Sweet was the walk along the narrow lane...

 is the opening line of William Wordworth's poem about walking and it's so relevant to our region of Corrèze. When we bought the house we had no idea that there we had glorious walks (and cycle paths) from the village. We have wide skies and tree covered lanes and you're never far from the sound of water.

In winter when the water level is high there is an energy to the river that's invigorating. Summer brings quiet pools, perfect for paddling and cooling down a hot Mortimer.

Footpaths in France are well marked and easy to follow, most are colour coded with cycle paths tending to be numbered. We also have the Saint Jacques de Compostelle pilgrimage route (Santiago de Compostela) running through the village, in fact we walk some of it each day.

Feeling more adventurous? You don't have to spend long in the car to discover some fabulous walks. Our favourites include Château de Sédières where you have a choice of lakes to walk round (or fish if you want to stay awhile) and some rather challenging off road biking. The abbey town of Aubazine is another favourite spot where you can walk along ancient canals. The abbey is also where 12 year old girl learnt to sew, you may know her name - Coco Chanel.

For big skies you may want to go further into the Millevaches National Park with it's rolling hills and secret forests.

Well I could rattle on but I think the photographs tell the tale better than I! If you want to know more about our life in Corrèze then you can follow us here on Facebook or on Instagram

Corrèze in confinement

Just two weeks after writing my last post France went into confinement for the second time, scheduled to last for the month of November. Only essential shops and services were open and once again we were limited to one hour a day exercise and no more than a kilometre from home. It's fair to say we found it harder than the first one. In March there was an optimism, summer round the corner and the fact that many of these types of virus tend to peter out during warm weather. Covid-19 is more tenacious than most and it didn't disappear.

The view from the barn is ever changing

We have been blessed with some beautiful weather though. Crisp days with bountiful sunshine and hardly any rain. We were also allowed to travel in a car together and unlike first time round the DIY shops were deemed as essential so we could get supplies. The focus on the restoration has been on plumbing (Andrew) and window renovation (me). We both despair of the T.V programmes where everything seems to get done in a couple of months, in reality it's not like that. True we don't put in 12 hour shifts, 7 days a week but most days we are doing something renovation related. I think it's just that the scale of this project is really quite large. When we bought the Old Notaires House it was really a first floor 3 bedroom apartment with one bathroom, minuscule kitchen with an entrance hall, summer kitchen (room with carpet up the walls & a sink!) and offices on the ground floor. We've knocked the four offices into two large spaces which will become the kitchen and our suite (a.k.a. the servants quarters), the garage will also house a utility area and loo with the summer kitchen becoming a guest dining room. Upstairs two bedrooms have been combined to make one large bedroom with bathroom and a second bedroom has been fashioned from the old kitchen, a corridor and a loo. The third bedroom has had its entrance changed and the old bathroom (which was bigger than the kitchen) has become two en-suites. And we've managed to squeeze an office in too. So when I say Andrew is re-doing the plumbing it's not a case of simply replacing the pipes and a new shower.

The only loo is rather exposed at the moment

One of the joys of renovating an old house is being able to re-use original items. I'm working in the entrance hall at the moment which is the oldest part of the house, originally two rooms downstairs and we think one upstairs. It has two windows but we think one opening is newer than the other as they both have different fittings. I spent a happy few hours getting the layers of old paint and varnish off, then polishing with my trusty Dremel before a light wax. We really love the slightly industrial feel the polished steel has.

Refurbishing

Once again we explored footpaths around our village to give us more variety of walks but it was a relief when President Macron said that we could exercise for three hours a day and up to 20 kilometres from home. We bundled Mortimer into the car and headed for one of our favourite destinations - Château de Sédières.  It's such a beautiful place to walk and it was a perfect autumn day.

Château de Sédières

We've been taking quite a lot of time with planning too. Although I had done concept boards for the bedrooms, I hadn't for the kitchen neither had I actually selected specific paint colours for rooms. I needed to get this sorted as radiators off walls gives me an ideal opportunity to paint behind them. A lot of negatives things are said about French paint but I do like Leroy Merlin's own brand Luxens and I've also just discovered that Liberon do a wall paint which is very similar to Farrow & Ball. Colours here can be quite, how can I say, primary and I want some subtlety so I ordered a RAL colour swatch so I can get some paint mixed. RAL is a European colour match system and at most paint mixing outlets you can specify one of the unique number and know that the colour is true. This system is so common in France that you will see a lot of pre-mixed paint tins with a RAL number alongside the colour names.

Kitchen concept board

My RAL swatches

Despite social media being full of images of people's Christmas decorations I have resisted being early. I just can't do it in November but will probably be a little earlier than my usual mid-December. I've also had to wait for the non-essential shops to open (particularly Emmaüs) as my Christmas decorations are buried somewhere under packing cases and it's too much effort to hunt them down. Inspired by an on-line video workshop I did on the subject of 'A winter table' I may take the opportunity of going for a more natural look this year. Watch this space!

Christmas is now just three weeks off and we will give ourselves a break from physical work for a week, that's not to say we won't be doing something. I need to re-cap on furniture requirements and we really need to nail the kitchen plans down and maybe even order it. I'm really hoping that we can see friends properly instead of doorstep conversations and chance dog-walking meets, after all we have a very large Christmas cake to share. Oh and I'm doing another online workshop this weekend baking two sorts of Italian biscuits. It's one where we bake as the we go but I'm definitely going to turn the camera off, no-one deserves to see the mess I'll be making!

I'm really hoping to show you some lovely progress shots soon but meanwhile if you would like to see what life in France is really like then feel free to follow/friend us here on FaceBook or on Instagram

Hot chocolatey mornings

"It's the first day of autumn! A time of hot chocolatey mornings, and toasty marshmallow evenings, and, best of all, leaping into leaves!"*

Okay so there aren't many dropped leaves yet, they're not even really turning red. You can see a change in the colour on some trees but I think we're still a couple of weeks off. Finally after a very dry summer we have had a reasonable amount of rain, enough for mushrooms and fungi to spring up everywhere. The weather has been cooler, much to the relief of Mortimer who can once again enjoy longer walks.

Our evenings are getting chillier now so we've had the pellet stove going. Across the two houses we have three, no four, types of heating. The main house has oil fired central heating and a log burner whilst the barn has the pellet stove and some electric underfloor heating in the two en-suites. Much as I love the romance of the log burner I really appreciate the cleanliness, efficiency and speed of the pellet stove. I come upstairs in the morning, press a button and it starts instantly. By the time I've showered and am back upstairs for breakfast everything is toasty. Our local Gamm Vert had an offer on the pellets at the end of the summer which we arranged for delivery last week. Because the store is in the village the guy trundled them down to us on his little forklift and helped us unload them into the sous-sol. Such great service!

We came back from holiday with renewed energy for the renovations. I finally finished the pointing in the entrance hall and Andrew completed the re-wiring. Last Monday was crunch time as our electrician came to install the main board. It took him most of the day to connect it all but he did it and there were no errors. Andrew was particularly pleased when the earth rod registered 84  (apparently this is very good) The re-wiring has been such a huge job, so many decisions had to be made as to the position of sockets, switches and lights. Some of the rooms didn't even have all the walls so Andrew had to build these too. I can't begin to tell you the admiration I have for him. By the time we reached Monday evening we both felt de-mob happy.

We decided that we would spend the rest of the week doing some long overdue planning, well apart from a celebratory lunch. The electrical work has been such a huge part of the renovation project that we hadn't really set a structure as to the next stage  I'd already started the window renovations but that is slightly weather dependent. The next big job is plumbing but fortunately this can be broken down into more manageable mini-projects. We started by reassessing two of the en-suites and have made a couple of tweaks that will improve them. I've spent time researching bathroom fittings and orders have been placed for showers and basins, and my oh my do we have some fancy basins! 

Currently the house hot water is supplied by the oil heating system but that only had to do one bathroom and two sinks (kitchen & laundry). Once we've finished we will have a kitchen & separate utility, four showers, one bath and five basins. Not only would the boiler not produce enough for all of this but oil is a very expensive option in France so we are fitting two electric heaters known as 'ballons'. The en-suite with the bath is at the far end of the house so Andrew has decided it can have it's own. Siting of this has been a bit of an issue but, because we've had time to think properly, Andrew has come up with a cunning plan which actually improves three rooms.

This week we've got back to physical work again with Andrew tackling the two ensuites over the garage. We'd decided to give them both underfloor heating but the floor level (I use the term level very loosely!) was causing quite a headache. It's oak floorboards straight onto the joists, beautiful but so irregular and impossible to tile over. The decision was made to take these up, they will be re-purposed, and then lay a new base to take the heating mat and tiles. Another advantage to this is we can stuff insulation under the floors. Sounds like a simple plan but as with all old houses it's not proving to be quite so straightforward, at one point I was levering a wall up so that Andrew could add extra joist supports.

Yes that is the garage below

I'm back on window duty which gives me more time to think about the room designs as it's a fairly mind freeing job. I'm still on the hunt for vintage lighting as my needs seem to grow. I worked out we have a total of 17 rooms that need lights. Now a couple of them are just loos (although one of these will sport a chandelier) while others are more complicated, I think the sitting room has three separate lighting circuits plus there will be floor lamps. I'm doing quite well at the moment though with another chandelier and a pair of fancy wall lights added to my stash.

Of course autumn life hasn't been ignored. Our menu has changed, my new (old) oven dish has proved perfect for roasting vegetables. Soups have replaced salads and Andrew has already had one duck confit making session (it's the season for inexpensive duck in France). I have some figs that need to be made into jam and am even beginning to think about the Christmas cake.

So that's it, I think we're all up to date now. As always you can follow/friend us on Facebook or if you just want the pretty photographs then we're here on Instagram.

*Winnie the Pooh - Pooh's Grand Adventure

August notes

August ended with a feeling of comfort for me. I dislike the phrase 'a comfortable life', it has a touch of middle-class smugness. 'The children have marvellous careers, there's a decent car in the garage, pensions are doing really quite nicely thank you and a cheeky little Merlot is ready for Sunday lunch'. It's hard to explain but I realised how much contentment life in Corrèze gives me and how comfortable it fits with me. I didn't realise quite how much until we returned from holiday last weekend.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. August was always going to be a busy month. Work on the house progressed well, Andrew thinks he is still on schedule for his electrics deadline at the beginning of October. It's not just a question of pulling cables (so far 2.5 kilometres), sockets are needed in walls that don't exist and so they have to be built. If it's lighting, he needs to know exactly what type of lights, for example the chandeliers need special fixings. I know I am boringly repetitive but I genuinely don't know how he holds all the information in his head.

I was a little frustrated as I wanted to get the pointing finished in the entrance hall before friends came to stay but I didn't quite make it. I have returned from holiday with new enthusiasm and I've nearly done, maybe another 6 or 7 days to complete the walls and under the stairs. I really enjoy doing it but it would be nice to move on to something new, I think I'll be back to painting duty, windows and radiators maybe? As you can see the original windows are in a bit of a state (toy horses Andrew found under the floorboards so I thought I'd get a bit arty!)

The windows really do need more than a lick of paint!

August is the month that my oldest friend and myself have birthdays and we try to get together to share celebrations. This year was a significant one for both of us and, despite Covid and the threat of quarantine (which did happen), she and her husband drove over from England for a visit. Although they were not here nearly long enough we managed to do some sightseeing, a trip to Emmaüs and some great meals. I was really grateful that they made it and hope it will be for longer next time.

My original birthday plan was to celebrate at home with friends and then a family holiday at the beginning of September to Italy. Understandably family were concerned about flying and so the trip was cancelled. We were always going to drive so for us it wasn't an issue. We found alternative accommodation and decided to spend my birthday in Lake Como instead of Corrèze. We broke the outward journey with an overnight stay in Chambéry (I certainly want to go back) and so had time to take the mountain pass instead of the tunnel. The views were spectacular and I would certainly recommend it.

Lac du Mont-Cenis

We've visited Bellagio previously so didn't feel the need to rush about doing a load of sightseeing, it wasn't what this holiday was about.  We went to markets, spent a lot of time reading and just chilling. I don't think we realised quite how much we needed a break from work but we did know that we needed to try and switch off for a week. We didn't even have to get up early to dog walk as Mortimer stayed in Corrèze being looked after by kind friends, so nice not to have to worry about him.

Morning view

We did the return journey in a day, it's about a 8.5 hour drive for us, and went straight to friends to collect Mortimer. I'm not sure he'd even noticed that we'd gone! He'd been taken to the lake for walks and swimming sessions, had been groomed everyday and looked a very happy dog. We took an extra day off, the journey had been quite tiring, and then of course the usual unpacking, sorting and washing to do. It was on the Monday evening as I walked Mortimer through town that I realised how comfortable I feel living here, Corrèze suits me. The ancient walls cocoon you, I could hear families chatting as they prepared the evening meal and there was the odd snatch of music. Children were playing outside and I got a "bonsoir Madame" as I walked past.  It's a beautiful place but not Disney polished, people are friendly (we can tell who are the  holiday makers as they rarely say 'bonjour'). It's not what I do, or what I look like, it's how I am and how I treat people that's important here. It was a lovely holiday but coming home is like putting on a favourite jumper. I'm happy here.

Our holiday was exactly what we needed and we've started back on the renovations with a new vigour. It has helped that the weather has been perfect, blue skies and not too hot at 22 - 26 degrees. Nights are cooler and I have been able to put the summer duvet back on the bed instead of just a linen sheet. We know that we have a lot of work to do over the next few months but we're enjoying it again.

If you would like to know more about daily life at the Notaires House then feel free to join us here on Facebook or if you just want the photographs then you can find us on Instagram

It's good to be home

House/3

December has been famine and feast in The Old Notaires' House. We've either been demolishing with gusto or almost motionless in front of a computer, planning. Many an evening has passed with a glass of red, batting ideas about and solving problems. Lists made and spreadsheets created. Experience has taught us that time spent in this manner is a crucial part of a successful project and guilt shouldn't be felt if you're not physically getting on with work.

The two downstairs rooms of the original house have now had their walls stripped back to the granite stone. Both have some damp issues, mainly caused by the ground level being built up too high against the outside walls and an historic misunderstanding of how to solve damp issues. Apart from the installation of a French ditch around this part of the house we've decided to allow the rooms to breathe. Everyone has been so complimentary of our stone wall in the barn that we've decided to do both the dining room and entrance hall - I may regret this! It will be a long, messy job but will look fabulous, more importantly it will improve the damp issue no end.

Entrance hall

Hall from the staircase

Andrew has finished demolition (well apart from two new doorways to be knocked through). There are times on large projects when you have to concentrate on your vision, it can sometimes be difficult when confronted with a building site to think that it will one day be a beautiful space.

The new dining room

I have managed to remove all of the stuck-on sticky back plastic circles in the bathroom and Andrew has taken out the bath. This room will become two ensuites.

Old bathroom

Another wall removed downstairs, the four old notaires' rooms have become two. This has made such a difference to the light in the space that will become the kitchen and snug. The external doors have been ordered, no longer will we see daylight through the cracks!

This will be a kitchen and snug

This should become our bedroom & ensuite

Concept board for the Gentleman's Room 

I've also been creating concept boards for the guest bedrooms and planning the furniture layouts. It's important for me to get this done early in the project. On a practical note it allows Andrew to finalise the electrical circuit & plumbing plans. We're trying to use as much of the furniture that came with the house and items we already own to furnish rooms so planning them in now really helps. I then know what we need to buy, along with sizes, and can take time to find the right pieces.

The old kitchen, hall and loo will become the Artists Room

Concept board for the Artists bedroom

We're having a break from the house over Christmas and New Year to recharge the batteries for what will be a very busy few months in 2020. If you would like to know more about life in Corrèze then feel free to follow or friend over here on Facebook

Concept boards for the Garden bedroom

Barn/10

It's been two months since I lasted posted on our barn conversion, at that stage we on a deadline to get some basics done (bathrooms especially) in anticipation of family arriving. Since that point work has been sluggish. There was a celebratory family holiday to enjoy in the Lot et Garonne as well as friends visiting us. France is 'en fête' during July and August with so much to see and do - more of that in my next post! We also realised we were worn out, more mentally than physically and just needed a break from large restoration projects - in the back of our minds was the realisation that just because the barn was nearly finished our work wasn't, we have the main house to tackle next. So it was a few easier weeks for us, I even managed some hammock time!

Kitchen in La Grange

Progress did continue though, finally the kitchen and dining area were completed. Regular readers may remember that we were aiming for a Mid Century Modern vibe to these areas and I think we're getting there, although I still have some furniture to source. Andrew has done a terrific job (as always) even when I go all designery on him, insisting that the oak work top wraps down each end of the units. And the large format tiling for the splash back meant nearly every one had to be cut, and not just simple vertical cuts but holes for sockets and around the hob upstand.

One of the reasons for the U shaped design was to take advantage of the view, I wanted guests to see across the valley while making breakfast. It's really hard to take a photograph as it's always bright so apologises for the poor quality, but it is followed by a close up so you can get feel for it.

View from the kitchen

Better photograph!

Originally we were going to have panels that matched the kitchen doors for the back of the peninsula but I changed my mind. I did think about painting a MCM design but really didn't have the time so I found some wallpaper that worked. It had a bit too much contrast with the wall tiles so I made up a paint wash and gave it a couple of coats to tone it down.

Originally the wallpaper was more intense in tone so I gave it a paint wash

Planning the ceiling lighting was quite tricky in the open plan space. We wanted to maintain the light and open feel to the room but also create three zones - kitchen, dining and relaxing. In the end we chose a selection of black wire shades, they complement but are different in each area. Over the dining table I managed to find a vintage suspension which works perfectly.

No escaping a napkin shot!

I've completed some upholstery projects and am particularly pleased with a pair of 1970's furry chairs a.k.a. the bunny ear chairs. No longer covered in a faux fur that sparked when you sat on them but a vintage style tweed.

We did a little more styling in the bedrooms although I'm still on the search for decorative items for the Phileas Fogg suite.

Bedroom of the Phileas Fogg suite

Exotic animal bedroom

Apart from some snagging jobs there are just two things to finish in the barn, the guard rail at the top of the stairs is just a temporary one and needs a permanent solution and we need to create a small terrace. Next year the barn will be a vacation rental and our guests will have full use of our park garden but we also want them to be able to enjoy their own space for that early morning coffee or evening apéro.

Thoughts have turned to the main house, we've drawn up the plans and have started to pack things away in anticipation of the 'move' into the barn and work starting. Meanwhile Andrew is getting back into the swing of things by creating a terrace overlooking the river. Everyone gravitates to this part of the garden so we thought it would be nice to create a proper seating area.

A before shot of the new terrace area

As always you can follow our progress, and life in France on Facebook. If your particular interest is French barns then why not join this group.