Our French house (with pics) !!
Discussion
Thought I would share some pictures of our new house. Please have a look at the pictures and let us know what you think. We are really proud of it and are looking forward to many "working" holidays and giving our children the holidays that me and my brother had. My wife and I are both 27 and have been told by many a person that we are brave, but they are also jealous !! We eventually signed for it in Jan this year, initial sign was back in Aug 07. It is located in a 10 house hamlet called La Roche about an hour west of Macon. We are just on the edge of the Saone-Et-Loire department before it changes to Rhone.
The house is essentially an L shape and this is the toe of the L, it is a small barn which in itself could be used as a small annexe, enough for a family to stay in for a week anyway. Id like the 2 small rooms you can just see the entrances for to become walk in vivariums so I could add some large snakes to my collection !!
This is just to the right from the last picture and obviously we will use it as a car parking area, just needs a little tidying up. Above this we will hopefully use as part of the annexe, if thats what we do with it one day !!
This is now on the main part of the building, one day we would like a large glass front in here with some french doors as it would make a beautiful large lounge with an open fire etc etc
This is inside the double doors so there is a fair bit of space to play with
This is a shot which just excludes the previous barn on the left hand side but shows the main house and bread oven, which has been reconditioned and just needs the stack pushing through the roof. The large tree on the right of the shot we intend to remove as it is a big old tree and will require general trimming and topping every so often
A shot of the house through the front gates, on the left of the picture you can just see the track that goes up the side of the house
Our well !! I want to get a submersible pump to chuck in and utilise the free water for toilets, outside taps etc and when we get round to it, the central heating
This is the view from the front of the house
A shot looking at the garden from the side of the house
The back of my parents house across our neighbours garden !! Needs some new hedge planting there as the local farmer was using it to cut the grass of our house and the neighbours whilst no one owned them
A shot from the top of the garden showing the view and the roof of our house. One day a swimming pool and decking area will be up here as we like the view, its south facing and there is hedgerow behind and to the right
This is the left handside of the kitchen, the staircase to upstairs is behind the stud wall on the left handside. The wall ahs blown out due to damp but that has actually been pulled down now. There is understairs storage there too. You can see on the back wall the entrance to the cave, it is a closed room with a solid door and a jail type door !! The entrance to the bathroom is just out of shot but that is on the left too
The other side of the kitchen, all the bits and pieces throughout the house have been left as the owner died and the family said we could have it all.
The downstairs bedroom which will become a lounge, there is a stud wall in here too which has a room behind it which is about 4ft in depth ?? The stud wall will come down to make the room larger.
This is the first bedroom, the lino floor has come up already and we will also remove the wooden ceiling. I am 6'2" and cant stand up in there so its a must do job, we would also prefer to have exposed beams and it will make putting rooms upstairs easier
The second bedroom, which you get to by passing through the other one, one day we will build a corridor to make two private rooms and allow us to build a staircase to the new rooms upstairs
If youve got this far, thanks for taking the time to look and read. Im sure you know how we feel, its so exciting and we just want to be down there all the time !!
The house is essentially an L shape and this is the toe of the L, it is a small barn which in itself could be used as a small annexe, enough for a family to stay in for a week anyway. Id like the 2 small rooms you can just see the entrances for to become walk in vivariums so I could add some large snakes to my collection !!
This is just to the right from the last picture and obviously we will use it as a car parking area, just needs a little tidying up. Above this we will hopefully use as part of the annexe, if thats what we do with it one day !!
This is now on the main part of the building, one day we would like a large glass front in here with some french doors as it would make a beautiful large lounge with an open fire etc etc
This is inside the double doors so there is a fair bit of space to play with
This is a shot which just excludes the previous barn on the left hand side but shows the main house and bread oven, which has been reconditioned and just needs the stack pushing through the roof. The large tree on the right of the shot we intend to remove as it is a big old tree and will require general trimming and topping every so often
A shot of the house through the front gates, on the left of the picture you can just see the track that goes up the side of the house
Our well !! I want to get a submersible pump to chuck in and utilise the free water for toilets, outside taps etc and when we get round to it, the central heating
This is the view from the front of the house
A shot looking at the garden from the side of the house
The back of my parents house across our neighbours garden !! Needs some new hedge planting there as the local farmer was using it to cut the grass of our house and the neighbours whilst no one owned them
A shot from the top of the garden showing the view and the roof of our house. One day a swimming pool and decking area will be up here as we like the view, its south facing and there is hedgerow behind and to the right
This is the left handside of the kitchen, the staircase to upstairs is behind the stud wall on the left handside. The wall ahs blown out due to damp but that has actually been pulled down now. There is understairs storage there too. You can see on the back wall the entrance to the cave, it is a closed room with a solid door and a jail type door !! The entrance to the bathroom is just out of shot but that is on the left too
The other side of the kitchen, all the bits and pieces throughout the house have been left as the owner died and the family said we could have it all.
The downstairs bedroom which will become a lounge, there is a stud wall in here too which has a room behind it which is about 4ft in depth ?? The stud wall will come down to make the room larger.
This is the first bedroom, the lino floor has come up already and we will also remove the wooden ceiling. I am 6'2" and cant stand up in there so its a must do job, we would also prefer to have exposed beams and it will make putting rooms upstairs easier
The second bedroom, which you get to by passing through the other one, one day we will build a corridor to make two private rooms and allow us to build a staircase to the new rooms upstairs
If youve got this far, thanks for taking the time to look and read. Im sure you know how we feel, its so exciting and we just want to be down there all the time !!
Hey Diablo, that's quite a project that you've bought yourself there! It looks like it is perfectly "livable" for working holidays. Seems like your parents live there too, maybe on a more permanent basis, so you have someone on site to manage the jobs that you have done in your absence. Don't forget, for work on old houses the VAT is only at 5.5% and tradesmen are much cheaper than then the U.K., at least they were before the £ started sliding drastically against the €! If you bargain for any cash in hand work, the saving to them is more than just the VAT as they avoid all the associated social security, and one thing that's for sure - the french tradesmen love a bit of "black"!
From a fellow britfrog - good luck mate!
From a fellow britfrog - good luck mate!
Cheers, it is indeed "livable". The water and electric are sorted, for hot water there is an immersion heater. Cooker is there and there is a small oil burner for heating in those nippy winter months !! The elderly lady who had owned the house since approx 1947 had a fosse septique (correct spelling ?) fitted 6 years ago so that was good to hear. She used the house in summer months and then went back down south for the winter. My parents spend as much time down there as they can, usually first holiday is march for a fortnight and then return in may and stay down till the end of september, all right for some eh !! So yeah, they will be keeping an eye out for us. So when does a house become old and qualify for 5.5% VAT ?? Ours was built around the 1850 mark so I reckon it qualifies !! I have 17 years left in the army at which point we intend to pack up and disappear to France, ill only be 41 so that sounds good to me. In the meantime we will keep on the work and enjoying the laid back lifestyle. Another advantage on the work front is that when I return from tours of Iraq, Afghanistan etc I will be to disappear for a couple of months and fit in plenty of work.
p.s: Im liking the idea of being a "britfrog" !!
p.s: Im liking the idea of being a "britfrog" !!
I hope you like a drop of wine! Get your french up to scratch if it isn't already and get to know the neighbours and locals, if I'm not stating the obvious. Generalising big time, but once you get away from Paris the french are lovely people and react well to anyone who makes an effort and serves an aperitif!
Get some Eparcyl for your fosse septique - when only visiting occasionally you'll need to give it a bacterial boost on arrival. Also try to rapidly find a local contact who you can call before coming to get them to light the oil burner a bit in advance (assuming that it's safe without supervision). Spending two days getting the walls of a house up to living temperature when you visit briefly in the colder months will only make the wife moan - I bear witness.
Best of luck!
Get some Eparcyl for your fosse septique - when only visiting occasionally you'll need to give it a bacterial boost on arrival. Also try to rapidly find a local contact who you can call before coming to get them to light the oil burner a bit in advance (assuming that it's safe without supervision). Spending two days getting the walls of a house up to living temperature when you visit briefly in the colder months will only make the wife moan - I bear witness.
Best of luck!
Im not a wine fan but have never really been much of a drinker anyway, my wife on the other hand will quite happily have a bottle or two !! Because my parents have had their house for 22 years we know the locals well and have a good head start. The only permanent resident of the hamlet is called Andre and he will do anything for a bottle of Pastis !! When we got hold of the house in Jan he was round straight away sorting out the oil burner, that was a day to remember, me and the wfe pulling up lino floor upstairs and Andre cleaning up the oil burner with a bag in a box and glass next to him !! He loves getting dirty though so it suited him down to the ground, see the picture below. He has helped us out with allsorts, electric, water, tax, he really is a saviour. My french is survivable but I am taking an OU course in French with the help of the army. I did manage to phone up the bank last week and set up a direct debit, pay another bill and change our address, I was pleased with myself anyway !! Good tip on the fosse septique, my parents have never done anything like that because they are there alot more. I remember the time taken to initially heat up the house, 15 years ago there was nobody else in the hamlet to pre-warm it for us and it would be absolutely freezing inside.
Here is Andre doing what he does best (smoking by fuel oil) !!
This is a multimap link of our location:
http://www.multimap.com/maps/?hloc=FR|marcon#t=l&a...
Thanks for the luck, thinking about all the work to be done were going to need it !! Will be a long and enjoyable experience though
Here is Andre doing what he does best (smoking by fuel oil) !!
This is a multimap link of our location:
http://www.multimap.com/maps/?hloc=FR|marcon#t=l&a...
Thanks for the luck, thinking about all the work to be done were going to need it !! Will be a long and enjoyable experience though
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