Butter with a hint of honey

30 April 2014

The meeting with Chas went well. We are reasonably confident that the plumbing will all go according to plan, though once he has been in and fitted things, there will be a fair amount of plaster repair work to do, which Tom is grumbling about. Ah well.

We had a very productive afternoon in the ZI (industrial area), home of the megastores, ticking off various things on our must-do list: towel rail/radiator, bolt for the barn doors, tarpaulin and strapping for the dépendance... Also, convinced by everyone that we'd bought an inferior shutter paint, we chose a different (more expensive) brand (like ours, with a ten year guarantee), only this time in lavender blue, since our dove grey was not an option.

After an early start on Tuesday, we began on the shutter painting exercise by taking three down and setting them up on trestles in the barn. Thankfully the light inside is good; outside it was raining buckets. While G sanded and then applied a first coat of vitrificateur (varnish) to the stairs, I began with the shutters. After only one or two brush strokes, it became apparent that this paint was every bit as thin as the last. And it was too intense a colour. So, I wiped it off and started on the 4th coat of the original paint. MUCH better.

Lunch break

Phil arrived and began to hang the lovely oak door he has made for the shower room. There was a lovely companionable atmosphere in the barn, with the three of us working away on our own projects, and conducting a desultory conversation. G even dug out the camp stove and some mugs and we enjoyed a cup of tea. Then, while the shutters were drying, I put the first vitrificateur coat on the door.

Brian stopped by in the late afternoon and G and he went over all the electrical details while I continued to paint...and paint... and then together, G and I tidied and cleared the barn in readiness for Tom and Gregg, who were coming early to paint the floor. The last thing we did was open one of the tins so that we could see the colour.

Butter, with a hint of honey. Maybe more butter, less honey.

Another early start this morning: on the road to the barn, skeins of mist rising from the forests. Gregg had opened up and we hung the shutters together before Tom arrived. A cup of tea and a chat before the day's work began; theirs is not a high-stress lifestyle :)

Before they began painting, Tom went upstairs and handed the upstairs shutters down to Gregg, so that I could paint them.

G climbed the rogue walnut tree that had been growing sideways out from under the dépendance and, after clipping off the smaller branches near the telephone wires, set about using Gregg's chainsaw to cut down the tree in earnest. It's something we've been planning to deal with for ages.



I set my shutter painting workshop up in Jean-Marie's cabine next door. Surrounded by the woodpile and generations of tools, I spent the morning painting happily in the gloom, listening to the sounds of the hamlet: birds, children playing, church bells... Every now and then there'd be a little commotion as a tiny bird swooped into the cabine, returning with a morsel for her chicks, whose straining beaks I could just see if I stood on tiptoe.

Before you all say it, yes, I have messed up my jumper (an old one chosen for the sacrifice).

By noon, the first coat of paint was down on the floor, the walnut tree was history, and I had painted one side of 5 shutters. Very satisfying. After lunch, G went off to get things on the list, leaving me to continue with the shutters, while Gregg and Tom began on coat #2 of the floor.

Sanding the floor

First coat

Finished!

Spot the acorn detail

At the end of the day, the floor was done and Tom had gone off home in his little white van. Gregg stayed back to fit our lovely new bolt to the barn doors and then wandered off home. G and I were weary but still full of beans, so we spent a while clearing up and laying weed mat around the new plants and only reached home as the 8pm bells were chiming.

Newsflash: every single new plant has new, bright green leaves.

Tomorrow is la fête du premier mai - a public holiday - so we are looking forward to a quiet day, working at the barn. I have three more shutters to paint; G wants to put another coat on the stairs and shower room door...

Paint, upstairs flooring and bath

10 April 2014

The Farrow & Ball paint arrived at Tom's on Tuesday without a hiccup. Phew.

Charles has been in touch several times in the last couple of days, describing his limited success in finding the sanitaryware we chose last summer - some of it is out of stock or discontinued - and so we will have to hit the mega stores in Brive on Good Friday (not a holiday in France) or Easter Saturday, to find replacements.  Ah well.

We gather that this week, the placement of the bath and basin water supply/drainage upstairs becomes critical, since the flooring is going down as I type. There have been some last-minute adjustments to the guesstimates that we were working from, since now at least Charles and Tom have the advantage of being able to stand in the room and see the space available. G and I had spent a comical evening many weeks ago now, trying to mock-up the relationship between the bath (of unknown height) and the sloping ceiling such that getting in and out of the bath would be possible without cowering. Picture us  - one holding the tape measure at an angle in mid-air;  the other climbing fully clothed in and out and in and out and in and out of the bath, trying to demonstrate a spectrum of bath user-friendliness. A bit like having to work out two unknown angles of a triangle knowing only that you must. And that you really hate geometry.

But I digress.

Stairs and plumbing update and paint logistics

3 April 2014

The blacksmith had all the metalwork ready for collection on Monday, so the stairs are going in this week. I'm looking forward to seeing them in situ, after all the designing and cogitating over months and months...

Chas says that he has begun receiving the sanitaryware, and is expecting the rest soon. He has yet to order the stove.

Paint for the downstairs concrete floor has been top-of-mind this week. G ad I have chosen a colour - Farrow's Cream # 67 - which gets good reviews on the Farrow & Ball website, and is not unlike the colour of our laundry floor here in Sydney. A warm, buttery colour with a dash of honey, which should be good even on the dreariest of days, and lovely at night under artificial light.

Having chosen the colour, we thought hey hey, just hit the online shopping tab and it'll be a breeze. Well, it was easy enough, but unfortunately the French prices were almost double the UK prices, with delivery to France on top of that. G was galvanised into action and found a very handy company (http://www.sterlingshopping.co.uk) that has a depot in the UK and delivers stuff to depots all round France. They would be able to deliver to Thiviers for GBP15 - not bad at all. But, in the end, my dishonesty won the day and I simply rang the company and gave them my UK address - G's aunt's address ;) - and voila! Farrow's Cream at UK prices.

The paint will now be delivered to Tom's home next week, and now all we have to do is hold thumbs that someone will be home to receive it.