Floors

The beginning of December saw an insulated solid concrete floor being laid in the house. This is a vast improvement on the brick tile floor laid directly on the ground. We have salvaged the tiles and hope to eventually lay them back down as a floor finish.

The last few weeks leading up to Christmas has seen focus switching to the first floor structure. With the chestnut floor boarding removed the builders have been able to inspect the ends of the timber joists that are embedded in the walls.

We were prepared to replace the odd timber or two and also support the joists from the underside with a timber frame to provide additional support and to take some of the deflection out of the floor, re-using some of the old oak roof timbers for the support frame. However, as ever, things have not worked as planned. 

The majority of the floor joists are rotten and there is a dip in the floor of about 50mm from one of the building to the other. Weighing up all the options we decided to renew the floor joists in oak. These have worked out to be 200x80 at 450 centres for a span of 5.4m.

So we go into the New Year hoping that the new windows and doors will go in over the next few weeks followed by plastering of ground floor walls. But this is France so who knows!

Roof complete.

Our roof is now complete, fully tiled and complete with roof lights. We now have a light airy space in what was once the Grenier and really looks fantastic with the natural stone walls that for 100 years haven't seen the light of day.

We now have some really interesting dynamics going on in the building which has again changed our thoughts on how we progress with the renovation works. It would be a crime not to keep areas of the stonework. So we have decided to re-point the front  and rear walls and to insulate and plasterboard the  gable.

    

 The next stage of the works is to look at the condition of the first floor joists. These are a cause of concern with several of the timbers being in poor condition. The floor is "bouncy" and slopes by around 50mm from one end to the other. So over next few days the builder is going to take a look at things and advise us on things.

Over the next few weeks it is planned to lay the new concrete floor and form the new door and window openings. The new hardwood double glazed doors and windows have been delivered. So it should be all go but this is France so we are not holding our breath!

Roof nearly complete

Our new roof is nearly complete after what seems an age with house exposed to the elements. The joiners have been taking full advantage of the September sunshine and the timber roof structure is finally in place, fully constructed and trimmed out ready to receive the Velux rooflights.

We were given the news last week that the chimney stack was unstable and needed to be re-built. This came of no great surprise given the age of the property and that the mortar bonding the stonework and brickwork together is clay based (ie mud). The plus side of this is that the stack has been reconstructed re-using the bricks. If you look closely at the photographs you can just see the leadwork that has been built into the brickwork that will be dressed over the tiles.

You will also notice that the there are little columns or pillars to the corners of the stack. These will eventually support a concrete or stone capping slab. This is the french way of doing things although they also have clay chimney pots in much the same way as in the UK. There is also an element of making good of the stonework along the gables and at the wallplate position.

With the rooflights having been picked up by our neighbours and safely stored in their garage and with the tiles having arrived last week together with the felt and battens, fingers crossed we shall  have achieved our first construction milestone by the end of the week. At this point we have to thank our friends and neighbours Martin and Angela for taking these photos and keeping us informed on progress and generally "running around" on our behalf ensuring that things dont go wrong - something that often does if you aren't "on site".

Anyone seen my bike?

 During the work to remove the existing roof structure of all things a bike was found in the roof space. This was thrown unceremoniously over the wall only to be caught in the ivy growing on the wall. We are thinking of framing this and sending to the builders. 

                                   

There was a suggestion that we should extend the renovation project to include the bike. Needless to say the bike found its way into the skip.

Now the roof has gone the next job is to level up and strength the existing wall . This is being done by the casting a reinforced concrete ring beam to tie the walls together. The photograph below shows the timber formwork in position ready to receive the reinforcement and concrete. There needs to be a similar beam casting to the front with tie rods connecting them together to form a rigid box. Then the new roof can be put on.

 

Holiday report part 2

During our stay in France, holed up in our little touring caravan waiting for the rain to stop, we had plenty of time to think about how we wanted to renovate the cottage. We decided to discard with the underfloor heating to the ground floor opting instead for a log burning stove kicking out up to 7 KW.

More than enough space heating. We will probably put in a some electric convectors in here and there as background heating for the Winter months when we may not be there.




The biggest decision was to take up the existing clay floor tiles which have been laid directly on the ground and are an original feature of the house. They are 30mm thick so these will be re-bedded onto the new floor construction. They will need a bit of cleaning before they go back down but it will be worth the hard work.

Holiday report part 1

We have just got back from a holiday in  France having spent the best part of two weeks in our Caravan pitched up in the back garden of our house. Our friends opposite had cut the grass down to as far as possible and prepared a nice pitch for the van. The builders had opened up the hedge off the lane so we could drive into the back garden, mains water and electric had been laid on and we have 3000 litre fosse to dispose of our toilet waste.

Everything was perfect except we forgot to order the sun. Ten days of continuous rain, seriously stopped any real work on the house and any chance of topping up our tans  The previous week scaffold had been erected around the house and the front wall re-built up to approximate floor level. The roof tiles had been removed and broken up for hardcore. Our poor house is now open to the elements with only the skeleton of a roof for protection and the rain continued to fall day after day.

Stumped

As planned the work has now commenced on renovating our little cottage. First the front wall came down with the stone being reclaimed for re-use at a later date. Soon however, two days of good progress soon came to a halt by a very stubborn Bay tree that occupied the front corner of the house that just refused to be uprooted.

After much scratching of heads involving a couple of architects, the  builders, a passing farmer in a tractor with a herd of sheep and many of our neighbours it was decided that we needed a man with a large excavator. So we called upon Ian the guy who installed the fosse to save the day. As is the way in France after a long patient wait of two weeks the devis eventually came through which turned out to be far too expensive. After further head scratching a local municipal works contractor was contacted and the stump finally yielded to a JCB and a very skilled driver.

We are now waiting for the scaffold to be erected so we can start on the roof.