Category: Our Renovation Life

Our French Life, our relocation life, Our Renovation Life

The Language Relationship Barriers

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So whilst I may be somewhat of an angry *Elf at the moment I still thought I’d crack this one out about how your language or lack of language abilities can affect your relationship. I’m fairly confident that this is never mentioned when talking about moving to France. When do they ever talk about the bitterness and resentment that stem from one person ploughing on with the language, whilst the other languishes behind on A Place In The Sun? I rest my case.

Continue reading “The Language Relationship Barriers” →
Our French Life, Our Renovation Life

How To Heat Your French Home

 

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Whilst I do live in Normandy, home of old stone buildings but where ever you live in France, if it’s feeling a bit parky then I’m sure you can apply the same advice to your home also. I should point out that we don’t live in a stone farmhouse/longere. Ours, by all intents and purposes, is a new build but isn’t.  Say what? The original stone part was old but the add-on was probably 1960s/70s. It was a box really – not your typical renovation project. Continue reading “How To Heat Your French Home” →

Our Renovation Life

The Full-Time Building Works Commence

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So, we had left the house for another two years prior to moving out full-time.  If you’ve missed the previous renovating stories you can read them here, here and here.

Mr Normandy had a deadline. To make the house water tight within 2 months so that we could move all our worldly possessions, from our damp rental accommodation, into our home. This was a tall order.  We knew we had to be out of the rental property (which was big enough to store all our contents etc) by mid July. We needed to ferry all our stuff over in stages to avoid paying storage costs. We’d already saved money by moving all our goods ourselves from the UK. We had made sure we’d rented somewhere where we could combine rental and storage together. Continue reading “The Full-Time Building Works Commence” →

Our Renovation Life

The Roof Comes Off

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Having done a two week stint in 2014, Mr Normandy headed back out in 2015 to crack on with the works. This time to take off the roof. Initially we had plans for dorma windows but subsquently decided against it due to time constraints and various problems with rentals etc. By the way, the plaques on the building were made by Mr Normandy – we had a whole range of them which we used to sell and some pet RIP headstones. Another blog post for another time!

This time the weather wasn’t so kind and whilst he is an astonishingly fast worker, even he ran out of time. He had to leave the roof and cover it with tarpaulin. This wasn’t ideal at all and, after a fierce storm, we received an email from our neighbour to say this was hanging off together with the baton in April 2015. Continue reading “The Roof Comes Off” →

Our Renovation Life

And Then He Was Back – 2014

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Recently I posted about the renovation works that started in 2013. If you missed it you can read it here

Mr Normandy went back out a year later in 2014 to spend another two weeks working on the house with a young chap called Tom. Tom set up his tent in the garden whilst Mr Normandy roughed it in the house. The house that had no water, heating or toilet facilities. I remember him saying once that we could all camp out for two weeks with the kids in the summer. Needless to say that never happened. There’s camping and there’s camping – call me old fashioned but having a wash and somewhere to go to the toilet are this gal’s basic requirements. Continue reading “And Then He Was Back – 2014” →

Our Renovation Life

The Building Works Take Off..

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It has not escaped my notice that whilst I’ve been writing about all sorts of stuff – I haven’t really shown you the progress of the house.  So without further ado and somewhat of an album filler on the blog (although I don’t do many of those #promise), here are some pictures to keep you going. I will keep popping up pictures over the next few weeks until you are up to date. Continue reading “The Building Works Take Off..” →

Our French Life, Our Renovation Life

Where Are Orange On The Bureaucracy-O-Meter?

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Send message – I’ll send you a message alright

Okay, so judging from my recent poll it seems you would like to hear more about renovation woos or maybe whoops? Could it be that Orange are up there on the bureaucracy-o-meter and ranked number 1? One being the easiest company to deal with in France? Could it be that they have got this internet, telephone and wifi thing sussed? Well I’m about to tell you, so grab yourself a cuppa, as I don’t know how long this could take. Continue reading “Where Are Orange On The Bureaucracy-O-Meter?” →

Our French Life, Our Renovation Life

The Magic Roundabout

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The enigma that is Enedis

That would be getting yourself some electricity here in France. Now, our house did not have any water, electric, mains drainage or a telephone line. Am I selling you the dream yet? We don’t live off the beaten track or a few roads off the main track. We live on the track.  We are the last house in a village of over 500 residents and it’s on a main D road.  Positively urban in Normandy terms. Continue reading “The Magic Roundabout” →

Our Renovation Life

#FosseGate

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I don’t think I’ve ever stopped using this phrase from the Watergate scandal. Sorry. Not sorry.  Anything that involves aggro and makes for good evening entertainment fodder means __________ (insert word) and then add the word ‘gate’. Anyone over the age of 40 should get it but depending on their general knowledge, this might result in a tumbleweed moment. Do other people do this? Or maybe I should ask doesn’t everyone do this? Or maybe I need some 21st century sayings that anyone under the age of 30 will get? I digress. Get on with it. So what is this #fossegate you speak of? Continue reading “#FosseGate” →