The vendors accepted our offer and agreed to our “get out” clauses so we flew back 10 days later, to sign the CdV.
The estate agent knew I was a Merchant Seaman and so we signed a power of attorney for Mrs B to be able to sign for me if I was delayed on a ship at a crucial time.
The signing went without a hitch and we asked the vendor if he minded us visiting the property to take some more photos and get some accurate measurements etc.. He was happy for us to do so as it was abandoned, without locks and with nothing of value stored inside.
We took our measurements and photos of every dimension we could and soaked up the atmosphere of where we were.
We can both still vividly remember the smells of each room. The smokey earthen wholesomeness of the kitchen, the damp mustiness of the back room and the concrete dry blocky smell of the “studio room” (as it had now become known).
I was inspired and starting to get “great” idea’s (lots of them) about how to do each room and where to have the various bits and pieces.
I began to regale Mrs B with them who listened patiently and then reminded me that it was a “joint venture” and that I was “not” the boss, that maybe I was getting a little ahead of myself, and perhaps at this stage we should just concentrate on getting measurements and photos and not to get carried away as it wasn’t ours. Yet!.
She said I was free to come up with as many ideas as I liked, however she didn’t want to see them until we had signed the deeds and it was really ours.
I have always found that the problem with flawless, sensible logic is that it is very difficult to disagree with.
After a little sulk and a petulant “hurumph” I saw the sense of her words and carried on measuring and photographing and (quietly) planning.
The next day the outside world came crashing into our lives and blew apart our bubble of happiness.
I received a call from the son of a friend, of 30 years, to tell me he had died of a massive stroke the pervious night. He was 51.
My tears are flowing freely as I type this and I feel the loss as keenly now as I did then. He would have been a regular visitor, confidant, advisor, contributor and enthusiastic supporter of what we are doing.
If you’d ever had the pleasure and good fortune to know Ian Gillot you too would feel that the world is a slightly darker place without him.
We returned to the UK and allowed the wheels of bureaucracy to slowly trundle along. We received regular updates with things like the results of the diagnostics and then some plans for the fosse.
The sensation was like waiting for a train to come in with a loved one aboard the only trouble is that you are not sure what train they are on.
As the doors open of each train that arrives you strain to catch a glimpse, only to be disappointed and have go through the whole process again when the next train arrives.
If you can remain patient (which is easier said than done) eventually they alight from a train and it is all beaming smiles, warm hugs and the sense of completeness that comes with the company of those you love.
That feeling came to us when we received the call that all was in order and we could sign in the last week of August.
I think the phrase Whoop Whoop Yeeee Haaaah may have been uttered.
Accompanied by our slightly reluctant 15 year old daughter we caught the ferry to complete the first stage of the project, actually becoming owners.
The reading of the deeds or the Acte de Vente (Acte Authentique) is an enchanting process where the vendor and purchaser meet in the Notaires (solicitor) office.
He/she then reads out, much like a wedding ceremony, the contract that Mr Vendor is selling the property including X & Y to Mr and Mrs Bentley and they are paying X amount for it and both parties are happy that all searches, test and clauses in the pre-sale contract have been met.
Sign here and here. Shake hands. Big grins all round. Here are the keys. Good bye.
Oh Yes! Oh so very very Yes!!
We were now the very proud, excited and happy owners of a ruin in Brittany that had the potential to be turned into a wonderful, peaceful and inspiring space to live in.
As we left the Notaires office I pulled a thick sheave of papers out of my document folder and handed them silently to my wife.
“What’s this” she asked.
I replied “A few drawings, and ideas, and material budget forecasts, and some photo shopped photos, and a total budget plan and some ideas about how to start and where to start”
Looking as though her flabber was utterly ghasted she said,
“But there are pages and pages of the stuff”
I said “Well the last couple of trips to sea haven’t been that busy and I had to do something to fill the time”.
With the car full of laughter and the sweet taste of anticipation, we drove with our daughter to the house.
Sylvie, who had been a solid rock of support and help throughout the process, soon joined us with her young "woofer" in tow..
We took out the champagne on ice from the car, and proceeded to enter our very own, totally owned, French ruin.
We then raised a toast to the future of the house, us, and all who would visit and be part of the adventure.
We spent the next week at a nearby hotel and visited the house every day to try and get a better understanding of it and the task ahead. Many of the ideas I had drawn up over the previous four months proved to be impractical or unworkable but there were a few we discussed that had promise for development.
It was a difficult process and steep learning curve for me as I was reluctant to let go of ideas that I had worked on. I had a few exasperated “why cant you see it’s a good idea” moments, however Mrs B remained calm and tried her best to argue for careful consideration rather than leaping on, and keeping, the first idea I’d had, just because I thought it was good one.
I soon realised that what I had agreed to before we made the offer (“Every decision about the design and layout has to be a joint one and reached in cordial agreement) would be a lot harder to achieve for me than I first thought.
Coming up with design ideas was (is) not a problem for me, but I found that letting go of them was. I had to become better at blending ideas rather than pushing one against the other.
Mrs B could not have been more correct when she urged that we let the “house” reveal itself to us, rather than “us” imposing our will upon the house.
If none of the other things you read in this thread regards building methods and procedures make are of use to you I hope you realize the importance of that wise piece of advice.
Where did agree was that we could not start work on the house until we had established a camp in the garden.
We needed something that we could visit all year round and be warm, dry and not have to erect when we arrived.
When we started the actual building work we would want to be able to have shower at the end of a dusty day, to be able to cook for ourselves, as well as having somewhere comfortable to relax to enjoy a glass of red and watch the sun go down.
Our friends had kindly offered that we could stay at their place (10 miles away) whenever we were over, however we wanted to be self-reliant.
We wanted our own things around us, in our own place, and to be dependent on no-one. We wanted to be able to get up as early or as late as we liked, work as long or as little as we liked, and not be concerned about disturbing anyone else, or having to fit in with anyone else’s routine or pattern, which like it or not happens if you are staying at someone else’s house.
To us it was obvious that we needed to be independent and occupy our own space ASAP, hence the need for a year round camp.
I sure they never understood our need for independence and privacy because when we opted for it, one of them took it as a personal affront and has chosen not to speak to us since. It just goes to show that you don’t always know the people you think you know.
I put it forward to Mrs B that the obvious choice was for a caravan however getting a big sstatic one the back garden was not possible due to access constraints, so I proposed a mid sized towing van.
To say that Mrs B is adverse to the idea of caravans (touring or static) would be a mild understatement and she “urged” me to consider some alternative to the caravan plan.
Bearing in mind our commitment to agreeing on all decisions, see if you can spot my mistake in the coming sequence of events.
We returned to UK in early September and I went out and bought a towing caravan against Mrs Bs wishes or agreement and towed it that night to France and returned the following night feeling rather pleased with myself and certain that she would eventually come around to the idea.
I had stupidly endangered the whole ethos of the project by doing exactly what I had agreed not to do, which was doing what “I” thought would be good and not what “we” had agreed on.
To make it worse as soon as I had the caravan in place I realized that it wasn’t going to be enough space anyway and I was going to have to build some sort of shed/s chalet.
If we had larger access into, and a bigger back garden in general, it would have made sense to have dragged a large “static” van in, gutted the interior, winterised and personalised it and that would have been that. However due to the size of access our procedure went like this.
Feb 2006:- Put towing caravan in back garden and realised it was not going to be enough.
May 2006:- Discover caravan was a massive mobile ants nest that needs completely gutting and winterising
May 2006:- Build Shed 1
\July 2006:- Spend lots of time trying to make silk purse out of the pigs ear that is the caravan.
October 2006:- Realise have wasted lots of time on caravan and take decision (with cheeks bulging from a large portion of humble pie) to get rid of it.
Feb 2007:- Have missed opportunity to drag caravan out via farmers field as he has already got the crops in. Will have to cut it up in situ with angle grinder.
May 2007:- Cut up caravan and build Yee Haw.
August 2007:- Tidy up and put finishing touches to sheds.
I hope the pictures of the sheds do justice to just how amazingly useful, robust, versatile and fit for purpose they are. Each one is 3 X 4 meters and goes from 2 to 2.5 meters high.
I have posted some poor quality photos of the construction but if you zoom them out they should show the basics I have also made a video on the method used as described below,
With the mobile ants nest sitting in the background here was the start of the process. Working out where it would go and where the footing blocks would go.
Once you get the footing blocks level (4 rows of three) you make up the floor sandwich from the bottom. The main supports, cross battened, then a layer of sterling board. then the joists all made from chevron (63 x 40). When the joists are in you put insulation in the gaps and then floor over the lot.
You have already made 4 frames (with the window and door holes already in)
The back and two sides are 2 meters high and the front is 2.5. The floor dimensions are 4 x 3 meters.
Then just coach bolt the frames to the floor and too each other and pop in some corner braces for good measure
You are now ready to pop on the roof joists which just screw or coach bolt through to the frame front and back.
I have shown Yee Haw shed in the next photos showing a finished floor sandwich (where the caravan used to be) as well as finished shed 1 (showing nephew and sister in law)
The other two photos show the foof boards going on which are just sterling board flooring.
You can also see the breather membrane going on
This shot shows the breather on the walls with a temporary tarpaulin top.
Once the roof boards are on it is a simple roof felt and glue job and you are water tight.
The internal finish is up to you as is the external as you can see for the two different styles in next photos of the finished camp
Shed1 is heated by a small wood burner however it is probably too big as even in the depths of winter (minus 6 outside) if we make the mistake of putting on more than two logs at a time we have to open the windows and door.
Yee Haw has one of those oil filled radiators which is more than ample to keep it comfortable. It only has the foil insulation in Yee Haw and more windows which are not double glazed and as a result doesn’t hold onto its heat for as long. However as the kitchen is in there it gets toasty when the oven is on or just in general cooking.
I made a shower up out of a boats 12 volt bilge pump some piping and a watering tin head (see video of Yee haw). Just heat up big pan of water on the gas cooker to required temperature and pop in the bilge pump. Pull start button in shower. Get wet. Stop pump soap and shampoo up, start pump and enjoy a long rinse. Shed Shower is simple and effective.
We did our laundry at the launderette and we were talking our 5 gallon water containers every time we went to town (5 miles) and filling them their as it was the nearest free tap. This was shower and washing up water. We used the bottled and gallon container water for cooking and drinking.
Trust me as I say, “When you have to carry every gallon of water 50 + meters, you use a lot less and you are very careful with every drop.
Both are lit with 2 LED strip lights which are ample. These (and the shower) are run by a big leisure battery. It had solar panel charger for when we were away to keep it topped up and I would run a battery charger from our 3.5KW genny before we had out temporary electric supply connected in NOV 2007.
Until that time we had a gas fridge which we kept in a small shed built onto the front of Yee Haw to avoid any noxious fumes inside where there was also a Clik Clak sofa bed.
On the subject of generator: We bought a quiet running one which is still noisy enough to be an irritant so we set it up in the house and run an extension lead down to the sheds. The tank would run for about 5 hours depending on use. It delivered a surge free current so we could run the lap tops and watch movies on them when the nights had drawn in. It still meant a chilly head torch wearing walk up to the house to shut it down at night but the system worked and it would run power tools including the cement mixer.
We also needed a toilet and neither of us wanted the chemical type so after checking it out with a couple of friends into the alternative living methods built a self composting dunny. This is basically a hole in the ground with a small shed (for privacy) built over it. It is an amazingly effective method of disposing of your bodily waste and isn’t the horror you would imagine. The first one was a bit shallow (especially if we had guests for a few days) however the one shown in the picture was dug when I had hired a digger and is nearly 1.6 meters deep and a meter square.
You do your business and put in a small scoop of ash (for the smell) and sawdust (for disguise). It builds up a bit but when you leave it for a month or two it just seems to rot down to a grey dust or nothing. On the advice of an Aussie mate of mine in really hot spells I use a long handled fork and level it out and then sprinkle a layer of lime which really does make it odour free and speeds up the rotting process.
Here is the Dunny (or Long Drop)
It is best if you can build one with two holes ( a double trap as it is known) if you are going to be using it for any length of time to allow one to rot a way and use the other on a 6 month rotation.
I encourage men to pee in the field and ladies too if the crops are high enough to offer some decorum.
I encourage men to pee in the field and ladies too if the crops are high enough to offer some decorum.
I have since used a digger to dig the hole even deeper and have a meter wide covered and hidden trench at the back of the dunny to extend its usable life. As I edit this in december 2012 it has been operating for 3 and half years and has never come even close to filling up.
We use a mixture of sawdust and wood ash to sprinkle over any poo deposited and if in high summer with lots of people using it, and it gets a bit whiffy I use some lime which eliminates the smell and appears to aid the rotting process.
So there we were with camp established.
Shed 1 had the wood burner a double bed, built in wardrobe, comfy chair and office space and YeeHaw had a shower, kitchen area, rodent proof food storage, a double sofa bed and wine rack.
Our biggest inconvenience was electricity because although we had the generator it was a pain keeping it going. We asked the professional translator if he would set up (for his normal hourly rate ) a temporary supply to be connected over the winter through the proper channels.
Including the local electrician to fit the Box you have to have outside the property and for EDF to arrive and make the connection to that and then run the wire across the lane about 10 meters to the house, and the translators fee a figure of about 1200 Euros springs to mind. This was organized to happen over the winter so when we returned together in the spring we would be on the grid and make all year round habitation easier.
Now we could concentrate on the build itself.
Cheers Bentley
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