Doors and windows and stairs. And a story about a bed.
We’ve heard that the way we’re doing things — bringing the house down to bare bones and starting again from scratch — is better than trying to make
The menuisier (that translates to “carpenter” but I see him as our “door and window guy”) has been to the house a few times to measure and chat about styles and features. We’ve learned about and had to make decisions on window handles, closing mechanisms, and whether we wanted electric window shades on our new dormer windows. We have virtually no choice in the window and exterior door styles, and even the color they are painted. We can do anything we want on the inside of the house, but the outside is governed by the rules of the Bâtiments de France.
This photo was taken before the roof was removed and the right chimney fell off.
Remember those old varnished wood shutters? Even those can’t remain. They were pretty much disintegrating anyway so have to be replaced. But we have been informed they now must be painted wood, and our choice of paint colors is very limited: dull gray, pastel green, pale blue, or a dark red.
We’re going with this gray color that a neighbor has recently used.
The search for old doors.
We’ve been on the lookout for some old doors to use for the pantry and the powder room. So far, no luck. The rest of the house will end up having new doors, but it would be nice to have those two openings on the ground floor jazzed up by something with character.
Stepping it up.
Originally, there was a row of rabbit hutches and chicken coops next to the house. They were kind of charming and I wished we could have kept them, but as they were right where we wanted to build the bedroom addition, they had to go. In the middle of that row, there was a narrow and crooked cement stairway with a cute green gate leading to a small upper yard. We kept the gate and hope to find a place for it in the new garden.
That hodgepodge of structures and the small set of stairs has been replaced by a bedroom and a wide and rather grand stairway (which will be prettied up with tile or pavers).
The bed in the attic.
When we moved from California last April, we shipped almost all of our possessions to France. The shipping company gave us a flat price for a 40 ft. container, so we didn’t really have to decide what things to leave behind because it would be too expensive to send. As we moved from a large 4 bedroom, 3 bath house, this meant we would surely end up with too much stuff when the day finally came to unpack all that will have been in storage for a year (and that we have managed to live without in the meantime). One of the decisions we made was to bring our US-size beds. US beds are larger than European beds (to accommodate the larger Americans), so that means we will have to buy our sheets from the US. We can manage.
Our new house will have two guestrooms, and we had two good beds to bring. One of them isn’t old, but it’s a beautiful iron thing, and we knew it would look great in a 300 yr old house. Below is the only photo I have of it, but you get the idea. So, this large iron bed was carefully packed up for its new life in the attic bedroom of the house in France. One day, after we had been in France for a few months, I realized there is no way the tall iron headboard would fit through the small stairway in the house. Not through a window, either. We couldn’t get it up to the attic.
So, we got creative. Since the house roof was to be replaced, I asked our crew if we could put the bed into the attic while the roof was off. Crazy, I know. But by then they were used to my nutty questions, and they said that it shouldn’t be a problem, without even an eyeroll.
Last week the old roof and its supporting structure were removed, and a few days later the the new structure was in place. As these oak beams will be exposed in the attic bedroom, they took care to use the traditional old and beautiful way of joining the beams.
Half the roof gone here. The other side was removed a couple of days later.
In the photo above, you can see the house is missing the right chimney. It crumbled away as they were removing the roof tiles. As we aren’t planning on using the fireplaces on that side of the house, we had to decide if we could live without the symmetry of two
The new oak timbers being fitted together.
Finally, after many months of anticipation, the day for the Big Bed Caper arrived. Early yesterday morning, our favorite roofer/mayor drove his JCB up to the house and carefully raised the bed frame and mattress up to the open roof, where it was unloaded and stored under tarps. The new roof will be finished within the next 10 days, so hopefully the mattress will be kept dry until it’s under the new roof.
As a result of this escapade, we have completely cemented our reputation of being the crazy Americans in the village. There is now a big bed in the attic forevermore, and someday, the next owners of this lovely house will be faced with the dilemma of finding sheets for it.
The bed arrives at its forever home.
In the meantime, we are experiencing our first winter in Le Grand-Pressigny. There’s a bit of grumbling about the cold and wet from the folks we meet, but I really don’t mind it. I just wish it would snow.
At least we have Snowdrops in the garden.
Vincent | 11th Jan 20
The Vieux Carre in the New Orleans French Quarter has the same strict building requirements. You hate it when it affects you, but love it when you see how it preserves the character of the area. I can’t wait to see the final product. I am sure it will be worth it, a true labor of love ( and money). Good luck and keep such a positive attitude.
Susan Walter | 11th Jan 20
Roofers are fairly used to being asked to lift big items of furniture up and in through the roof or windows. ‘Menuisier’ translates as ‘joiner’ rather than carpenter. At least, in British English there is a distinction between joiner and carpenter, just as there is in French between menuisier and charpentier. With regard to snow, according to the country folk who’ve been watching bird behaviour, we are due a ‘frigid spell’ in about 2 weeks.