Initiation To The Vendee
Early in 2004 Gordon one of my neighbours from down the road asked me about about what I knew about buying a house in France. This led us in to a few conversations in passing and eventually we decided to go over and show him a few properties. This would give me the opportunity to visit my house and do a few things at the same time.
We set off on the 18th April when he told me that he'd never been to France before. This week was going to be a week of many 'firsts' for him.
When we got there I cut the grass as it is always the first thing to do. We did some shopping and a bit of sightseeing. And one day we visited Jeremy at 'Agence Melusine' who took us to see a few properties in the area. Gordon was impressed at what he could buy for the money he had available. But the one he really liked was maybe sold already. There are still a lot of properties around for £40,000 upwards that can be moved in to straight away and some below that mark that need some TLC first. At least Gordon had an idea what France had to offer thanks to Jeremy.
We did some painting and a few repairs, visited the local restaurants then the weekend quickly came and it was time to go home again.
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The next visit was in July with Jan. We hired a Luton van for this trip as we were moving furniture from Somerset to Chinon for Wendy and Richard who had both recently retired early and going to their house for ever. We managed to sneak on to the van some ceiling boards to do the ceiling in the grenier at our house too; so after safely delivering Wendy and Richard's worldly goods we carried on to drop off our stuff and stay for a couple of days. I would return later in the year to fit it all.
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September is usually the best time to work in the Vendee as it is starting to cool down then. August can be terribly hot, easily 35 degrees and when the morning sun comes around to the front of the house it can take the skin clean off your legs. So september was the time I decided would be best to attempt the grenier ceilings. They cover the entire length and breadth of the house and when done would give us another two bedrooms and eventually another sal-de-bain. I thought that I could do it in three or four weeks so arranged for that. None of my usual cohorts wanted to stay for so long and nor did Jan. I would have liked to have taken the dogs as they both have passports now but in the end it was just me for three weeks.
I left at the beginning of september and returned at the end very weary.
The first job again was to cut the grass followed by shopping.
I had brought with me three new windows I had made at home - opening inwards using French bought hinges - so they were fitted on the second day and they did fit too. I worried a bit when making them so far away that I may have just measured a little bit out, but no, 'parfait'.
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Windows waiting to be fitted in the two rooms in the 'grenier'.
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The new windows fitted.
I first insulated between the rafters with fibreglass sheets bought from V M Materiaux down the road. I had brought over 20, 8x4 ceiling sheets in July which would only be just enough so I was not to break any, so what did I do - broke two trying to fit them on my own. After a bit of thought I devised a couple of brackets to fit temporarily to the roof beams to take the weight and I was away. The sheets flew up after cutting them to size - not easy when the beams are whole trees which aren't straight. I made some props to hold them in place while I screwed them into position. I finished the first room including painting the new ceiling and walls by the sunday and moved in the beds and furniture on monday and slept there that night. Phew!!
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Fitting the insulation before the ceiling boards |
The finished room - 'beacoup travail'. |
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The next job was to redecorate the original bedroom on the 'rez de chausee' (ground floor). I moved out all of the furniture and stopped-in all of the cracks and holes that appear from time-to-time in French houses. I covered the floor with dust sheets and rollered the ceiling white again and the walls peach. I moved the furniture back in the next day and so it was ready for my visitors on thursday. My friend Claire who I met at French classes in Burnham was in France for a holiday with her husband Phil so they were coming to 'Toad Hall' for a couple of days. I done what I'd set out to do so I could relax a little now.
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The newly decorated downstairs bedroom |
Apart from all of the little jobs that need doing while you are living in the house like cooking, washing-up, washing dirty work clothes then ironing them, and vacuuming. I had also decided to fit some shutters 'volets' to the new upstairs windows as they had never had any. I cut the timber to size in England and assembled and stained them in France. I had to buy french 'volet hinges' from Bricojem but they didn't have enough so ordered me some more for the next week. The hinges screw directly in to a pilot hole in the stone. I added a squirt of 'sans clou' - no nails - to keep them in position and everything fitted ok. I designed my own stay to keep them shut when they needed to be closed and they look really good.
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Before the shutters were fitted |
After the shutters were fitted. Looks more French now. |
There are still a few more jobs to do in subsequent visits like the bit of rerendering and new guttering as noticable in the above pics. There is always more to do but I love it. After three weeks on my own, virtually only speaking french mostly to my neighbours I was looking forward to getting back to my 'other' home in the UK. I missed my wife and the dogs and cats. Early sunday morning I drained down the water, turned of the electricity and headed north to catch the 10.45am St Malo to Portsmouth ferry. I miss that place of course and am already getting the things together for my next VISIT.