Stop press! First pictures

We’ve had a cold day here today so I’m glad that I’d planned to stay in and work all day on my house plans with the wood burner roaring away pumping out heat. And as a result, I was able to get ‘phase 1’ of my plans finished and have produced pictures of the results.

By ‘phase 1’ I mean just the downstairs extension, excluding the work I have in mind for up in my ‘grenier’ and doing the plans for that will be my next step. In reality, I could live with just the downstairs extension, which provides an extra bedroom/office on the ground floor, a utility room and a fair sized dining room, but I still intend to go ahead with the upstairs work as well.

First off, a couple of shots to show how my ‘model’ of my house stands up against the real thing.

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The first photograph was taken right back in January 2012 and the lighting reflects that. Just the once therefore, I’ve modified the colours in the second shot to make them a bit more similar and although it’s somewhat ‘idealised’, showing none of the imperfections that are present in the real thing, I think that my model has turned out to be a fairly good representation of my house as it currently is.

The next shot shows my house as currently-is viewed from the kitchen end (north-east) with the big old lime tree that stands outside my kitchen door and overhangs the roof still in place.

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The lime tree will have to be removed and the ground re-contoured in order to allow the extension to be built and the next pic is of the proposed extension taken from approximately the same view-point.

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Next a view of the front of the house from approximately the same direction but standing further back to see how it will fit into my garden.

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Now a view of the back of the house. I hope to install new hardwood framed double-glazed windows and doors throughout. The following shot of the rear shows the new sliding doors that I hope to install leading out ultimately onto an area of decking.

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Now a shot of the front again, but taken this time from the other side of the garden. From left to right, the extension will contain a bedroom/office, an entrance hall, a dining room and at the far end, a utility room. The windows shown on the dining room are not strictly correct as although they depict sliding windows, I’d like to have four leaves, two of which will slide, so half of the window can be completely opened up to the garden during warm periods.

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Now a few general shots of the extended property taken from various angles and different elevations.

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And to finish off, a couple of shots taken from each end of the extension giving an impression of how it will appear from closer-up at ground level.

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Next time, I’ll show some pictures taken while ‘walking through’ the interior of the extended property.

Wheels are already beginning to grind slowly into motion as the men will be coming in at the end of the month to take down the lime tree and a few others that I want removed and will be back in early March to do the ‘terrassement’ of the land in front of the house ready for digging out the foundations for the extension. But there’s lots still to do before work can begin, the main task being completion of my plans and drawings for submission for planning consent. So that’s what I must now go on to do, post-haste!

Ticking over

Another bright, dry day yesterday so with more rain forecast, I took the opportunity to clear away the pine that I’ve had stacked and drying out for the last year or so. I started by sorting out the lengths that would fit into my wood saw and then cut, split and stacked them inside at the back of my wood store where they can stay until next winter when they should be ready to use. I was quite surprised by how much lighter they’d already become compared to when they were originally stacked, obviously a sign of their drying out.

That only accounted for half of the wood, though. The rest comprised large chunks of trunk of too large a diameter to fit into my wood saw, so I had various choices. I tried attacking it with my old chain saw, but that’s pretty useless now and ‘wouldn’t cut butter’ as my Dad used to say. I thought about going off to buy a new one to do the job, but changed my mind as the expenditure can’t be justified just now as I don’t need the wood at this moment, which I got for free anyway.

Another possibility will be to sell the wood saw that I currently have and buy another with a larger diameter blade. That will be my preferred option, I think, as I doubt that I’ll have much, if any, use for 3/400€ worth of new Stihl chainsaw once my unwanted trees have been cut down, of which more in a moment, but I’ll always have a need to cut burning wood all the while that I have a poele a bois.

In the end I just ended up moving the large diameter logs to a spot next to my new tool store and re-covered it with the heavy plastic sheet that’s been over it for the last few months. Then I called it a day and went off for an ‘apero’ with Wim and Sophie, always one of the highlights of my week 😉

I’ve now heard from the firm who are going to take down my big old ’tilleuil’ that stands in front of my house and the other scrappy smaller trees that are around the side in front of my wood store. They have said that they’ll be along at the end of the month to do the initial felling and clearing, returning in March to clear up and do the ‘terrassement’ for my proposed extension. Having finalised my design, I’m still working on my plans which I should have completed ‘in draft’ later today, so things are moving slowly but still ticking over. I can’t wait for them to start speeding up, though.

There are still absolutely no prospects of my picking up the Savannah for several more weeks. This spate of weather, rain day after day after day, is almost unprecedented, even for this time of year, and usually you get a short series of a few calm, clear days before it reverts back to rainy conditions. But this year it just isn’t happening.

As usual, it seems to be the Jetstream that’s responsible and the charts that I’ve been monitoring show it as being way, way further south over France, Spain and even North Africa than it ever usually is.

It’s the northern end of my route, where I’ll be starting from, that’s the main problem. The current forecast is for Coulommiers, which is adjacent to la Ferté Gaucher, to get rain and occasional high winds EVERY DAY from now until the beginning of March, which is very depressing for me and probably even more so for the people living there 🙁