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.

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.

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.)