Really?

We've just come out of a meeting with 'L'Architecte des Batiments de France' in Tulle to discuss our new windows and doors. The Mairie is happy with them, we have to use wood replacements and they have to be in the same style but as were going to do this anyway it wasn't a problem.

But there was an issue which we just weren't expecting - the colour. On the existing house and barn all woodwork is white, and we were expecting to keep it. But oh no! Even though that is how it has always been it now has to be either cream or a grey-cream. Not only that but we even have a specific RAL number to use (RAL9001), all because we live within 500 metres of an historic building (actually three of them). And woe betide us if our window sills are more than three centimetres wide.

Easter feasting

She then mentioned the mortar that we were using, the Mairie had specified beige, yep another set colour. We said that was fine, but she said it did not appear in our 'dossier' or planning application. When I said that surely this was just maintenance not new work I got a slow, shaking of the head.  Apparently not, another dossier is needed. The good news is that she is quite happy with all that we are doing and that the signing off will be a formality, we can start getting quotes in.

Any wonder we headed straight to the patisserie for restorative cake!

Struggles in the kitchen

Cooking is something I've always done to relax, give me an afternoon of jam and chutney making and I'm a happy woman. Anything with the description 'slow cooking' makes it into the recipe folder, but at the moment I'm struggling with my kitchen. But this week I found a recipe that inspired me to spend some time at the hob. Channa Masala with spinach and spicy mango chutney. And it was good!

Since we moved here in November, and for the foreseeable future, my kitchen leaves a lot to be desired. Worktop space the size of an A4 piece of paper and no oven, just a one ring induction hob, a halogen grill and a slow cooker - it's tricky. With this recipe I could make the chutney and masala a head of time, cook the rice and let it stand while I quickly reheated the masala. This recipe is definitely a keeper.

Barn concept board

I was able to set a few hours aside this week to design the concept board for the barn. I wouldn't normally do one board for a whole house but I need to achieve a flow across the two floors. It doesn't mean that each room will be identical, different spaces will take specific elements from the concept.

The barn concept board

I started off with a list of 'feelings' for the barn:

• Welcoming
• Comfortable
• Natural
• Relaxing
• Hygge
• Restorative
• Energising
• Stylish
• Rich
• Calm
• Indulgent

Some of these were very similar so they went, and some jarred. Finally I selected relaxing, indulgent and restorative. These are how I hope visitors will feel when staying in the barn.

Next step was my image bank, initially about 45 images that eventually became 6. Again more than I would normally choose but it is the whole building.

I now have a basis for design, colours, textures and overall feel so am feeling much happier. I can start designing the spaces and sourcing.

My first vide grenier purchase

I had been looking forward to my first trip to a 'vide grenier' since moving to France. Literally translating as 'empty the attic' it's the equivalent of a British car boot sale or U.S. yard sale. They are very common in France, usually the season starts in spring and this one was in Gimel les Cascades, just a few minutes drive from us.

Mindful of the fact that we still have 20-30 boxes to still unpack we decided to stay strong and keep hands firmly in pockets. However this small, vintage wine rack caught our eye. We have a couple of large ones in the cellar but this one will be perfect for the gite. And at 12 euros, how could we resist? Our next foray will be to the Easter Sunday VG in Egletons - can't wait!

Barn/2 - I need a breather

I don't think I've ever worked on a project that has moved so quickly, the barn has all the joists up, flooring is upstairs and we have a meeting with the 'Architecture et Patrimonie' department in Tulle at the end of the month to discuss our window and door requirements. But I now need some thinking time to design and plan.

Andrew will want to start plumbing and electrical runs soon and we can't do that until the kitchen and bathrooms have been planned, right down to each socket. I'm happy with that but need to advance the design process a bit further, beginning with some concept boards. I'm just starting these and remembered that I had posted the process on our previous blog so am cheating and re-posting that! I promise I'll share the barn concept board once it's done - and apologies to regular readers who saw this back in 2012.

"So what is a concept or mood board?" It's a series of images that sums up the feel that you want to create in a room. These are ones that I did for our previous project in Norfolk a few years ago. For the kitchen we had "Sweden meets Tuscany" (I knew what I meant!)

Kitchen concept board

And the finished kitchen.

Kitchen

So you can see how the colours, textures and feel of the room carry through.

Using a concept board really helps you focus on what you want and keeps you on track when you're shopping for furnishings. How many times have you gone out for say, a yellow shirt, and fallen in love with a purple flowery one. You can't resist the colour and pattern. You just have to have it! But you never wear it because it goes with nothing and it's not really you. You can hide a shirt in the back of the wardrobe but that's more difficult with a pair of curtains, and considerably more expensive.

But the best thing about designing a concept board is that your room will be individual to you and really reflect your personality. It's easy with so many gorgeous magazines and internet images to fall in love with a room style, go out and buy the whole lot. After all if everything has been selected by a designer it must be good? Well yes but is it really you? Does it showcase your individuality? Probably not. This spring everyone I met seemed to be decorating. I was a little perplexed by the amount of people who had chosen stone coloured paint with a feature wall in mulberry. Then I saw the Dulux catalogue which featured a room set with this combination, it's very nice, but not unique to you.

So back to our bathroom. My initial thoughts were for a calm (again) tranquil, spa like zone. But then Andrew pointed out it would be a family bathroom and that harassed mothers will probably not want teenagers loitering there in the morning. The first starting point is to think of some words that really sum up how you want the room to feel. They can be something emotional 'cosy, snug, welcoming'  or you may have a theme in mind 'New England boardwalk',' French chateau' or 'English rose garden'. It's entirely your call.

Initial thoughts

I came up with:

• Refresh
• Indulge
• Invigorate
• Cleanse
• Wake up!
• Spritzy
• Zesty

It's best to have a maximum of three or it can get confusing. From my list I whittled it down to 'Wake up! Zesty & Indulge' which then got stuck in front of me to keep me focused while I sorted through images. During this process 'indulge' became 'fresh'.

Aide memoire

Because I make up quite a few concept boards I have a very fat file of images. They have been cut out of magazines over the years (travel, food and fashion ones are particularly good) and I have them categorised just to make it a bit quicker for me. Themes include urban, calm, cool, rich and one for each of the four seasons. You don't have to use physical images, there are some great online tools. Canva is free and really easy to use.  For beautiful images then Unsplash.com is really good too. I like to use magazine cut outs because I can browse and see what jumps out at me.

I took a few relevant sections out (this time I had cool, spring and vibrant)  and then just started looking to see what appealed to me. It's easier if they're not in magazines as you can get distracted by reading. You could also use photographs that you've taken. The only rule is that there are no images of furniture, fabrics or accessories (they're on the follow up sample board where you choose the paints, fabrics and furniture you want) you're looking for inspirational images. Keep referring back to your key words.

My big fat file

My initial images numbered 21.

First haul

Can you see Wake up! Zesty & Fresh?

I prefer to only have three or four images on the final board, any more and it becomes either confusing or you're repeating images. Sometimes you find the one perfect shot that sums up everything you imagine living in that room will be and that's absolutely fine.

Twenty one went to eight that went to four.

Getting there

Concept boards are not necessarily a quick process, up to the last shot I'd taken three hours but they are backbone of your design. I wasn't entirely happy with the last four. They hit the brief but it was all a bit green. This wouldn't normally be a problem but we already have two rooms in shades of green and I wanted to break from this. But sometimes that's how houses, or you, are. I'm fond of blue but in our last house it just wasn't happening.

At this point I left the images on my desk overnight to see what I felt about them in the morning.

New day

So the morning brought the above selection, which then became these.

So close

And I finally whittled it down to four.

The next stage is cutting and mounting. Don't feel you have to have whole images, you can slice and dice as you wish. How you mount is an important part of the board. If you were doing a board for a child's room you might want it to feel lively and slightly chaotic so your images could be different sizes and placed in a more random way.

Try and avoid cutting with scissors as you rarely get a crisp line. A sharp blade, metal ruler and cutting board are best.

Tools of the trade

The colour of the board is important as well. I had run out of white mountboard but as it was my personal project I knew I could get away with it. White was important though as this is the colour of the bathroom suite and will have a large presence in the room. So I cut white paper to mount my images on first. The easiest way of fixing the images is to use photographic spraymount as you then have a short window to reposition. Finally write your key words on, as a reminder.

So finally, after a couple of days I was happy with the results.

Final board

And the observant out there will notice that the lemon tart didn't make it to the finals.

The bathroom was finished a few months after this was done but if you want to fast forward and have a peek it's here. You can see how the elements played out, the pale lavender walls, citrus green accessories and the terrazzo tiles.

So there we have it, a quick tutorial on a concept or mood board. So set aside an afternoon, a coffee or a glass of wine and get creative!

If you would like to see what we're up to in France as we renovate our barn and house then feel free to follow us here on Instagram or follow/friend us on Facebook


So back to work and my trusty file of images.








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The barn

The barn project has taken up a lot of time and energy over the last few weeks and yet I've hardly mentioned it. Our original plan for France was to buy a house for us to live in and then a small house in the same location to turn into a holiday rental. When we came out to see the Old Notaire's House we knew it had a barn but Carole Cusworth, our estate agent, had kept quiet as to exactly it's potential. It is attached to the main house and the previous owner had already started some work on it. We were sold.

Even before we moved here we had started designing floor plans. Andrew and I rarely argue but when we do it's nearly always over design. Andrew has been a graphic designer for over thirty years, has a keen eye for design and a real attention to detail, plus he is very practical. Me on the other hand have been more flighty! I have spent time in the travel industry, banking, ran an antiques business, trained and worked as a kitchen & bathroom designer as well as a degree course in interior design. So while Andrew is working out the thermal values of insulation I'm saying 'oh! I see this with a Scandi loft style and a touch of Bauhaus' and heading for my colour swatches. You can see why there is sometimes friction. In my defence I am reasonably practical and not afraid to get my hands dirty. Anyway although we came up with various layouts we weren't entirely happy.

There were two internal walls and floor joists in the barn but they had to come down. The walls wobbled and the timber, although oak, had warped and had some evidence of woodworm. The good news was there was about 80 square metres of chestnut parquet flooring which had never been put down. Once everything had been stripped out we could see what a beautiful structure we had and it was then we had our Eureka moment and decided to turn the space upside down. Bedrooms on the ground floor and a huge open plan space upstairs. The bedrooms are on street level, and although quiet at night, we will have to make sure they have decent sound insulation. We had to get the downstairs planned and that was one of our friction moments. I was for two ensuite bedrooms so that one or two couples could have a really generous space. Andrew wanted to make it a three bed gite to maximise rental potential. Fortunately for me whichever way we planned, and we spent hours playing with the spaces, it never quite worked with three bedrooms. We could have done it with just a family bathroom but this wasn't the way we wanted to go.

The barn

We have been holidaying in France for over three decades, usually just us, sometimes with friends, and always struggled to find nice accommodation for just two or four adults. There are some stunning rentals in the peaceful countryside with uninterrupted views but far fewer in pretty towns or villages and even less if you want some quality.  How many gites have we stayed in where it has obviously been furnished with the strangest assortment of mismatched items just to fill cupboards. Does a two bedroom cottage really need a dozen eggcups? For us one of the joys of holidaying in France was to feel French for a week, to walk to the boulangerie or restaurant and not have to worry about driving. This is why for us the combination of the Old Notaire's House and the village of Correze is ideal, we can live this life and offer people the same experience.

So far the floor joists and internal walls have been removed and the new walls nearly finished. We have ordered a staircase and I'm about to battle with the dossier I have to prepare for the mairie as we want to replace the windows and front door. You can do almost anything you like internally but any alterations to the exterior of your house needs approval. This has been made more complicated for us as we are inside the Millevaches Natural Park and within 500 metres of an historic building.

We have no timescale for completing the works but we are hoping to get it finished by winter in which case we may move in there while we work on the Notaire's House. It's much easier to renovate if you're not living in a house plus I'd have a kitchen :-)

A week in photographs

I sometimes worry that we send too many photographs to friends and family back in the U.K. We've only been in France for a few months, everything is new and we seem to have landed in an area that has some stunning scenery. Maybe the camera will come out less and less as time goes by - who knows but for the moment I'm still snapping.

The beginning of the week in Correze was bitter, we didn't get much snow but with night time temperatures of minus 10, and a wind chill of a few degrees colder, the car was a warm option so we did some exploring. We popped across the border to the Auvergne and down to the south of Correze to Collonges les Rouges. And we took a lot of photographs!