Kitchen work

Work has started in what will be the new kitchen, plus some demolition in what was the original kitchen in the house.

Framing for new plasterboard on one wall and the ceiling is now up. These will be insulated, boarded then plastered. They should be done by the beginning of next week. It will take 10 weeks for the kitchen 'furniture' to arrive so the plan is have everything done; painting, tiling etc by the time that arrives.

At the far end of the house was the original kitchen with the remains of a cooking range. That has now been demolished, as has the shute to the right in the photo below. The shute was used for moving hay from the grenier (attic) to the manger on the cave (garage). Opening up the shute meant we had an easy way to get rid of all the rubble into the cave. This room will be an en-suite guest room … eventually.

Winter in the south of France

It's tough - sunshine and blue sky every day. Since mid-December we've had no rain - which means having to water the garden - with ideal winter weather; chilly but sunny. Perfect for getting out on the bikes. Yesterday we went on the mountain bikes for a off-road jaunt through the vineyards. Pruning of the grape vines is in full flow at the moment, at least the vignerons are having good weather for a hard job.

End of 2014 overnight trip

A quick trip up to Millau - home of the amazing viaduct and where beautiful leather gloves are made.  First stop Couvertoirade, on the Grand Causses. It's a beautiful fortified village, run by the Knights Templars from the 12th century. Today it is the home of many crafts people, artists and cafe's. 

Onto Millau, for a late lunch and a stroll round the glove factories/stores. Amazing selection of beautiful gloves - some are made for the Paris fashion houses; Chanel, Hermes, Louis Vuitton etc. However, the ones we bought were a cheaper style - but still lovely!

The 'other ' major attraction at Millau is the viaduct which is hard to miss. A fantastic structure; functional as well as a thing of beauty.

On the return journey we took a longer route via Roquefort to look at the cheese caves - and buy some of the renowned cheese. Then up into the Haut-Languedoc where there was snow at the top - the temperature never rose above 2C all day. A lovely drive, on a cold but sunny day. A nice way to end the year with some time out in our 'backyard'. 2015 we'll be back into renovating ...

Kitchen Wall

Work on making our new kitchen has started. We've already had the wood burner put into the main lounge and decided to expose the stone wall which was behind the fire. Have taken off the plaster covering it - resulting in a LOT of rubble and dust. We took buckets of rubble out the window and bagged it up in the garden, which saved some of the dust from getting in the rest of the house, although despite our best efforts there's still a lot of dust around. We also discovered the back of an old oven in the wall and are still deciding exactly how we are going to use this feature.

Next we had to remove the old grout around the stones which is very fine and also very dusty! So far we think we've taken around 20 bags of rubble and grit to the tip. Now we've started on the repointing.  Another new skill! It's going well and we're pleased with the result. It will be a great feature in the kitchen - eventually.

The first stage of removing the plaster - and discovering the old oven.

Half-way through the repointing:

Summer's almost over

We've had the last swim in the pool for this year - the water a lovely, 'refreshing' 20C - always quite a sad moment realising summer is definitely over. Packed away the sun umbrella, deck chairs and sun loungers. 

Today we put on the winter pool cover and cleaned the terrace tiles - mainly because we are about to go away for a few weeks. Temperatures have still been in the mid-high 20C so still warm enough for swimming. Washed all the pool towels before they get packed away for winter too.

Also,

Oh I forgot to mention; the large radiator right next to the fire will be removed too. A bit superfluous now. It will be put at the other end of the room as when we don't have a fire in winter, we'll still need some heat in the lounge.

Fireplace almost done ...

The chimney has been plastered, the original mantelpiece and surrounds reused and new tiles fitted around the wood burner. Which means all there is left to do is some painting, grouting the tiles and finding some slate to put in front of the wood burner. And then we can start on the kitchen.