Chateau de Firbeix

After a lot of preparation work around the PMR gîte, mainly involving digging to level the ground, today the concrete was delivered to raise the living room floor to the same level as the other ground floor rooms and lay the terrace and path slab. All three areas came to 9.5m3 which is the largest load so far. Everyone was up between 8 and 9am and we were finished by 11, very exhausted as it is quite intense work over a short period but it looks great. Heavy rain overnight but it remained dry all day and should set enough by the morning. And a brief video taken by Em showing the huge concrete pump arm going over the gated wall and most importantly the electric cable between the chateau and the gîtes.

We had to get professionals in to plaster board and joint the atrium area. Firstly because it is a huge open space and our scaffolding is tall enough but couldn't work around the beams and the different floors levels currently on the ground floor. We need to now catch up and finish plaster boarding the other wall of the bedroom and bathroom. We will have a large multi light statement piece in the atrium as it is such a big and open space. We will paint the plaster board but likely not until the new year. The plasters agreed to leave their scaffolding until we're finished painting and the lights installed.

It's been bitterly cold these last few days and it snowed Monday, gently early on then very heavy later on, only for an hour 30 minutes or so .

Some pictures of the barn with the new windows and doors installed, especially the new barn opening which looks amazing. I can say that as it was the masons who did all the hard work! I'm sure I noted this before but when they excavated the ground around the barn (to the left of this picture and also the other gable end), they discovered that side of the barn's wall were built directly on bed rock (at best) so we needed to reinforce the wall. The same masons built this beautiful wall.

When we put in the concrete floor for the rest of the PMR gîte, the door opening between the kitchen and living room had not been created so we're now preparing to bring that floor up to the same level as the kitchen. The living room has been our store room for all our building material so this took ages to clear out and find a new home. It also revealed a 15cm slope from back to front so this has posed a few challenges. Once again the DeWalt laser level has totally indispensable.  Instead of using a ton of extra concrete to level out the floor, we staggered expanded polystyrene floor insulation from 50mm up to 200mm at the window end. The new floor level will be the same as the floor in the kitchen and the window sill level. There was a door to the left of the window that went to space outside the next door gîte living room window. No idea why is was there but needed blocking up so this was also done over the weekend tied to the opening using 90° metal brackets, screwed into ...

While Dan and I were cleaning around the gîte windows so the installers could work, we came across a hibernating hedgehog curled in a ball, he's quite a big one. It's a little hard to see it as it's mixed up with moss, it's left and above the brown leaf in the centre. We relocated him in the same moss and protected it from the elements with an off-cut piece of board. Let's hope he makes it through the winter as he didn't seem to stir with our disturbance.

Since Dan and I finished the greenhouse in early September, we've not really used it so Luke took on the project to build staging, essentially a work bench for potting plants, etc. The frame was built with 50mm x 50mm wood attached to the greenhouse frame and also the legs into 20cm diameter concrete footings. The top level is the waist height workbench and the low level is for storing flower pots, compost, etc. On top of the main frame, Luke will be fixing close spaced batons so soil and water can drain through. We'll then paint it to protect the wood, probably a green colour to match the aluminium frame of the greenhouse.

After 10 weeks on order, the doors and windows for the PMR gîte and events barn are ready to be installed and the guys started today on the gîte.  Although wooden windows would have been beautiful and more in keeping with the history of the chateau, a lot of them have already been replaced with white PVC so it made sense to keep them consistent, plus wood is over 3 times the cost of PVC and needs maintenance.  Lounge window Small kitchen window Kitchen door which will have a ramp for wheelchair access Ground floor PMR bedroom, leading onto the terrace Small window next to staircase

The masons finished the enlargement of the gable end doorway of the events barn. The pictures don't give a good perspective of big it is now so I threw one with Luke in the shot. It will let in so much more light not to mention make it a space where we can work as the wind rattles through the barn with no windows or doors to speak of. The lower opening is 2m x 2m and the top opening is 2m x 1.2m. The door/window installers are onsite working on the gite so they will install these next week probably.

When the ground around the barn was excavated back in the summer, they discovered the walls had no actual foundations! It was not uncommon to build directly on bedrock, which we've loads of. The same masons working on the doorways are also working to correct this by retrofitting foundations. They started last week by creating a concrete base for the supporting wall to be built on. As the priority is to have the openings for the doors and windows ready for them to be fitted next week, they'll come back to this next week.

The doorway at the eastern end of the barn was a single door size with a secondary opening above it, same width. We're extending this to a 2m wide double doorway and a similar sized window above it to maximise the light into the barn. The masons started work today More photos to come in the next few days

The door for the entrance to the stairway leading to the former games room on the first floor was low before we raised the floor level so the masons are back to widen (for wheelchair access) and heightening the door opening in readiness for the new doors and windows arriving next week. and the finished doorway with beautiful oak surround and three oak lintels (the walls are thick!)...

Wow it's been a long time since I posted anything, not to say we've been idle. Far from it, just not much that's easy to see on the blog. I put up guttering on one side of the barn so the water collection tank could fill. There is a risk that water can get underneath it and essentially push it out of the ground if it is not weighed down. I will finish the other side when we get a few days of nice weather. Emily has been painting the shutters. This is a huge job as there are somewhere around 100 across all the buildings but they've not been done for years and they look great in lavender. Em will post pics herself soon. Most of the last few weeks we've been finishing running the water pipes (hot, cold and waste) and electrical circuits to the 2 floors. With 2-way switches (va-et-vient in French), this is especially challenging across floors but it's all done and continuity tested so we can now put up the drywall and concrete backer board with confidence! We've...

Now the first floor door is (nearly finished), they have switched to the ground floor opening. This is not for a door but a passage way between the living room (workshop now) to the kitchen. It is a little scary to see how big they make the "hole" but they're doing a great job and it should make a huge difference. The first floor door opening which just needs pointing with lime mortar. A further photo from today (Thursday) with the downstairs opening very close to being finished and looking great. This shot is taken from the kitchen looking into the living room, with the three huge oak lintels in position. There is about a 19cm height differential between the kitchen and the living room, so we'll raise that floor with insulation and concrete slab so there is a continuous flat floor across all rooms in the gîte for easy disabled access.

As planned, today the roof went up, the skylights were built (but not added yet), the doors were built and fitted and finally we put in three panes of glass. It was a really hot day and the greenhouse is well positioned to get as much as sun as possible so it was a tough day but it is looking great. Glazing tomorrow.

Today we built the 4 sides of the greenhouse and mounted them onto the frame,  which we finished over the weekend. There are so many pieces but they are all numbered correctly, nothing missing so far and pretty sturdy. For anyone interested, it is a LAMS Laurus 9900 which has a 9.84m2 base with an extension of 4.81m2 (total 14.65m2), measuring 5.7m long x 2.57m wide x 2.53m high (at the apex). We'll put the roof on tomorrow, then the two doors and skylights and then glaze it. It's a big greenhouse!