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

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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