Renovating A French Property

Now at this point after initially clearing the jungle and with a planning permission in hand, we made a critical choice.

Aside: we will not bore you with the details of obtaining planning consent but suffice to say, one submits drawings and plans to the local authorities and start to pray. Our plans were the minimum required - the previous owner did the plans and gave them to us when we bought the ruin. An architect told us he was quite amazed that we were granted permission based on such an amateurish plan (he would say that, wouldn't he) but all was above board and we had the necessary signatures and stamps on the papers allowing us to proceed.

So back to our critical decision. Do we call in a professional architect to manage the renovation or do it ourselves. We decided the fees for an architect were just too high. Typically 8% of the spend. We realized the budget would be blown and the dream of renovating a property in France with it. We decided to take a big risk and use our common sense, some financial acumen (one skill we did possess) and the expertise of local builders - ha! ha!

This would be our next piece of advice - if you have the financial means, use an architect to do drawings whatever you may think of your skills as 'Bob the builder' - we did not have the luxury of using an architect.

Back then we really were short of a 'sandwich for a picnic' but in madness there can be method and motivation conquers many trials and difficulties. We at least had a rough idea of what work needed to be done (everything so that wasn't hard to figure out, was it?) and a budget with major line items which we built up over several weeks discussing the renovation with local trades people.

The budget was getting more accurate at each pass. And this prompts us to offer the most important piece of advice - as a minimum get 3 quotes from 3 builders who do not know each other. Take heed of the words underlined. Make a budget based on independent facts where possible, from tradesmen who do not drink in the same bar. Now we were fairly good at following this rule but we made some exceptions based on so called "trustworthy" advice (luckily we got away with these exceptions).

So with most of the work budgeted for, we began to clean up with help from various friends - usually two of us at any one time. It took weeks and weeks. Day in and day out. There was no relief come rain nor sunshine. Character building one may think - no it certainly wasn't. Soul destroying would be a better term but bit by bit, love for the building blossomed, closer friendships were made and we all lost a lot of weight together.

This phase of the project was hard as it entailed digging out the floors by hand. Our working tools were basically a pick axe, a chopper, a chainsaw, a pair of spades, and a wheel barrow (18m3 of debris and that is a lot to move by hand), pulling out tree trunks and lifting 130m2 of wonderful girondine tiles which were still stuck to the earth. The tiles had been hidden underneath the rubble and 70% of them were still good for reuse - at 65e per m2 they were worth the effort of salvaging. The major work though was picking the interior and exterior walls of old render and plaster. We did this mainly by hand with small pick hammers as electric chisels tended to break the stones. We also had to do some emergency cementing to secure the walls in a few places.

The temperature plummeted in late November (-5 degrees celsius) and our fingers turned blue and our feet went numb. However, by this stage, if we are truthful, even in such poor conditions, there is something about old stone walls and exposing them which became addictive. A kind of magic ensues and one feels connected to history. The thoughts of modern day life, the corporate merry-go-round and the stresses of the M25 car park (sorry motorway) become irrelevant and disappear - it was like a therapy.

To see more of what was involved - continue on this story of a real renovation of a French property - click to read on.