Planning for 2013

As 2012 came to an end we decided that we really needed to concentrate our efforts on getting the ground floor of the house completed. The floor screed needed to be laid, floor tiling to put down and the purchase and fitting of the kitchen. We also needed the clear the debris and rubble from down the side of house.

As it worked out the temporary kitchen that had served us for our last two visits was stripped out after our September 2012 visit and the sand/cement floor screed laid. We were happy for this as this allowed for the screed to dry out sufficiently for when we needed the floor laying.

So in January 2013 we embarked on the design of the kitchen. The only thing we really knew at the outset was that it needed to stretch out along the back wall as this was were all the services had be installed and where the temporary kitchen had been. Initially we had looked towards purchasing the kitchen from France but soon found this to be difficult because of the amount of time required to get it sorted. With sourcing the right kitchen, obtaining initial designs, re-visits for finalisation of a design and details bearing in mind we are only over in France for a week or two at a time. The exchange rate was also against us at 1.12 Euro to the Pound.  After several weeks of initial planning, re-planning and tweaking we went eventually to see Sam Neal at Sam Neal Kitchens with a design idea. Sam took this on and turned it into something workable. Below are a few images that Sam produced for us.

Here's one of the original design where the hob was placed against the wall.

Here's the design that we eventually chose with the hob moved onto the island unit. We thought this changed the entire the feel of the kitchen area and whilst making  it more user friendly.

Nice perspective of the island unit. Although the this was eventually tweaked again.

As regards the transporting over of the flat pack kitchen, the appliances and the floor tiles we used a man with a van that basically operated between Brighton and France. All the goods were delivered to his store in Brighton.  In fact he lived in a village near ours so it was quite convenient and reasonably economic.

More to follow.......

BLOG UPDATE

Although I haven't updated the blog for a long long time that's not to say that the renovation of our house hasn't progressed somewhat. In reality we are practically complete with last major work being carried out at the beginning of the year. The following posts are a record of what has been happening over the past 36 months or so that bring things right up to date. So please keep coming back over the next few weeks to see how things have changed.

Boarding the bedroom floors

September 2012 update

During the trip to our house in France, the last for this year, we made a little more progress on the final finishing works to upstairs area of the house. This time around we took a couple of enthusiastic volunteers, or son Nic and a friend of our James.

After taking time out on the first day we set about laying parquet flooring to the two smaller bedrooms. James lead on the project teaming up with Nic on laying the boarding. I got the "easy" job of cutting the boards to size. We spent two days completing the bedrooms and into the landing area before running out of material. Off to Leroy Merlin to see if we could get a couple more packs but as is the way in France we left empty handed. Fortunately we were able to order the extra packs for collection next year.

We had decided before going out to France that we would treat all the skirtings and door frames with Danish oil. Di had spent the previous few days doing this so next job was fixing skirtings to the bedrooms and bathroom. James did and another excellent job on whilst Di and Nic painted the main Bedroom. We built up the double bed for the middle sized bedroom and built up a double wardrobe, a chest of drawers and two bed side tables.

Once the door frames were oiled any doubts we had in using it evaporated. The natural look of the skirting and frames against the white walls and doors was exactly the contemporary look we were hoping for.

Having been attacked two nights running by Hornets I decided to PV foam around the new door and window openings which they were managing to squeeze through. That was not before I had captured six of the blighters using a coffee and releasing them.

Last job before we left after seven days was to treat some of the remaining original timbers with wood work treatment and fit the remaining Georgian bars to the windows.

A long and busy week punctuated with a bit of site seeing, swimming in our neighbours pool and evenings spent playing cards that got more serious and competitive as the week wore on.