Hello to all our family and friends.
As all of you know Danielle and I bought what will be our dream home in one of the most beautiful regions in France. Epagnat is a small hamlet in department 23, the Creuse in the Limousin. We are roughly 15 km from the nearest town of Aubusson, famous for its tapestries. Here is a picture from downtown:
We bought the house in the September of 2009. The house is actually not very old given many of the surrounding properties. It was built in the 1940's and was originally a 2 story building. When the house needed to be extended as is typical of the region they add a 3rd story rather than extending out the ground floor. As a result we have an unusual layout. The house has not had much use since we are told it has been around 13 years since the owners lived in the property with a few rental tenants in between time so lets just say it needed complete renovation and leave it at that!
Danielle and I have spent around a year designing the work to be carried out, everything from new electrical layout to colours for the walls. After we had the basic idea down, we went through all kinds of issues trying to find the right tradesmen for the job.
I am an engineer as you know, with 32 years experience, a BSc in Avionics, multiple engineering and pilots licenses and a strong background in troubleshooting and solutions which normally have to be right first time and extremely accurate such is the world of aviation. I went into this project feeling very confident (and overly so it turns out) that my organizational skills, engineering background and attention to the smallest detail that this was going to be a smooth renovation. There is a reason professionals are called professionals! I have learned that all my experience counted for 'Jack @#$%!!!!!! The shear volume of everything that's involved in a renovation of this size, from 3000 miles away in a language you don't understand coupled with what I choose to call local factors has been a unique experience which is as polite as I can write on here and is something I will never tackle again. Leave it to the Professionals!!!!!
We tasked the PM with finding the artisans for the works to be carried out. My remit to him was price was not the deciding factor and that since we were inserting ourselves into a small local commune we felt it was only right to use the best local artisans possible. The artisans we went with were all hand picked by the PM through personal knowledge and experience of them. This whilst in retrospect has been the best decision we made gave us our first 'hiccup'. These artisans are mostly one man shows or at least very small local firms and as such are in extremely high demand so it took as you can imagine a considerable amount of time to show them all the plans and get their estimates or devis as they call them. Once we approved them and gave them the go ahead to start work we found out that it was going to be in some cases 9 months before they could start. Well for one reason or another mostly due to lead times for materials, trying to coordinate a schedule where each artisan was available and last but not least Danielle and I changing plans on several occasions has resulted in work starting Q4 of last year.
I am sure you can appreciate that the level of frustration of having this fantastic property and not being able to live in it has had its challenges and in November last year Danielle moved to France to be on site to help choose the appliances, colours, tiles......the list was long. The good news we are well on the way to completion by the end of February. I would like to point out at this time that the standard of work carried out by the local artisans has been second to none!
Over the next few days I will start to post pictures of the house from how it looked at the beginning, the CAD concept drawings I made, the artisans at work and finally the finished home.
This has been a roller-coaster of an adventure and something I am glad to have done once (and I mean just once!!!) in my life. Just as is the tale of how Danielle and I met, finding the house, new friendships forged and a home we are truly proud of, the best things in life happen when you least expect them.
As all of you know Danielle and I bought what will be our dream home in one of the most beautiful regions in France. Epagnat is a small hamlet in department 23, the Creuse in the Limousin. We are roughly 15 km from the nearest town of Aubusson, famous for its tapestries. Here is a picture from downtown:
We bought the house in the September of 2009. The house is actually not very old given many of the surrounding properties. It was built in the 1940's and was originally a 2 story building. When the house needed to be extended as is typical of the region they add a 3rd story rather than extending out the ground floor. As a result we have an unusual layout. The house has not had much use since we are told it has been around 13 years since the owners lived in the property with a few rental tenants in between time so lets just say it needed complete renovation and leave it at that!
Danielle and I have spent around a year designing the work to be carried out, everything from new electrical layout to colours for the walls. After we had the basic idea down, we went through all kinds of issues trying to find the right tradesmen for the job.
I am an engineer as you know, with 32 years experience, a BSc in Avionics, multiple engineering and pilots licenses and a strong background in troubleshooting and solutions which normally have to be right first time and extremely accurate such is the world of aviation. I went into this project feeling very confident (and overly so it turns out) that my organizational skills, engineering background and attention to the smallest detail that this was going to be a smooth renovation. There is a reason professionals are called professionals! I have learned that all my experience counted for 'Jack @#$%!!!!!! The shear volume of everything that's involved in a renovation of this size, from 3000 miles away in a language you don't understand coupled with what I choose to call local factors has been a unique experience which is as polite as I can write on here and is something I will never tackle again. Leave it to the Professionals!!!!!
We tasked the PM with finding the artisans for the works to be carried out. My remit to him was price was not the deciding factor and that since we were inserting ourselves into a small local commune we felt it was only right to use the best local artisans possible. The artisans we went with were all hand picked by the PM through personal knowledge and experience of them. This whilst in retrospect has been the best decision we made gave us our first 'hiccup'. These artisans are mostly one man shows or at least very small local firms and as such are in extremely high demand so it took as you can imagine a considerable amount of time to show them all the plans and get their estimates or devis as they call them. Once we approved them and gave them the go ahead to start work we found out that it was going to be in some cases 9 months before they could start. Well for one reason or another mostly due to lead times for materials, trying to coordinate a schedule where each artisan was available and last but not least Danielle and I changing plans on several occasions has resulted in work starting Q4 of last year.
I am sure you can appreciate that the level of frustration of having this fantastic property and not being able to live in it has had its challenges and in November last year Danielle moved to France to be on site to help choose the appliances, colours, tiles......the list was long. The good news we are well on the way to completion by the end of February. I would like to point out at this time that the standard of work carried out by the local artisans has been second to none!
Over the next few days I will start to post pictures of the house from how it looked at the beginning, the CAD concept drawings I made, the artisans at work and finally the finished home.
This has been a roller-coaster of an adventure and something I am glad to have done once (and I mean just once!!!) in my life. Just as is the tale of how Danielle and I met, finding the house, new friendships forged and a home we are truly proud of, the best things in life happen when you least expect them.
Way to go Sweetheart, setting up our blog page. Love the detail you are putting into it and look forward to more posts soon hopefully!
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