A Bit of Regional History - Pt 1

In honor of my upcoming trip to France, I thought I'd give some interesting regional history.

It can get dark and scary some nights in rural France. Even worse are the nights eerily lit up by a full mistral moon. Valley pathways are illuminated, while the thick underbrush is not. The tall plateau prairies glow white and black under the moon, and you can swear you see shadows darting in the distance from scrub-brush to scrub-brush. Careful, you might just be right. For it was only a scant 240 years ago that something roamed the hills and valleys around here, picking off villager after villager. Was it a lion escaped from a zoo? A pack of wolves? What haunted the Abbeys and farms for years before it was killed? Some still swear it was the Loup-garou, better known as werewolf. Read about it here.

2nd floor work

So when the house was purchased, the second and third floors were partitioned out into several small, dark rooms. On the second floor in particular, the partitions were terribly laid out and cut the floor into a small kitchen a small dining room and a small bedroom. Space was poorly used and worse, the wallpaper was hideous. Let's review:

The kitchen:

That's the cantou on the right, a partition wall on the left. That's the only window for the room. And yes, that's a linoleum floor.

The dining room:

Only the wall on the right is a load bearing wall. That's clapboard attached to the beams for the ceiling. That wallpaper!

The other view:

Again, the only window in the room.

So this floor was a mess. The big front balcony with floor to ceiling windows felt removed and detached from the rooms because it spanned the kitchen and the dining room. No breezes coud get through because there were walls everywhere. The staircases seemed isolated and a colossal waste of space. And the back room was a place you would go to die. Dark, one window, dank, and cold all day long. There was only one answer. Total destruction.

Luckily the walls were just plank board and wallpaper. The ceilings capboard and paint. I took a crowbar and sledgehammer to them all. Well, first I disconnected the power and ripped out all of the old wiring and fixtures. The house would have to be rewired anyway and the old cloth-wrapped wiring was an enourmous fire hazard. The hardest part was the freaking linoleum. But I got it too, and when I removed all of the detritus, this is what I had:


this is the kitchen by the front window. look at all the light and gorgeous space! Light streamed into the place now. The cantou looked like the rightful centerpiece of the room, and a wonderful breeze flowed right through the place. I wish I had better pictures but the 2nd floor is wide open. It's one big room, and that's how it will stay. It'll be a wonderful place to cook, dine, relax and hopefully cuddle around a raging fire in the winter.
I still have to remove the wooden backing from the cantou. I also have to disassemble the cast iron stove and reassemble itdownstairs, where it will provide heat for the guest bedroom eventually going in there. Just a reminder of how big the cantou is, that's a full-sized iron stove inside the cantou.

the cantou:

Video of the destruction

this is the third floor after we'd taken down all the plaster, horsehay and junk. Al that dirt, pollen and hay gave my house the nickname 'Chez Claritin'.



Enjoy!

The September Work Trip!

I'm starting to get very excited about the work trip. It's only 70 days away and everything is arranged! 4 guys for one whole week! Even working just 4-5 hours a day stil winds up being over 100 man-hours of work put in, which is a lot.

Some details.

1. We're in the south of France, so Barcelona is actually the closest single-stop airport, Not Paris-CDG or Geneva-Cointrin. I use Kayak for my ticket needs. It allows you to better plan for the lowest rate. this time I got round trip, non-stop flights NYC-BAR for 282 dollars. That's total, not each way. By going mid-September I an still travelling in summer, but off peak.

2. I rented a car through Sixt, which seems to be trying to break into the US market and offered the best rates by far.

3. I rented a gite rural, which is essentially a standalone holiday home. This one comes with bbq grill, coffee machine, 4 beds, washer/dryer, full kitchen and petanque court. Its view is spectacular and it cost me a grand total of 50 euros a day. I found it through clevacances.

4. if you have an iphone get a translator app, there are a lot of good free ones, they all have french, and it could save your bacon if you have to say something like 'No, Officer, my friends are all blind drunk but I have stayed sober because your French country roads scare the shit out of me'*.

*Mais non, Monsieur Gendarme, mes amis sont tout des abat-jour ivres mais je suis resté sobre parce que vos routes de campagne françaises effrayent la merde hors de moi!

Now, some pix from the area we'll be travelling:

Conques


Estaing


Belcastel

Why friends and old homes are good

the Bastide gate leading into my town.

Fixing a house is no easy task, and you'd think the older the home, the more difficult. But, there are advantages to a really old house.

1. if it's still sturdy after 300 years and you've had it checked out, with a little common maintenance, you've got another 300 easy. You won't be there for that, but neither will any of the prefab Acme brick homes you grew up in in the US.

2. Apart from plumbing and electrics, there's nothing you can't do to repair it. You may think you're unskilled but everything built in your house was put in there by unskilled labor. The 17th century stonemason knew a few more things than you about mortar and rock, but his tools were simple, and luckily, he's left you instructions: when you repair his work, just use the layout of the rocks as a example. And the plasterer is only better than you because he's done it before. There's nothing tricky about plaster.

3. Your friends can rampage through the destruction phase with minimal guidance and not risk bringing the house down around you. Leave beams, stairs, wires, pipes and load-bearing walls alone. Everything else is fair game. Everything critical/important in an old house is build to last and your pal the lawyer does no have the strengh, experise or cunning to take it out. Friends are great, too, because they will work like dogs for 4 or 5 hours a day and be happy to do it. They're invested in your investment. They know that as long as you have it, they can come to France. It's win-win. They're cheaper than paying for itinerant labor, they speak your native tongue, and the locals will not be mad you didn't hire them to do the work when you do it with friends. Trust me, fixing up a place with cheap labor that aren't friends is the quickest way to alienate your new french neighbors.