All traditional materials have been used to renovate and enlarge/improve the old house.

Here M 'J' and his son Cedric prepare the central support beam for the ridge. Its raining here tonight so fingers crossed we can stay on track and keep up with the good progress of the last week.

M 'J' is making great progress.

They have starting tiling the one side that has been covered and weatherproofed and also added some colombage to the gable end. This is due firstly to me getting the angle and height of the gable right in relation to the genoise along the sides and also becuase we have elected to have the gutters added now which will maintain the visual effect of the genoise unhindered.

The fresh cement will be raked/brushed back to reveal the tiles which have been added in an upright way. A style which is popular in the local area.

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The shower is now grouted and ready to have the shower furniture fitted.

The connecting area between the bedroom and en suite left us with a dilemma. Because the two rooms are not square to each other we could not run the floor boards through .We decided to tile the connecting bit between the two rooms. It is in fact it is the top of a wall.

Another job is to renovate the simple fireplace. We want to retain the basic, naive feature.

One side of the fireplace, which gives the impression of supporting the mantelpiece was intact, the other side was missing. I re-produced this and we intend to restore this feature as it was before.

These will be plastered over.

Its been a whirlwind couple of days here. M 'J' and his son have been very active. We now have one side of the lower house covered in (although this picture was taked before the poplar and insulation was put on) If the weather contines to improve I think we can expect to be back on track for mid march completion.

Yesterday I posted that about our supposed bad luck with the roof because of the weather and the lack of bodies on site. I maligned M 'J' a bit thinking that perhaps he was drinking Pernod or something but no! I was completely wrong.

The weather started clear and frosty this morning but soon warmed up as the breeze turned from the south and a spring like feel. However, No M 'J'! Frustration ensued but, at 2pm after lunch he rolled up in his truck with a load stacked high of specially prepared and carved timber for the decorative part of the roof supports for the two low level extensions.

He obviously was not resting on his laurels and when he arrived he set about assembling one of the triangular frames to support the ridge.

Tomorrow is supposed to be nicer still and we expect M'J' bright and early and we might see some progress skyward.

It never rains but it pours!

My word we must be unlucky?

After waiting months for the roof and being let down and then finding M Janioux the bloomin weather hits us hard to prevent progress.

It rained cats and dogs last night and this morning so M 'J' didn't clock in.

I have had to have a slow weekend. Having been affflicted with a chest infection for over a month and thinking I was over the worst I was hit by what feels like flu (probably just a cold but us blokes were never good at being rational:)

Today Donna applied a coat of linseed oil and terpentine to the bedroom floor (the second hopefully tomorrow). This gets us closer to moving into the bedroom rather than the caravan.

I tiled the fireplace (a bit of a weak afternoons work) and hopefully I will joint it tomorrow and put a moulded edging around.

Well the rain beat M Janoiux this morning and he retired to prepare more of the wood needed to complete the job.

We can't grumble because he has been true to his word and totally professional since we charged him with doing the business. He was so apologetic when the rain was to heavy to work this morning.

Wow!

We have just achieved 10,055 hits on our website which tracks the progress about our renovation project.

Using Google Typepad has proved a powerful tool and we have made many friends who look in regularly to see how things are going.

Thank you one and all. At the end of this week when the rain fell in buckets and the roof stopped and started when we are feeling quite tired and a little run down it gives us a great lift to feel so many are taking an interest.