lespetitesgarennes

Our Grand Design in Montemboeuf, Charente, France

Monthly Archives: November 2014


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Come on Molly light my fire – Allez Molly allumer mon feu

It's hard choosing the right poêle!

It’s hard choosing the right poêle!

Tom, Molly and I have spent a happy couple of days looking at interiors for the house.  This has included a trip to Leroy Merlin, Godin to look at poêles, Cedeo for bathrooms and Cuisinella to look at kitchens. These were the jobs that I had been looking forward to and it was great fun.  As I have mentioned before, it was very hard not to get carried away when looking at shiny tiles and sparkly taps. It was very a useful exercise to get a better idea of how what we would like fits in with out budget and where we can save money to get the items that are more important to us.  As Tom has designed the house, my responsibility lies with running and checking the budget (remember excel is you friend).

I have asked a few people about what they would expect to see in a luxury bathroom and double sinks seemed to come up every time.  Fortunately, Tom has designed the master bathroom large enough to fit one in, so those of you that suggested may be in luck!  We also looked at baths a showers that squirt jets of water at you, something I think is quite fun, but sadly I don’t think I can persuade Tom of their benefits!

We then went to Marandat to see our house being built.  It was very exciting to see the guys working on our walls and windows.  They still hope to start on site next week which is when  Tom will be back in the UK, so I really am going to have to gen up on my French building terms. At least I know the words for build, timber, wood and stop!

Tom has also been contacting plumbers, electricians, tree surgeons and we have arranged for our mains drainage to be connected!  It is about to start to get very busy on site…..


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Let’s face the view and dance – face la vue et danse

83 Molly and Tom check out view

Molly and Tom check out view

Just a quick post to say that we have now visited the site ourselves and it is even more exciting than I imagined it to be.  The elevation of the slab really makes the best of our view and we couldn’t be happier.  This was one of the things that drew us to the plot in the first place and we definitely made the right choice.  Seeing as we will see it on our sofa by a log fire or when we wake up in the morning is fantastic.

We also manged to meet out timber frame guy on site who is happy with all the work and will hopefully start next week.  He and Tom had to iron out a few remaining design issues, but this is all sorted now, so we are good to go! This week we will be having more site visits, choosing our log burner (poêle à bois) and trying to arrange meetings with tree surgeons.  Tom is also working on the specifications and scope of works for the internal joinery to get some quotes.  We have a busy few months ahead….

Poêle à bois – Log stove

Parpaings – Blockwork
Concrete – Béton
J’ai  une faim de loup – I’m a hungry Wolf.   I’m reading (or attempting to read) ‘Tintin au Tibet’, in the hope it will improve my French.  (From this you can read that I am just doing it as an excuse to read Tintin)
Hors d’eau – Water tight
Hors d’ait – Air tight
La poute – beam
Poussez les dents – teeth coming through!
Baies coulissantes – Siding doors
Casque de chantier – hard hat.
Sous-sol – basement
La Renouée du Japon – Japanese knotweed


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How do like your Agilia in the morning? – Comment prenez vous votre Agilia le matin?

LaFarge truck arrives on site

LaFarge truck arrives on site

On a dark early morning in late November, two big white whirring trucks turned up on our site.  Finally the time had arrived to lay our concrete slab!  This was such an exciting moment in the build process and neither of us can wait to see it.  Our builders have done a fantastic job throughout the build and have always kept us informed with photos and now a video!  The finish is so smooth it looks like water.  It is probably a good job i’m not there because wet concrete is s bit like ‘a moth to a flame’ and i’d be very tempted to write my name.  I don’t think Tom or our future guests would be too impressed because it is likely that (all be it with a resin on top) that this will be out floor finish.

Below is a video that Stuart our builder took of the concrete being poured.

To the right of the video you will have seen a big hole in the ground.  Don’t worry, we haven’t missed a bit, this is where our pergola/terrace structure will sit, and where will will eat cheese, drink wine and look at the view!  Seeing the guys smoothing out the slab, you can see how amazing this Agilia is.

Our foundations are now complete a great achievement with no problems, we are now ready for our timber frame.  We also managed to avoid the classic Grand Designs mishap of spending all our money just to get out of the ground.  Now where’s that bathroom and kitchen catalogue…..

 


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Insulation, I love you – isolation, je t’aime

Insulation, polythene film and service pipes

Insulation, polythene film and service pipes

First of all, apologies for the slightly tenuous title of this post, but I used it because I thought that it would be a good excuse to post the song at the end of this entry – enjoy!

Since we last wrote our builders have put down a wire mesh, which will to help reinforce the slab, some (plenty) insulation and finally a layer of polythene film.  The polythene film has been put down to keep the concrete slab and the insulation apart to allow movement between the two.  You can see the design of this as a cross-section in a previous post.

To make this house as energy efficient as possible, Tom has designed in quite a lot of insulation, both in the floor and the walls.  This means that the house will not need to have any central heating. We will have a poêle à bois for when the weather gets cold and because they are a warming addition to the living room.  This should be all we need! Also, as mentioned earlier, the use of the concrete slab will help with the thermal mass of the house.

The next stage of the process will to lay the concrete slab. We hope that this will be complete by the end of next week. Although, continuing with our obsession with the weather, it looks set to turn over the next few days. Thank heavens for Agilia concrete!

The song

As promised here is that song I wanted to add – if you can think of a better title using Insulation, please let me know.


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u-block the sunshine of my life – u-block le soleil de ma vie

Foundations looking east

Foundations looking east

Did you ever see such a beautiful set of foundations?  What to some may be just a load of concrete and concrete blocks to us it is the very foundation of our house – literally! As you can see things are still moving quickly on site and the foundations are nearly finished. Our builder has placed a u-block on top of the concrete block wall to help support the timber frame. Hopefully the foundations will be finished in the next week or so.  I am really looking forward to being on site again because I think I’ll get a better impression of the scale of the build. I had thought in a previous post that I had an idea of the size of the house, but seeing these pictures, I don’t think I have.  It looks quite small to me, even though I know it isn’t!  I will have to do my ‘Grand Designs gawping’ when I get there after all.  Montemboeuf looks to still be bathing in glorious sunshine, we just hope that this great weather stays for when we head out there and for when the timber frame starts to go up at the end of the month.

Tintin update – I haven’t got much further with my attempt to read Tintin in French – it is harder than you might think!

In honour of our last post, I couldn’t resist putting up a little video.  It is also quite appropriate here, considering the name of the band.