Barn/9

There's nothing like a deadline to motivate. With guests arriving from mid-June and nothing quite finished we knew we had to get a lick on! The non-exhaustive list included:

• 2 bathrooms to tile and fit
• Full decoration downstairs
• Bedroom floors to be laid 
• Hall floor to be tiled
• Staircase to be revealed from under it's protective covering and oiled
• Banisters up
• Guard rail to be built on the first floor
• Furniture buying

Did we make it? Well sort of...

Bathrooms, still need towel rails and proper hooks

Bathrooms (after and during)

Bedrooms had new floors

New flooring

Decoration is finished downstairs although there is still snagging to do, plus a lot of styling needed

The exotic animal room

Hall floor has a big tick although the understairs cupboard and hot water tank area need 'tidying'

Staircase & hall

Staircase is finished and banister done. We are still not sure about the design for the guard rail at the top of the stairs so Andrew built a temporary one. We've got used to the big hole in the floor but guests may not.

Furniture buying - ongoing. Although I've been buying furniture over the last few months we still need more, and what I did buy needed work. The summer kitchen in the main house became my workshop while I worked on two chest of drawers, two dressing tables, four bedside cabinets and assorted chairs. New beds were ordered and linen sourced. We still need wardrobes but as we didn't want to rush into buying furniture we were not entirely happy with we made do with a couple of temporary clothes rails. We bought a sofa but I still have a few chairs to reupholster. The fabric for one of the bedheads didn't arrive until day two of our friends' visit so I had to sneak into their room while they were out to finish it off!

Before & afters

Upstairs in the open plan living, kitchen and dining area we were finally able to reveal the lights. The kitchen isn't yet installed but we did get a refrigerator and set up a small table to enable morning tea and coffee making. Regular readers may remember that upstairs has a Mid Century Modern vibe and I was really pleased with a vintage aluminium and orange light we found for over the dining room table.

Vintage MCM light

So what's next?

Snagging has to be done and the two bedrooms need styling. Upstairs the kitchen needs to be finished and some more furniture sourced. We will probably move on to some landscaping (once the current heatwave has finished) as we want to provide a private terrace for the barn gîte guests.

Progress - 29th June 2019

It's difficult to show the scale of the barn, which I was trying to do in the photograph above. The black wire light in the centre is just over a metre across but it doesn't look it here!

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.

Design time

OK I'll confess my time management isn't what it should be! I start each day with a list and a lot gets done but the one thing that always gets moved to the following day, and then the next day and then... is blogging. The last barn update was in April when we had just finished laying the upstairs parquet flooring. A lot has happened since then, it had to as we had friends and family arriving and the village campsite wasn't an option. We've been working hard and are pleased with the results but I need time to sort out photographs.

Meanwhile I'll share the design style for one of the bedrooms. While we don't want the rooms to become Disneyfied, it's nice to have a bit of fun in guest bedrooms. Looking for a French link without going down the château chic route we settled on French novelist Jules Verne and his tale of Phileas Fogg.

As usual I created a concept or mood board...

Phileas Fogg concept board

It was quite fun to do and I've already found some items. The wallpaper is the same as the other bedroom but in navy, the mirror I picked up in a local brocante and the globe in an interiors shop that is closing down. I've already got some items that will work but I need to find the cardboard boxes that they're in!

Style items

If you would like to follow our progress, and find out more about life in Corrèze then you can follow us on Facebook here