Since moving up to La Taillede almost 3 and a half years ago, we have built 3 (almost 4) gites (holiday accommodation), plus a 4 bedroom house for my parents in the Shepherds cottage. We have also built a platform and kitchen for our yurt, built an irrigated poly tunnel for vegetables, done masses of fencing, built animal shelters. We built a reed bed septic system, bought a new water tank and built a shed around it, buried all the pipes from the source and created a UV water treatment system... Built a work shop in the Bergerie, a saw yard, solar kiln.....I could go on; but the point is, what we haven't done much of, is work in our OWN house. Until now! We have moved in to Gite Canigou for 3 months (heaven), so we can smash up our own house; and hopefully have it habitable by the end of March so Gite Canigou can be let for Easter holidays.
In our old house, we have been living in a 2 bedroom apartment. The only toilet is in the dining room (sociable for the wrong reasons!) and we have had a bath tub but no shower. Hopefully by Easter, we will have 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms; although I am not expecting it all to be finished. We weren't going to attempt to do the kitchen this year, but as we were making a big mess already, we decided to smash that up as well. We have taken the toilet out and will be putting in a bigger window next week (or at least making the hole for it!). The old very dirty terracotta floor is now out and we will be laying insulation and natural stone floor tiles (travertine). We make our own concrete work tops here so Luka will soon start on those. We don't have enough dry wood for kitchen cupboards yet but as soon as we do, Nigel (Dad) will make those for us.
So the other big job is to take out this old bathroom and put an interior staircase in its place;
Before doing this, Matt said I need to get anything big into the upstairs before work started, as getting a large sofa up a turning staircase is not easy. So he was thrilled when I told him I had found a very nice second hand piano; can he go and get it please?!
As we will loose the downstairs bathroom and plan to take the toilet out of the kitchen/dining room, we want to build a downstairs bathroom, plus an ensuite bathroom for us upstairs. We also need to block up a door in our walk-in wardrobe (never had one of those before!), and lay the wood flooring which is still drying in the solar kiln. There will be some moving around of windows and doors, making a doorway in our downstairs sitting room for going upstairs and improving the downstairs fireplace. The 3rd bathroom is not great (the toilet seems to flush constantly and if you take a shower, it rains in the kitchen!) but I don't think we will get round to changing that this winter.
The walls of our bedroom are up and plastered (Tudor style like in Gite Canigou & Gite Carlit), and the fire place has been built in our bedroom. We have also built but not yet completed a new fireplace in our main sitting room. We have already put a new window in our bathroom and bedroom; so we are on with it!
Let's hope we can move into our new bedroom at the end of March; The clock is ticking!