Summer Time

The Summer period is now here, and from last weekend, we will have visitors at the house virtually all the way through the summer until we go in early September.  It is encouraging that we can get so many bookings given the economic climate, but also a bit scary: we hope that people will enjoy themselves, and that the weather stays good.  Last year was a cracker down there after a poor year in 2008 - lets hope the summers do not alternate each year!!!

We are asking guests if they are happy to send us photos for publishing on this blog - obviously of people looking happy!  Watch this space for a small photo album coming soon!

The Bunk Bedroom

The other bedroom downstairs again was one of the rooms originally created about a dozen or so years before we bought the house.  The bedroom was used by the 11 year old son, and it was decorated in very very faded wallpaper, and a carpet that was completely threadbare and really filthy.  The wallpaper was nursery stuff - obviously not for a 11 year old boy - and was papered onto some form of polystyrene wall covering, which was badly dented and coming away in places.  Behind that covering one wall was very damp.

Unfortunately, I did not take any photos of the "before" - I was too busy concentrating on stripping the wall covering, ripping up the carpet etc.  Not knowing why the damp was there, we took a gamble and simply sealed the stripped walls with watered down PVA and then painted onto a rough finish.  The damp came back slightly right at the beginning, and the very first visitors we had complained about an unpleasant smell in that room.  However, since then (touch wood), the damp has not come back, and there is no smell.  We are now convinced that the cause was that insulating wall covering not allowing the wall to breath properly.

With the plain white walls and new flooring, we have furnished with bunk beds, a wardrobe and other small bits and pieces to make up a child's bedroom.

We may well be getting a camp bed, which could easily be used in this room, which will increase capacity in the house to 10 (ok, at a push!)

Downstairs Double Bedroom

When the barn was originally converted, there were just two bedrooms, both downstairs - upstairs rooms came later.  When we bought the house, these two bedrooms were in a poor state.  I'll write something about the bunk room later, but this article is on the room which we now have as the double.

Although the ceiling isn't really low, it was clad in tongue and groove timber, which was quite dark and therefore gave a bit of an oppressive feel.  There was a very old carpet on the floor, which was very dirty, and the wallpaper was peeling off in a number of places.  They were kind enough to leave the wardrobe, which, although not to our taste has saved us having to buy one for the room.

Once the wallpaper was stripped, I set to laying the flooring for both the downstairs bedrooms.  That first week, I had a heck of a lot of work to do - building beds, wardrobes and other furniture, as well as laying the flooring.  Sadly, I do not have a "before" photo, but I do have one during the work.  It was quite tricky having to move the wardrobe around the room as the flooring went down.

 After that, the next time we were down - May half term, I think - we put up lining paper for painting.  Finding decorating equipment matching what we were used to in England was not easy, not helped with my basic but improving French.  We ended up buying very expensive fibre-glass paper, which came in wide rolls, but was a dream to put up - it simply would not rip!  This was excellent for covering small cracks and imperfections.

Emulsion paint in France is very different from in the UK - it goes on very thin and translucent, but then dries back to the colour.  It also takes more coats to cover than we are used to, which adds to time.....

Anyway, here is the room once finished: