When I first set eyes on the run down, neglected and frankly horrible house I now call home, I never ever imagined that so many years later, I would still be working on it!

It was a chilly day in February, sleet fell making everything look rather drab and bedraggled, a bit like how I felt as I traipsed round a small town in France looking for a hot meal when everything seemed to be closed against the weather.

I’d ended up looking at a few houses just for something to do before going back to London after a day trip to buy wine in Calais. And in a bizarre twist of fate, I’d fallen head over heels for one of them and bought it! It was very cheap, needed heaps of work “a money pit” my dad said. But, there was something about it that pulled at my heart strings.

14 years later it’s pulled at my purse strings too I can tell you. But, it looks nothing like it did (at least not on the inside). It’s been worth the hard slog. And its been a rollercoaster ride of an adventure, one that I wrote about in my book My Good Life in France: In pursuit of the Rural Dream. So many people  who read the book said that they’d like to see photos. So for you, here are some before and after photos of my little French farmhouse.

The house the house as it is now, not quite finished (top photo), we’re working on shutters and making it look pretty! This is the house as it was, the day I bought it:

The sitting room before. It was a dingy room, the orange wood panelled walls sucked any light out of the room, it was freezing cold and not at all pleasant:

and the sitting room after, full of my bits and pieces, I’m definitely not a minimalist style person:

The Kitchen the day I first saw it. That’s my dad announcing that the walls were damp, the wood had wood worm, dry rot and damp rot! “This house is not fit to live in” he said.

and after, as you can see, we added a small extension where the window was:

The dining room before (and yes I’m wondering what I saw in this place too). I remember when we entered the house and came into this room, my feet squelched on the floor because it was damp. The walls were a horrible mix of concrete block and chalk blocks but I thought the beams were lovely!

and after, it’s now the first room you enter when you come into the house. This is where neighbours come in for a cup of coffee or a glass of wine. On cold days we light the wood fire and chill!

We did all the building work ourselves. We did courses and YouTube tutorials and much was by trial and error. We salvaged wood and made cupboards from scratch. We toiled on the house day and often night. Someone asked me if I’d do it again. I’d have to think about it a bit. It’s been mostly fun and awful at times. Things have gone wrong, still do go wrong. We’ve had burst pipes and broken fingers, we’ve argued over the decor, we’ve worked in the freezing cold when our fingers turned blue but we had to get things done. We’ve laughed a lot, we’ve learned a lot and we’re still learning (and laughing). And yes, I’d do it all again at the drop of a hat!

If you want to know more, you can get my book My Good Life in France: In Pursuit of the Rural Dream on Amazon UK, Amazon US in fact Amazon everywhere, it’s also in good book shops and online outlets such as Barnes and Noble it’s also an audio book and in big print!

The post My Good Life in France in pursuit of the rural dream house! appeared first on The Good Life France.

I bought a wreck of a farm house in France. Dirt floors, corrugated iron doors, holes in the roof, rising damp, descending damp… you name it, this house had a lot of issues.

I wasn’t daunted, I knew it had potential. I had dreamed about doing an old French house renovation for years.

After a rather sticky time sorting out planning permission, it was finally time to start renovating the end room. I’d spent a whole year of going back and forth to the Town Hall and the DDE (Departmental Direction of Equipment who grant planning in my area) on my few days a month in France (I was working in London) only to receive rejection after I’d done everything they’d asked. The mayor’s assistant whispered to me that I should get an architect to apply on my behalf – I did and it turned out that roughly half of my house wasn’t even registered on the official documents which had caused the confusion. Drawings were resubmitted and 5 days later – permission was granted!

One of the things we requested planning for was to rebuild a room at one end of the house. There was an end wall, joined to the main house by a dilapidated plastic roof – open at both ends with ivy growing over and in it. Although it showed on the plans as a habitable space – the only inhabitants willing to rough it were the local wild cats and some brave birds.

We somehow got it into our heads that we’d like a gym. Quite why I don’t know. With 21 rooms to completely rebuild and decorate, lots of structural work including new builds, new roofs, an acre of land to tame – we didn’t really need any more exercise. But, we figured, the French house is miles from civilisation, we’re never going to be able to get to a gym let alone afford to join one when we finally finish renovating so that’s what we went with. The gym was to be opposite the posh spa we had planned for the pig shed!

We started by digging out the dirt floor to level it and then mixed several tons of concrete to form a new solid floor. In all these jobs, the OH (other half) is the guv’nor and I am the gofer (I go fer this and go fer that). That means that I have to fetch and carry the tools, level the concrete off, hold things in place without moving even if a spider is crawling towards me – I often fail this part of the job. One of the other jobs I have to do is fetch and stack the breeze blocks that are commonly used to build walls here in this part of France. They’re heavy.

The first day of building the end walls I almost dropped one of the breeze blocks, caught it in mid-air and managed to break a finger. Some women would wail about breaking a finger nail so I think I was justified in having a bit of a sniffle but I was told to bind a lolly stick to my floppy finger and get on with it.

We built the two end walls, installed doors and windows, put on a new roof, insulated, boarded, plastered, painted, laid a new wooden floor and hung mirrors and pictures. Gym equipment was bought out of storage, dusted off and set up and it looked like the most perfect gym.

After all that work you’d think I’d be as fit as a flea wouldn’t you. No such thing, my first real work out in the gym, I stuck on “Eye of the Tiger” (the Rocky theme Music), took a deep breath, bent down to pick up and dumb bell and pulled a muscle in my back – I couldn’t use the gym for months!

A bientôt
Janine

The post Old French house renovation | The Gym appeared first on The Good Life France.

When I bought the old French farmhouse it wasn’t the hall that sold it to me that’s for sure!

A horrible dark, damp and smelly room consisting of breeze block and chalk block walls and a rather unattractive tiled floor which had been covered with ugly carpet.

There was a 40cm high step into the kitchen and the door way was very low – you had to climb up to the step and then crouch down to get under the door frame. As I am very short the climb was hard but I never hit my head. The OH is very tall so he simply high stepped it – and promptly hit his head every time.

A boxed off entry to the front door made from bits of old wood was hung with enormous and thick spiders webs interspersed with peeling, random pieces of ancient wall paper.

There was a small, bricked up room to one side which was termed a “utility room” on the estate agents particulars. No ordinary utility room this, it came complete with an open pipe to the outside which let the cold air in along with all manner of hideous insects and small creatures. The OH hung an old basket hung over the end to try to stop the critters getting by but they just knocked it off with a Gallic shrug no doubt and let themselves in.

A tiny windy staircase built for Hobbits led to the next level and was completely unsafe. The steps were uneven, very narrow and steep and led up to a wooden landing – everyone who attempted to climb them found them unpleasant and dangerous – the OH fell up them once and hit his head at the top on a beam. He had a neat cut right across the top of his head – for ages afterwards he looked like a human money box.

The saving grace in the hall was the huge beam which ran the width of the room with smaller beams coming off of it. It was so bowed it looked like an enormous boomerang but the beams are very old and were really the only thing that were worth retaining in the whole sorry mess.

When it was time to renovate this area, we had no choice but to gut the whole room

We took down the wall that separated the hall from the living room – it was in the wrong place, it was badly constructed, the doors were in the wrong place – it was easier to just take it out and start again.

The front door was in the wrong place – the path to the front gate was to the left of it so that had to come out and where the door had been became a window and we bricked up the bottom half. The doorway was moved to the centre of the hall where previously a window had stood. I cannot tell you how much fun it wasn’t to have ten tons of dust cover everything from cutting out a new doorway.

We replaced the windows and doors with new ones – this was a big bone of contention. I wanted to keep the old ones and restore them but the OH (who is a builder and Guv’nor when it comes to this stuff) said we had to have new if we were to keep the drafts out. This was enough to win me over – the house was very cold in the winter as there were so many holes in the roof and the walls and round the old single glazed windows, and I knew he was right even if it wasn’t aesthetically as pleasing.

Our first winter in this house left me in tears and wanting to go back to London. We would sit and read with two oil fires and a wood fire in the room, covered in blankets, and still have frosty breath – you know when you breathe out and the air is so cold you make patterns! The bed sheets would be damp every night despite the dehumidifier going 24 hours a day; condensation ran down the walls and mould formed on almost everything – we felt permanently cold. I knew that making the house damp and draft proof and warm was a priority.

Our first job in the hall was to build a new fireplace – we decided to locate it in the centre of two rooms – between the hall and the front room – a double sided wood burner which would heat the whole of the downstairs. It took several weeks to do as it involved building a brick fireplace and hearth – in which we set my two little stone lions from Lassco, the salvage yard in London. I’d had them stored for years waiting for somewhere for them to go and they looked perfect either side of the brick hearth in what would be the front room! Then we installed the huge wood burning fire and a stainless steel, double skin chimney up through the centre of the house – we used that style because its safer, cleaner and fumes are trapped inside.

When it was eventually finished, we lit that first fire and it felt like all my Christmases had come at once.

But it was still only the start of our renovation odyssey, the next job was to make a stair case – with salvaged wood that Winston Churchill once walked on!

A bientôt
Janine

The post Renovation in France: Hall of the old French farmhouse appeared first on The Good Life France.

After the external structural work was begun (roof tiles rain down) and the rebuilding was finished (a phoenix arises from the rubble) – it was time to work inside the pig pen.

The OH who is the Gov’nor when it comes to building, instructed me, the apprentice, to do the painting of the horrible black, sticky, smelly anti-damp paint on the breeze block walls before we went any further.

By now I was used to pulling the pallet truck with the hot tub on it which was in the middle of the room. As you may recall we had to put it in the room before we built the last wall as it was way too big to fit in through a door or window.

Painting with anti-damp liquid is a horrible job, it smells vile, clogs up the paint brush and is physically difficult to get off the brush and onto the surface.

After that we got on with stud walls, insulating – and I can’t stress how much we’ve learned how important it is to insulate as much as possible when you’re renovating these old French properties. We boarded the walls and ceiling and then plastered. By now we had split the room into two halves – one for the hot tub, the other for a sparring area for the OH who is a boxer and for another great e-bay bargain I’d found – a sauna!

The end of the first room to be renovated was in sight – it had taken months. The last bit of plastering done we heaved a sigh of relief and tried to pull the hot tub into place – the OH fell backwards and straight into the wall where he promptly made an enormous derrière sized hole.

I can’t tell you we laughed it off – we didn’t.

After we had replastered, our neighbours Aris who is Greek and Katherine who is Australian helped us to manoeuvre the hot tub and this time it went to plan.

We painted, laid the floor and unwrapped the hot tub.

What a moment it was – we were so thrilled. After all the hard work we finally were able to have a bit of luxury we thought…

We’d bought the hot tub to France from the UK on the back of our old trailer, it had been stored for 3 years in a shed and then the best part of a year in the pig pen while we were renovating around it – we had no idea if it would even work, the lights came on when we plugged it in but we could only really know once it was filled with water.

We ran a hose pipe into the tub and after several hours it was full. We turned it on – soft coloured lights came on under water, bubbles came out  of holes – we were ecstatic.

However bubbles weren’t the only thing that came out – water did too, from underneath the hot tub. Not only that – the water didn’t heat up at all.

The chances of getting a hot tub engineer to this remote part of France for a reasonable price was not an option. We had to figure it out for ourselves – the company I’d bought the hot tub from had gone out of business (that’s why I’d got it so cheap in the first place – definitely a lesson for me there).

When you take on a big renovation project in France you learn to be pragmatic and determined. We scoured the internet and figured out we had a broken pipe and a broken pump. We managed to track down replacements from other models that looked similar – it took several months.

Finally, we had the bits, the OH went out to the pig pen/spa and told me to stay away until he’d finished.

Several hours later, he returned to the house triumphant, took me by the hand and led me to the prize – a bubbling, warm watered tub, in a dry floored, sparkling clean room.

I can tell you I stayed in that tub until my skin was so wrinkled I looked like an alien!

A bientôt

Janine

The post The Pig Shed becomes a posh spa appeared first on The Good Life France.

Having removed the roof from the old pig shed (and survived being knocked out by a roof  tile dropped on my head) – we now had an empty three walled shell.

It was time to move the hot tub in!

Yep – the pig shed was earmarked for an Italian hot tub bargain that I had got from a company that was selling off stock. It had been covered in bubble wrap and a giant tarpaulin for three years in the shed and weighed an absolute ton.

We managed to get it onto a hand pallet truck (don’t ask, we have so much stuff in our house) and wheel it down the garden into the building. It had to go in at this stage as once the last wall was up there would be no way to get it in through the door or windows. I honestly don’t know how we managed between the two of us but we did – we pulled and pushed that trolley with the hot tub balanced precariously down a 100 metre grass hill that was the front garden and into the building.

After that we built a new wall with holes for a door and windows, repaired the existing walls, laid a concrete floor and rebuilt the roof. We had to keep moving the hot tub from one place to another and work round it – it wasn’t easy.

The OH is a builder and carpenter and knows what he is doing. I on the other hand know nothing of building and renovation and what I am taught I seem to forget instantly – causing the OH to shout at me, the lowly apprentice. I dread to think what the French neighbours must think of all our yelling at times. This usually occurs when I am told to get a tool and get the wrong tool – this happens a lot. I am called names and sent back until I get it right. Being an apprentice labourer is not all fun.

Putting the roof back on involved the OH making the gable ends down on the ground and then us having to haul them up to the top of the walls – they were big and very heavy.

One of my (many) phobias is heights.

After a bit of coaxing, followed by an instruction to “bloody well man up”, I mounted the ladder to the top of the wall where I was to pull the heavy wooden gable ends up while the OH lifted them.

How we don’t both have hernias is something I will never understand.

We finally, after much heavy breathing, grunting (not in a good way) and swearing, got the first gable resting on the top of the wall. My job was to stand and hold it while the OH bolted it down. I felt sick and dizzy standing up there holding this huge wooden frame that weighed more than me and was taller than me. Pierre the farmer went by on his tractor and laughed out loud at the latest antics of the mad English pair.

By the end of the day we had the gable ends up and secure. By the end of the week we had the roof tiled.

It was time to do the internal work – electrics, stud wall, insulate, stud ceiling, plaster board, plaster, paint, lay wood floor. All the time the hot tub had to be moved about, still on the palate truck, in its bubble wrap. We had no idea if it would even work after three years being in storage. We’d unwapped it and tested that it turned on – the lights came on, but it couldn’t be fully tested without being filled with water – we just had to hope for the best but I’m sure you know what happened next…

The pig pen reborn.

A bientôt, Janine

The post Renovating in France | A phoenix emerges from the rubble appeared first on The Good Life France.

We (that is me and the Other Half) decided that we would get the structural work done on this old French house before we did any of the internal works and that included some of the out buildings.

We started by renovating the barns which came with the house – one of which is in the courtyard to the front of the house – mostly because we were worried that it would fall down – into the road on the other side. We think it was once a pig shed.

The building had walls to three sides, a tiled roof and was held up with various bits of wood. It was filled with coal, ashes from decades of wood fires that had just been chucked on the floor – a dirt floor on different levels. There was also a huge amount of general rubbish that previous owners couldn’t be bothered to put out for the dustbin collection (all of 5 metres away).The building itself was about 3 metres wide and 10 metres long – a very unaccommodating shape for most uses but we knew exactly what we wanted to do with it!

We had our work cut out for us, first we had to strip the building back to basics which meant taking the roof off completely.

The roof tiles are really old – they’re much bigger than modern tiles and we didn’t want to change the appearance of the house too much so we decided to take them down really carefully for me to clean and then we would reuse them.

This meant the OH standing up on the roof and dropping the tiles down to me to catch and stack.

This went well for a while, we got a rhythm going – I’d put my arms up, the OH would drop a hefty tile down, I’d clutch at it and put it on the steadily growing pile.

Until, I looked up to catch a tile and saw an enormous spider swinging from it.

I don’t like spiders – at all. I inherited a phobia from my Dad. He was once taking part in a very serious Bridge competition with international Masters. They were put up in a hotel. He saw a spider in his room and ran naked (he was in bed) into the hall calling for security. So, my spider fear I hope you agree is understandable if ridiculous.

My immediate reaction was to cover my eyes – not sure why really – so I couldn’t see the spider I suppose.

The OH wasn’t looking – on account of us having a rhythm.

I stood there and the tile dropped right onto the centre of my uncovered head.

I dropped to the floor like a stone I am told.

When I came to the OH had a very concerned look on his face but when we established that I just had a big bruise, a bit of a cut and was fine he found the whole thing hilarious – he doesn’t put up with my phobias and told me to man up.

What do you call a woman with a tile on her head: Roof (Ruth for my non English speaking friends who may not get the joke!)

I was ordered to get back to work and tile dropping began again – this time with me wearing my hard hat.

Next – a phoenix emerges from the rubble…

A bientôt,

Janine

The post Renovating in France | Roof tiles rain down from the sky appeared first on The Good Life France.

My French home renovation reminiscences – as renovation continues unabated on this old farm house in Pas-de-Calais, northern France, I was remembering how it was when I first bought it and wondering why on earth we did it?

At the beginning of this project I made a huge list of jobs that needed to be done and then I broke it down to see what equipment we needed and what supplies were required. I’m an ex project manager so I can’t help myself! Then I looked at dependencies – for instance we couldn’t move to a room upstairs in the house – because there were no stairs!  Well, there was a stair case but it was tiny and twisted, like it had been built for pixies!  I could manage it but it wasn’t safe and the OH had to bend double to get up it. At the top beams were precariously positioned so that to get to the floor you had to climb over or under a beam.  The OH once slipped at the top of the stairs and cut his head on a beam which left a 3 inch gash right across the front of his head.  For about a month afterwards he looked like a walking money box!

Apart from dependencies there were also priorities to list – number one being we needed a bathroom and loo.  The previous occupants had simply plumbed in a free standing shower unit – at the top of the stairs! It was on the “landing” – an area upstairs which had a floor (not all of the upstairs had a floor) that was relatively stable. There was a bare bulb hanging out of the wall and the walls and ceiling were lined with ply wood to keep the worst of the elements out.  This was critical as in some places on the roof we could see outside as there were great gaping holes where tiles were missing or bad renovation work had simply opened up huge holes and been left.  Anyway, you can imagine my joy at realising that any stay at this old house would involve showering in that “room”.  The loo was in a “box” off the kitchen. I say box as the owners had simply put up a wall and door in the corner and plumbed a loo with a pipe to the septic tank – it was unspeakably revolting and condensation ran down the walls and formed pools of grimy water on the floor – a hideous off white tiled affair.

Some parts of the house had a corrugated plastic or metal roof, rusted, hole-ridden and ineffective roof coverings at best.  Some walls had fallen down, some windows were missing, an acro prop was holding one end of the house up where someone had cut an opening in the end wall – and and then built more house on the other side of the gap! My  Dad had told me I was wasting my money, it was beyond redemption.

The OH and I spent all of our holidays and at least one weekend every month at the house. We tried to work through the jobs but with an acre of land most of our weekends were taken up with just cutting the grass and trying to control the hedges, trees and weeds!  When we could do real work, we concentrated on laying concrete floors – a lot of the rooms had earth floors still and there’s not much point in doing any nice decorating when you don’t have a floor (or walls, a roof, windows…).

You’re probably wondering why on earth I bought this house aren’t you?  Believe me over the last ten years or so that I’ve had it, I have asked myself that plenty of times!

There were though many reasons that I fell in love with this ruined old place. First and foremost I wanted to be able to relish the French way of life. I’d lived in London my whole life and wanted to be able to enjoy fresh air and country living and though I could get that in the UK – it would have meant working at my corporate job until I dropped.

When I saw the house I had an instant connection, a feeling that this house was meant to be mine. I seriously didn’t consider the disgusting loo, the dodgy stair case, the fact that there was only one wood fire to heat five enormous rooms downstairs and no heating at all upstairs.  I didn’t even think about having to rebuild seven rooms downstairs that were missing walls and/or roofs and worry about how we’d manage.

I saw an ancient old building, an authentic French farmhouse that had not been loved for a long time that had the potential to be a beautiful home. I loved the old beams everywhere, the huge garden, the flint stone walls in the older part of the house, the tranquility of the village.

Of course I had rose coloured glasses on!  I should have thought about it more but if I had it would have scared me too much and I wouldn’t have done it and then we wouldn’t have this house that is just now starting to be home. I read back now through my old notes and diaries and despite the fact that here we are – still plastering, laying floors and building after several years we’ve come an awful long way.

The post My French Home Renovation reminiscences! appeared first on The Good Life France.

As a project manager in a previous life I am inclined towards being organised. The Other Half – despite having been in several jobs that have required it – is not remotely organised. This can be a bone of contention when it comes to the work schedule in our French farmhouse – and that is putting it lightly.

In our approach to this massive renovation job in France – I favour lists, target dates, milestones and tick boxes – he likes to be creative, a free spirit, laissez-faire.

When we first started to renovate the house, we tried it my way. I made lists, created tables of jobs with dates for completion and dependencies. For instance we couldn’t install a bathroom until the septic tank was dealt with, we couldn’t set up the tools we needed to do the work until a floor was laid in the workshop – that sort of thing. He thought I was being bossy and controlling. He does not take well to instruction or, frankly, suggestions.

So, we tried it his way. We would buy materials – get them home and on occasion store them for weeks, months, years in some cases when it became apparent that we couldn’t progress some jobs – until others were done.

Eventually we worked it out – after a fair amount of arguments and trial and error. I have my huge book of work schedules, very detailed, every job that needs doing on a room by room basis. I release the work in stages onto smaller worksheets and try not to be bossy and order things to be done! I do all the targets, dependencies, timelines etc quietly and in private and I don’t bother him with them – I don’t use any fancy online tools that he can’t use. I use simple excel and it works perfectly.

I also act as chief ‘gofer’ – go-fer this and go-fer that. He is firmly The Guvnor when it comes to renovation work and when we’re in building work mode – I don’t argue, demand or suggest anything – we do it his way! That is unless I feel very strongly about something… he has a tendency to want everything tidy and straight, I think that there should be some acceptance of the fact that parts of the house are 400 years old, it used to be an animal shelter and we should accept and acknowledge its quirks. To be fair, he usually gives in as I can argue my case til the cows come home (in the field at the bottom of the garden!).

I fetch and carry his tools, breeze blocks, wheelbarrow loads of sand – whatever is needed. I tamp down the concrete floors while he mixes and wheels the heavy loads about; I paint the walls and ceiling – not the Guvnor’s favourite job, in fact he hates it but I actually enjoy painting. I think its probably a legacy of going to work with my dad when I was three years old – he used to paint advertisement boards. I am also chief tea maker and I make lots of it – we get through about 120 teabags a week between two of us. I get to decide the look for the house.

I choose  all the colours, I take pictures from magazines and books and show him what I want – whether it’s a look for a room, a style of cupboard, a table or desk – whatever. If its furniture – he can pretty much replicate whatever I show him and often comes up with new ideas to enhance pieces.

My main influences are Nina Campbell and Terrance Conran. Mr Conran had a home in France and I came across some photographs of it in an old book years ago, I’ve kept the book and used to hanker after a gorgeous kitchen like his – I love his country style approach but with flair. Nina’s style is very English and very chic. Years ago I worked for a millionaire in Mayfair and one of my jobs was to manage a project with the designers and decorators who were doing up his Mount Street flat. Nina designed the curtain fabric – it was magnificent. I have all of her books and read them over and over trying to absorb some of her know-how and flair. I scour ebay and the website for her fabric at a price I can afford and it takes a while but I have managed to purchase some which I will make into curtains and cushions.

The OH is very talented and skilful and almost completely self-taught when it comes to renovation. He is also determined that we carry out every single piece of renovation and restoration ourselves, this includes such diverse requirements as rewiring an old chandelier that hasn’t been used since pre World War II.

Before we came to France he undertook several building courses and qualified in all of them – plumbing, plastering, bricklaying, electrical installation, roofing and rendering so that he would be able to do all the work without help. He was already a qualified carpenter but he took specialist courses in cabinetry and routing so that he could build the armoires and pantry cupboards I like the look of.

We still have a long way to go but I really believe we are actually making some progress…

The post Renovating the old French farmhouse – the start appeared first on The Good Life France.

This is the Short List table I put together for the renovation work we needed to do to our house, there’s a much longer list – in fact its a book!  In it I laid out each job that was needed to be done, any dependencies, what special materials we needed and the approximate time to complete.

The timeline estimates soon went out the window when it became apparent that nothing was as easy as we thought it would be and lots of things go wrong when you least expect it. Getting started also meant working out how to plan and carry out required actions.

The post Renovating the old French farmhouse appeared first on The Good Life France.

When I found the house of my dreams in Pas-de-Calais, France, I took my Dad to see it – his immediate reaction was that it ought to be knocked down because it was in such a state and in his opinion dangerous.  He walked around the rooms with a pen knife stabbing it into old beams saying “see that, that’s woodworm” or “see that, that’s rotten” and other such comforting things.

The house is what the French call a longère – literally a long building and almost always of a rural nature such as a farmhouse as this one is.  One end of the house is clearly very old with what we call wattle and daub walls – otherwise known as hay and mud (torchis in French), some of the beams are huge and quite beautiful (to me).  The other end is a modern add on with grey breeze block bare walls.

These are my notes from my visit: Some of the rooms have earth floors some have concrete and tile floors.  There is an element of plaster boarding in some rooms, others have horrible orange coloured tongue and groove wood covering up something awful no doubt, some are covered in garish coloured linoleum but most are bare breeze block or covered in dried mud which seems to have been used as some sort of insulation.

The loo is vile – it’s even worse than the outdoor one I remember as a kid in our Victorian house in the Old Kent Road in London and that’s saying something.  My feet stick to the dirty kitchen floor as I walk through, bits of ancient wallpaper hang from some parts of walls – it’s clearly been put up on bare breeze block.  The house is freezing cold despite a huge and ugly wood fire in the corner; I shudder to think what is behind all that wood covering the ceiling and the walls.

There are windows which are ancient and were probably used on another building before they were transplanted into this one as they don’t fit properly, the front door has a huge gap all the way round which lets in the cold air and rain and the back door of the house is actually just a large sheet of corrugated metal – big enough to drive a tractor in.

I look around and think my Dad’s got a point but I am still in love with the idea of this house which is set in a tiny isolated village in the North of France.  It’s an hour to the Eurotunnel station and if need be I can get home to Dad in three hours.  Not only that, I can just about afford it if the English owners will drop the price a little and I give up my gym membership and any other luxuries and carry on working like a mad woman.

We traipse up the incredibly narrow and twisting stairs and I hope that none of us have an accident or I’ll never hear the end of it.  There is a bathroom which has to be seen to be believed – the walls are chipboard, there is a bare bulb hanging out of the wall, the floor is chipboard and there is a filthy shower unit in a corner – it is horrible.

Going along the upper floor the length of the house it just gets worse, the floor sags – an indication that some of the beams are not holding the floor up properly; the floor moves as we walk across it and I don’t feel safe, there are massive spiders webs everywhere, you have to climb over and under beams to get into the rooms, it’s all on different levels.

It’s a mess – I haven’t even mentioned the outbuildings which are clearly falling down.  It would be a huge challenge to renovate, it is probably a money pit … and yet, I am strangely drawn to this place and I say to Dad “I expect you’re right, it should be demolished but I’m going to buy it and give it a go”.

A week later my offer is accepted and I was the new owner of a French farmhouse in the middle of nowhere.

The post My French House | Buying an old farmhouse appeared first on The Good Life France.