Improvements Carried Out

These are the things which have been done this last week:

• Skirting board fitted on the landing
• New wooden trim at the top of the stairs
• New wood covering all of the beam next to the stairs
• All the "junk" (decorating etc stuff) has been moved from the boiler room
• The workshop, a private room at the back, is now used to store the decorating stuff
• The "lean-to" at the back has been cleared and the wood tidied up
• Two bikes (one adult, one kid) now kept in the wood store
• Kitchen cupboard between the cooker and fridge now fixed to the wall
• New shutters built for the bunk bedroom
• Table tennis table delivered
• All beds now have decent pillows
• There are now warm spring duvets for all the beds
• Additional crockery and cutlery bought (necessary with the dishwasher!)
• Additional serving plates bought
• Another sofa - we now have a sofa by the large doors: perfect for lounging on with a book!

There is still more to do (there always is!), but I am happy that the house is getting better and better each year.

Finally, a very big thank you to Bill who accompanied me on my trip and helped with a lot of the work.

Back Safely - Bathroom Update

Lots of things done whilst out there - many of them small things that I've been meaning to do for ages.  Will list them later, but firstly, here are photos of the work in progress on the bathroom.

Chris the builder had faithfully promised to have the bathroom finished by the time I went there (which was going to be difficult as I was delivering the shower).  However, he had a bad hand the week before, and was struggling with a joint in the central heating, which caused delays.  Now estimated time for completion is next Friday, 8th.  Anyway, it is looking so good, and when painted will be impressive.

All Set Now

We have a nice big van waiting on the drive.  All the stuff loaded in there ready to leave at just 04:45 tomorrow morning.  Let's hope I haven't forgotten anything.  The drive down won't be as bad this time.  We WILL be leaving on time, and I managed to persuade the nice man at National in Slough to put Bill on the hire as a driver, without any extra charge!  So Bill can do some of the slog tomorrow......

The shower-room is nearly complete.  Tiling around the shower cubicle (which is currently in the van!) was being done today.  We have been promised pictures for some time now, but our builder's broadband always seems to be on the blink.  I have my camera with me, so will be able to publish on my return.

I estimate that I will be buying about 650 bottles of wine to bring back.  Whilst of course this is for my "personal consumption" my friends will also enjoy drinking Bordeaux wine in the months to come!

A bit of a Stutter.....

The building work is going well.  I hope to have some work in progress photos to post soon.  Unfortunately, the shower we had selected is no longer available.  The solution will now end up being better - we have bought one here, and I will take it over in the van in a couple of weeks' time.  This will only have a few days' delay on the completion, but the end result will be better, and in fact cheaper!  This is what it looks like (I don't think we'll have the goose there though!)

Swimming pool repair work has now finished, so this year the pool should hold its water much better.

Finally, we are collecting together all the stuff I need to take down: hopefully the van will be big enough!

Heating or No Heating

With all the talk of improvements and repairs to the pool, we had been thinking of getting solar heating installed next year.  Monsieur Bouilhac, our swimming pool man, has replied that solar heating is not effective even in Gironde, as it would require solar panels with a surface area equivalent to the size of the pool.  We had been thinking of having an open-sided covered area to the left of the pool house with a pitched roof for the panels but that would need to be very big!

His suggestion was a heat pump.  I'd heard of heat pumps for heating houses etc - Grand Designs have them all the time, but I then looked into it for swimming pools.  It works like a reverse air conditioning unit, compressing the heated fluid and having a heat exchanger between that and the pool water.  It can heat the pool to 28c with an energy multiplier of five to one (for one unit of energy used in powering the pump, it generates five units of heating energy).

This looks to me like a very good idea.  The temperature of the pool is "refreshing" for most of the season, and to have it heated would definitely make it much more attractive for a longer period of time.  We have decided that this will be an improvement to install next year - after all, we are doing a lot of improvement this year already!

Well, That's no so bad!

We've just had the quote for the swimming pool, and the problems are not as extensive as first thought.  We will not be needing a new lining, which is a big relief!  There is some extensive work required digging up the paving so that new pipes can be installed to feed the nozzles, but no-where near as bad as we had thought.  The good news is that this will be completed before the first visitors in June.

At the same time, the builder will be starting the bathroom at the end of the month, and has confirmed he should complete before I go out at the end of March.

Accumulating More Stuff

We have just ordered some curtains, which I will be taking out with me in March.  There will be a (v) large pair to go in front of the large barn door, with replacement curtains to match on the patio door and window in the lounge.  The ones for the barn door are really to keep the heat in/cold out when there in the winter - the windows are of course not double glazed, and the whole door set up is a source of lost heat.  I suppose it can also be used to keep the place cool in the summer, as thermal linings would just as easily work the other way!

There is a downside, in that when open, the curtains will be blocking a certain amount of light, as the doors go right up to the side wall of the hall.  That said, the whole door area is 3m by 3m and lets in so much light, we don't think it will hurt too much.

The visitors coming this year who have been before, will notice loads of improvements: new bathroom, curtains, furniture, table tennis, a pool that won't be leaking.........