.

"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" and we took time off from chores and DIY quite a lot last week.  On Saturday we went to a wonderful concert in a nearby village hall.  It was a performance of swing jazz by an amateur orchestra of local musicians and it was fabulous.  There’s a lot going on in rural France if you know where to look!

On Sunday it was a glorious 20°C so went to the first brocante of the year and later in the afternoon dusted off the old Harleys and went for a run.  I hadn’t ridden mine at all last year but it seems you never do forget…..

The bathroom project stalled a bit and not much progress was made.  Not for lack of effort though, but because of niggling problems.  The drawer unit under the sink was a flat pack item that simply wouldn’t go together properly.  Yet another visit to several DIY shops were required to source bits that would help to align the components correctly.  More visits were required to get different plumbing bits to solve small leaks on the sink and toilet and then several more to find somewhere that had tiles that we liked in stock.

This week though, the work is steaming ahead and Nick is getting on with tiling, woodwork, painting and finishing off.  And of course, today it’s going to rain all day!

SPRING IS SPRUNG AND GOOD NEWS

During my busy week in the UK where the weather was cold, grey and wet, Spring arrived chez nous in France.  Whilst I was dodging heavy rain showers to do various errands, Nick was beavering away with the bathroom modifications and taking his breaks outside in 20°C sunshine.  Winter just suddenly ended.

Once back in France I was able to enjoy it all myself, eating lunch outdoors and sitting out in the evenings until the bats had come out to play and to hear the owls, foxes and other nightlife.

The bathroom is coming along.  Demolition of the previous wall, rebuilding of the new wall and the new floor have been completed.  The plumbing was held up by having to do a tour of numerous DIY shops to find the right bits.  Only once the old sink and loo were removed was it clear exactly what bits were needed.  The old loo had been glued to the floor and not screwed down, an interesting DIY approach but not entirely unexpected in this house!  The plumbing part is now done, leaving tiling, woodwork, finishing off and decorating to be done.  

One of the challenges of life in rural France is that although there are plenty of DIY shops around, they are all at least a half hour drive away and they close for two hours minimum at lunchtime.  Hence timing is everything.  The compensation is that it can usually involve lunch somewhere, waiting for the shop to open or on the way home!  

It took us a whole day to find the few tiles that we needed for a splash back for the sink.  A tour of all the local shops ended in disappointment, as none of them actually had anything we liked in stock.  Eventually we went to the posh tile shop in Tours and after a rummage through their "fin de serie carrelage" (discontinued tiles) came away with a box of the perfect tiles at a bargain price.

 

Since my return I've been on dog walking, cooking and housework duty.  The walking has been a joy in the gorgeous spring weather.

In "other news" we were thrilled and relieved to hear from the Préfecture two days ago that our applications to renew our cartes de séjour have been approved.  It seems that this year everything has gone through pretty seamlessly and more or less on time.  With the email came our "decision favourable", the document we can print off and use for travel until we get the actual cards.  (This is the document we used to travel for a whole year in 2024 because we didn’t get the text message summoning us to collect the actual cards.)  This year we should have them only a couple of weeks after the current ones expire, which is today!

We expect to get the text in a week or so, to make the trip to the Tours, queue up at the Préfecture, pay our 450€ and then, with the precious cards safely in our wallets, enjoy a celebratory lunch somewhere.

READY FOR SOME SUNSHINE and a new bathroom

The subject in watercolour class last week was "trees".  The sun was shining (briefly) and this palm tree seemed like the right thing to paint.

This week I am back in the UK for some errands.  Mixed weather is expected but I feel as though we have turned the corner and winter is on its way out.

Meanwhile, Nick is tackling a job we've been meaning to do for years.  Refreshing the en-suite bathroom.  It’s tired and dismal but the biggest challenge has been in deciding how far to go with the changes.  A bathroom is a Big Job and can be very expensive so we compromised.  

Nick is doing it while I'm away so that I can’t grumble about the mess and disruption - which is another major challenge!  He’s completed the demolition phase.  Now all he has to do is fit the new items.  Fingers crossed it will be finished by the time I get back!

A NEW WINDOW

 

Some time ago one of our windows developed a large crack.  It was a single glazed window, set into the stone between the dining room and the outside "barn" that we refer to as the "well room".  

The window was not double glazed and the glass had no frame; it was set directly into the stone.  The way it was fitted left a very narrow window sill on the inside and a much deeper window sill on the outside.  We had been meaning to change it for years as quite a lot of heat was lost through the glass but somehow we never got round to it. 

Then something else happened.  The glass in the door of the wood burner in the living room also developed a crack.  This had to be replaced urgently.

We took the door off the wood burner and took it to a place in Loches that someone recommended.  They fitted a new glass to our door while we waited.  We had considered attempting to do it ourselves but I'm glad we let the professionals do the job.  If we had tried to do it we would have been without the fire for a few days and seeing it being done by a professional we saw how tricky it was.  It was not cheap but money well spent.

While we were waiting we spotted that the main business of this place was the fitting and replacement of double glazed doors and windows, so we asked them to come and give us a quote to replace our broken window.

We waited for the quote to arrive and braced ourselves for a big sum.  It turned out to be very reasonable so we paid the deposit and only a few weeks later they came to do the work.

The new window is double glazed, has a beautiful oak frame around it and that end of the room feels much warmer.  In addition, they set the new window further back in the stone so that we have more window sill on the inside than outside.  They made a fabulous job of it.  We're very pleased and wish we had tackled it years ago.

(The spider plant belongs to some friends.  We are looking after it while they are back in the UK for the winter.)

SWEEPING THE CHIMNEY

 

Getting the chimney swept chez nous has been a challenge in the past. 

The theory is that you should have it swept professionally once a year and a certificate is given to say it has been done.  Theoretically this should stand us in good stead with our insurance company if we have a chimney fire and things go horribly wrong.

We have found that actually getting someone to come and do the job can be a challenge, not to mention expensive as we have two fireplaces, two wood burning fires and two flues so double the cost.

Two years ago we managed to extinguish a fire in our chimney before it became too serious.  The chimney had been swept professionally only four months earlier but the wood burner had more or less been in daily use afterwards.  Just to be sure of our position I phoned the insurance company to find out what the rules were and was somewhat alarmed to be told that if there was a house fire leading to a significant claim, an assessor would look at our chimney and decide if that was the cause of the fire.  If it was, we would be deemed to be negligent and the claim would not be met.  This makes sense as if the chimney was clean a chimney fire would be unlikely to happen anyway.  In other words, the certificate of annual sweeping of the chimney (called ramonage) was no guarantee that an insurance claim would be met.

It was also clear that if we could have a chimney fire just four months after it was swept, once a year was not enough.  The hassle of getting someone to come and do it, plus the mounting cost, was becoming a problem now that we were living in France all winter and the fires were in regular use.

Whilst we were in one of the local DIY stores not long after the incident, we spotted a soot hoover at a reduced price so we bought it and at the same time a set of poles and brushes so we could sweep the chimneys ourselves.  For about the same outlay as the cost of one ramonage we were set up to sweep them as often as we liked.  

It's not difficult and takes about half an hour for each woodburner from start to finish.  Nick is getting quicker at it with practise!

The kitchen fire is more tricky to do because of its design.  The flue ends behind the oven part of the stove and cannot be accessed from inside the fire.  We had a lot of trouble getting someone to come and do it professionally because it had to be swept from the top, in other words from up on the roof.

We have solved this problem by having an access hole made in the pipe.  A friend very kindly did this for us and also manufactured a removable cover for the hole.  We can now sweep both of the chimneys for ourselves.

Nick sweeps the living room chimney about once a month and the kitchen one about every two months because we light it less often.  It has saved us a small fortune and given us huge peace of mind.

A TABLE EXTENSION

Two tables end to end to seat ten people.

When we bought our first house in France it was a tiny place but perfect as a second home or "holiday home".  We struggled to find furniture for it in France and soon realised that we could end up spending much of our actual holidays trying to furnish it. 

Over our first winter of owning the little house we collected furniture for it in the UK, sofas from Ikea, flatpack bedroom furniture and a lovely oak dining set in the January sales including a four seat table that would extend to six.  We hired a van and transported the lot across the channel at Easter 2008, picking up extra beds for the second bedroom and cramming them into the van on the way through France.

After a few years we downsized in the UK in order to upsize in France. The new UK house was much smaller and very little of our existing furniture would physically fit into it so we brought it all to France.  This included our dining table, sideboard and four chairs, meaning that we now have two dining sets in France.  

"Casual dining" in the kitchen.

The old UK table works well in the kitchen where Nick refers to it as "casual dining" and the oak set from the little house lives in the dining end of our living room where it serves as "formal dining" and comfortably seats six.  It’s a solution that has worked well for years and we really like it.  

As our circle of friends has grown we have been entertained by people who have the ability to throw large dinner parties or lunches where they could seat eight, ten or even more people.  We're not talking posh château dining, but people who have the room to fit in a big old table, or multiple small tables, and a random collection of chairs.  

After a while I began to wonder if we could do larger gatherings ourselves.  Our dining table seats six comfortably and we found that by putting the kitchen table at the end of it we could seat ten.  The only problem was that to get the kitchen table into the dining room we had to heave it out of the house through the kitchen door and back in through the middle door as it would not physically fit through the door between the two rooms!

It was heavy work, adding a lot of time to the hosting of any dinner party and in fact we missed having the kitchen table into the kitchen for food prep so we had to come up with another solution.  

One extension to seat an extra two people.

When we bought this house the large bedroom was also being used as an office.  There was a desk made from a couple of lengths of fairly sturdy kitchen worktop which we saved when we dismantled the office.  Having a huge barn enables us to save a mountain of stuff that might come in handy later!

Two extensions to seat an extra four people.

Nick created two extensions, one for each end of our oak table, using sections of the old office worktop, each supported by three tubular legs from Ikea.  They fit onto the table using clamps which can't be seen when the extensions are not in use.  With one extension the table seats eight with ample elbow room.  With two extensions we can seat ten.  If only the room itself was bigger we could add a third and seat another two!  

The worktop is not pretty and obviously I need a long tablecloth to hide all the joins but it works really well.  Luckily we already had enough chairs!  

Sets of matching or at least reasonably similar dinnerware are often on sale at local brocantes or vide greniers and we have accumulated a fair stash of it over the years.  The original set of six plates we bought from Ikea in 2008 has been boosted by acquiring extras from brocantes and fortunately we also have plenty of room in the barn to store it all!  We rarely pay more than two or three euros for a set of plates, bowls or whatever, the bonus being that we now have enough to afford to break a few!  Luckily mismatched crockery and glassware are still very much "in vogue".

The table in the foreground (there is a step down into the "dining room") is a side table that normally lives at the far end of the room and we bring it forward when we have a big dinner party.  It's perfect for serving dishes and plates.  It was a UK charity shop purchase a few years ago (pre Brexit when it we could bring such things freely).  I remember thinking it would probably come in handy at some point and with a coat of paint and a lick of varnish it's just the job!