PerigordVacance

Make Hay

We cut the grass in the meadow today and if the weather stays good M 'B' will bale it for us later in the week.

In the meantime Fleur and Henners make the most of the grass for a game of hide and seek.

Geraniums

Sun Flowers

The Sun Flowers are coming on but the Dock's were growing faster. In the interest of avoiding competition we need to pull out the weeds.

With this in mind we spent 4 hours over the weekend pulling them up.  The sunflower is on the left.

Wood Burning Stove

In the main part of the Pigeonnaire we have a 10 kilowatt wood burning stove to heat the main body of the house.

We purchased the Supra stove from the Brico in Villereal (situated just out side the town on the Castillonnes road behind the Intermarche).

An interesting point about buying wood burning stoves in France is if you are a tax payer here then you are entitled to a tax rebate of 50% of the cost of the stove and fitting (fitting is refundable provided you have a professional installer do the work.)

Kitchen Floor (Gite)

A welcome change from concreting and rendering now that the pool is finished. Today It was back into the gite to continue the floor tiling. A very productive day too with 70 30cm x 30 cm square terracotta tiles laid after being cleaned with the pressure washer *.

I think that considering I was mixing, cleaning, cutting and laying on my own together with the cleaning up it was a great day.

Donna had good day too scrubbing the pigeonaire floor and treating it with Linseed oil and terps.

With a bit of luck the floor should be completed this week so I can get n with making the three internal doors and the main front door.

* we started cleaning the tiles in situ with acid. Pretty hazardous as you may well imagine. The vapour inside is awful so  now we are using the pressure washer which is much more efficient and does a better job.

Spiral Staircase

The spiral staircase could be delivered this coming week so I thought it appropriate to get the base and the tiling done in advance. We have to be pleased that the metal working shop have moved so quickly so the last thing we need is a delay on our side.

Wood

Mark and I started to devide the wood we have bought. We can make all of our doors, windows and cupboards.

This video has absolutely nothing to do with France, holidays or our website but I found it whilst researching how to embed a video player to show content here at PerigordVacance. I thought it was spectacular especially with the backing music.

See what you think and sorry for the off topic post, I won't do it again I promise:)

Spiral Staircase

My ambition was to build a spiral staircase and I actually bought some plans from the internet but time I am afraid become too short. I have  many other things to do. With this in mind we explored having some made and sought quotes from three companies. We finally settled for a small metalworking shop about 10 mins. from here.

Today we went to inspect and pay the deposit.

Both Donna and I are delighted with them and especially the presence it will give to the open plan of the living area. At the top of these stairs we intend to build a small reading area come quiet space with a writing bureau when you might 10 minutes to yourself.

Won the Pools

Or the battle of the pool.

Tomorrow we will measure and order the liner. Hopefully within a month the liner can be put in and we can fill it up.

In the meantime I need to infill the surround with rubble and gravel and build a stone wall where the pool is exposed above ground. After that a pool house for the pump and filter.

In the meantime, we will screed the floors in the gite downstairs before tiling the floor. The spiral staircase can be fitted very soon.

I need to make three internal doors.

I have bought some wood from someone who has purchased an old house in monlanquin. The house was previously used as a garage and carpeters workshop and the wood, ash, oak, pine and poplar we estimate has been stored there for 40 years or more. (I'll put a piccy up soon).

The deadline is getting closer but what a massive hurdle the pool was to  get over and now  we are so confident that everything will be ready now for our first guests.

Watch this space though as the countdown to the grand opening approaches.  I am sure the drama will increase together with the stress levels (fun stress though) as we get closer to the 20th August.