Little cutie

15 October 2014

During the summer, we were in discussion with Tom about the saving of the dépendance, or outbuilding, which sits close to the main barn and is starting to fail. Our tarpaulin has kept the worst excesses of the weather from getting in through the roof, but the external oak beams are rotten and the walls are in very bad shape, after years of assault by an invasive creeper and the weather.

Gingerbread house

The barn's little sister...

...gets a tarpaulin cover for protection

All wrapped up, safe and sound - for now

Tom says that if he has ever seen a sudden collapse of a stone building, it has been one with this kind of structure; one with external wooden posts at the corners, which, when rotten, give way and bring the whole structure down. Hmm, and we have a LOT of gardening stuff stored in there and G and I go in and out of the little building all the time. Hard hat time? No, I thought not - that would be very un-French.

After a lot of head scratching and to-ing and fro-ing of ideas and costings etc, it was decided that the project could be done in three phases. In Tom's words:

1. Take down all unstable masonry and remove from site the existing roof structure, and the rotten timber frame that makes up two of the four wall corners.

Cast steel reinforced concrete to rebuild the two unstable corners, and cast new wall plate on tops of walls, this will tie the whole building together. The next stage is to prepare the old stonework and point up the stone work. This serves the purpose of stabilizing the untouched stonework, and aesthetically it would hide the new concrete.

-Stage one would also involve digging along the side of the wall where the ground is high, putting in drainage pipe and putting a delta membrane against wall before backfilling.

2. Stage two consists of building a new roof on the newly consolidated walls. Slates and roofing style would be to match the barn. Roof structure would be designed to have as much useable space as possible inside.  Open gable facing the barn - a feature Oak A-frame to make up this gable - which can be glazed at a later date.   The best design for an A-frame with regards to the pitch of the roof, the span, and the intention to glaze it at a future date, is a king post truss.

An example of a king post truss

With this design roof there would be maximum head height inside, we would not need to put in collar beams or purlins on such a small roof, so there would be no restrictive timbers inside, just the rafters and the ridge beam.

3.Final stage is turning the inside into a useable space, concreting the floor, perhaps putting in a partial upper floor? Doors and windows etc. 

G and I envisage a small studio/bedroom, with a bed platform and space beneath for a sofa and/or desk. No room for a toilet or shower, but then, this isn't the Ritz, people.