Property renovation in France
The property renovation process is both interesting and rewarding. When you watch a derelict house turning into your dream home, or a barn turning into a habitable barn conversion, it is an incredible experience. But the experience can come at a price, with some very stressful moments. The aim of the france renovation website is to enable you to keep the pleasure and satisfaction, while keeping the problems to a mimimum with a bit of forward plannng.
Although based around our experiences in France, many of the renovation aspects discussed are equally valid in other countries.
There are three main sections to the site:
1)This provides information about the general aspects of any renovation project, such as finding a property, having a survey done, financing the renovation etc. These items are listed towards the top of the menu.
2) The second section contains ‘renovation factsheets’ – these contain a great deal of information about the more specific areas of work involved. These include for example repairing a stone wall using traditional materials, laying a quarry tile floor etc.
3) In ‘Real life projects’ we then refer to a couple of actual renovation projects in France, to see what renovating a property is like in the real world.Buying a property for renovation in France (or anywhere else) is an exciting thing to do. So is the project itself. But it is also quite a major undertaking. Don’t let this site deter you from going ahead with your own project, that is not at all the intention, although you may get that impression sometimes. The intention is simply to make the renovation process more pleasant and less stressful for you.
Note: we have a new forum at France property renovation forum where you are welcome to ask questions.
…but if you are planning a swimming pool, before you dive-in you might like to take a look at this note about an experience with Euro piscine pools
We are also pleased to announce that on our partner site we now have a full properties for sale in France listing service, so you can read all about renovations here then go off and buy a property – see Property to buy in France
Other
Other suggestions: If you are interested in renovating property that you can rent out as gites see also Buying and running French gites. We welcome your feedback and suggestions if you have a property renovation story to tell. If you need to rent a van or large car to transport all your building materials around, or while you search for your ideal house, check car hire France on our parent site.
2 Comments so far
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In France is it possible to completely safegaurd against cost overruns ?
Thank You.
Rob
Well, probably not – as you will discover there are problems that can come to light that no-one envisaged eg this spring a lot of properties around here had a damp problem, because the water table had risen. But quotes from workers are usually ‘fixed’ and any additional costs will need to be agreed first. The key is to be compleetly clear about what the devis includes, and to be sure it covers everything necessary. In our barn we had the walls sorted out, and the roof, but it never occurred to me that the 20 cm gap between the walls and the new roof was not covered by either of these quotes!