Renovation Of A French Property

This is our true story about the renovation of a 300 year old French farmhouse located in Gironde where the forest meets the vineyards of Sauternes and Graves. It is a beautiful and diverse countryside about 50km south of Bordeaux and slightly less to the Atlantic ocean. This French property had been abandoned for some 50 years. And even then, the house never had electricity, running water or proper sanitation. However, it necessarily follows that it is also the story of our personal madness and we would wish to say clearly at the outset -

This is not how you should proceed in renovating your french property - you have been warned but was there another way for us?

When the property was purchased with its 2000m2 of land, it had no roof, no windows - simply nothing - a complete ruin. From first sight it was a disaster to behold, a hopeless case. Many of our friends thought we were insane and more so as neither of us were builders nor architects. Our experience of renovating houses amounted to no more than painting and decorating but that was all going to change. Having bought the property we had little choice but to go forward bravely or bale out by finding a buyer.

Nature had certainly taken over but underneath was a hidden jewel. Well we thought there was a diamond to be found somewhere beneath the flora. To cut and polish that rough stone would be a lot of work, time and of course money. The risk of stress and financial ruin was high but with determination, iron will and some helpful local people; we made a fast and tenacious start.

The back of the ruin was completely overgrown with weeds, ivy and brambles. The top of the walls had disintegrated and they were leaning out precariously in a couple of places. Fortunately at less than 10 degrees from vertical (so we were told later by a stone mason). Some parts of the walls were missing but under closer examination there were few major cracks to worry about. As we began to partially remove some of the vegetation, we could see beautiful stone walls which were over half a metre thick. Starting to clear this French ruin was like stripping wall paper - once you start, you don't want to stop and you can't stop. We certainly couldn't leave it like that, could we? Many might have...

Little by little, we could see this was once an unusual property, a bit special, a mix of 2 architectural styles: Girondine at the front and Landaise at the rear. In our minds, we thought that we could make a very substantial 3 bedroom house, in a traditional keeping with a large kitchen, dining room and living room. A large loft or playroom as well for our two young children. In total, we planned for about 220m2 of living space of great character and which would have been well beyond our means in the U.K. without having a spare million or two. Not having won the lottery, we felt there was little choice if we wanted such a property.

The roof had collapsed long ago. Acacia trees had grown rampantly inside the house in what appeared to be a drunken frenzy! There was a huge tree in the chimney protruding like a snake, spiralling upwards to the sky. The floors were an extension of the forest floor. It was impossible to see the real floors or even imagine they existed. They were submerged under half a metre of dirt, plantlife and rubble. This was going to be a difficult renovation by any stretch of the imagination. It crossed our minds many times as to whether it should be demolished and a new house built. Our budget of 130k euros to renovate a French property would allow us to build a new house for sure and at little risk - read on to see what happened.