Property Renovation

Actually Getting Quotes

Now you have a list of builders and tradesmen you need to get them around to inspect the property, and then to give you quotes (known as ‘devis’).

This is often in itself a tricky process. You will often need to ring someone two or three times before they will come to your property to look around. Try flattery - “Madame Vernier suggested I call you because she was so pleased with the work you did for her” or persistence. Read more

Make a List of Recommended Artisans

Before you reach for the local ‘pagesjaunes’ (yellow pages) you need to ask around the neighbourhood. Anyone you know that has lived in the area for a while will have recommendations to offer you, and dire warnings as well. Listen to these recommendations - personal recommendations are the best way to find good workers.

It is often difficult to separate those with a vested interest in their recommendation from those making a genuine personal recommendation based on work they have themselves had done. Read more

Before you start discussing your plans with artisan builders you need to be absolutely clear yourself about your plans. Study them until you are familiar with every detail. Whenever possible you should follow the plans in every detail.

This is not because I think the local planning authorities will demand that your property be demolished because you have put a sink in the wrong place, rather it is because as soon as you allow one change that can escalate into misunderstandings between the different workers involved, disputes, and an uncontrollable increase in your costs. Read more

How much should you pay for a renovation property?

1) try to estimate the cost per square metre of a renovated house in your chosen area, and of roughly the same size as your propsed project - ideally do this for several properties to get an average value per square metre
2) calculate how many square metres your renovated property will have, of internal floor space

3) Using the above estimate how much your renovated property might be worth

4) Deduct the proposed purchase price from this figure Read more

Colombage walls - often known as ‘half-timbered’ walls - consist of wooden uprights / supports, usually about ten centimetres thick, with gaps between these struts about 20 centimetres wide. Historically, these gaps were then filled with some kind of thin wooden structure or thin wooden struts, that join the larger posts together, and on to which torchis (’cob’ in the UK) is placed. This torchis consists of wet clay, with the addition of chopped straw, cow manure or sand according to local practice and local availability.
This torchis, on the outside of the property at least, is then (traditionally) covered with a render, made from lime and sand. Sometimes the wood is also covered over with this render, sometimes it remains visible. You will be familiar with the appearance of a wall like this from old houses in both France and the UK and almost always with an appearance of age and beauty (the header picture of this site shows our cottage with its colombage wall, not visible in the ‘before’ picture, but visible in the ‘after’ photo).

With old houses in France the torchis has often started to fall out of the gaps, and the exposed and unprotected wood has started to suffer from the ravages of the weather and wildlife. So it is necessary to restore the wall.
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Assessing the practicalities of the project

There arenot surprisingly quite a lot of practical considerations, that start only when you have found the property of your dreams. Taking account of these before you purchase the property may well save you time and money in the long run.

Consider again and carefully whether the final, renovated, property will meet your needs. Is there enough room for your children to come and stay? Is ther enough room for a separate office, and does it have ADSL? Will you be able to play the piano in the middle of the night without annoying the neighbours? Will you be too isolated? While the actual questions will depend on your circumstances, it is very easy to get over-excited by certain aspects of a property while ignoring the practicalities. Perhaps it’s easier to find an already renovated castle for sale in France and make do with that!? Read more

Finding an area to live

I will assume that you already have a region of France in mind before thinking about moving. I will assume also that you have visited the area several times, in all seasons of course so you appreciate that France is not non-stop sunshine. You know know that the area will meet your requirements in terms of climate, accessibility (airports and roads) and the facilities available in the area. I assume you haven’t really, but that is how (in theory at least) you should start your search. In reality France is just too large for a working person to explore even a few areas in detail before making this decision.

In recent years, new improved transport links have opened up a lot of France that was previously inaccessible. The low-cost airlines fly to several destinations in France from several UK airports. But if you are buying somewhere ONLY because it now has good links to the UK with a low-cost airline, do bear in mind the possibility that the route may close if it is not profitable in the future. Read more

One of the most attractive features of many of the old houses in France is their exposed beams. If they are dry, they can last for hundreds of years with no particular care and attention. To ensure the continue to be both beautiful and strong, renovation projects usually include a review of the condition of the exposed beams, then some sanding or sandblasting, and removal of decayed wood. This is then followed by wood treatment, to protect against wood-boring insects.

Even if old beams look to be in a bad condition they are usually still very solid on the inside.

It has often been said to me that woodworm and other wood-boring creatures can not eat into the hard centre of the wood, so no real harm will be done. Although this is usually the case it is not a fixed rule. As an example, some old beams are made from a softer wood - poplar, for example, instead of oak. This softer wood is more vulnerable to being eaten right through. Even with old oak beams, I have had cause to cut through a few and on at least one occasion there was certainly some damage right to the centre of the wood. It is very unusual though - possibly because the wood has been damp at some point.
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Like the term ‘kitchen renovation’, ‘bathroom renovation’ is generally a misleading description, because almost all property renovation projects will require the addition of new bathroom(s), rather than an effort to improve one that is already in place. If the ones I have seen are anything to go by, you are more likely to find a faded 1960’s avocado suite than a fine 19th century bathtub.
The intention here isn’t to discuss styles of bathrooms, because there are too many to consider, and plenty of glossy magazines that will help you anyway. Rather, I will focus on the practicalities that you need to consider at an earlier stage in the planning process.
The first thing to consider with bathrooms is where to put them. The farmhouse we renovated had a toilet and a shower in a 1950’s ground floor extension, and no bathroom or toilet facilities anywhere else. This is not consistent with best modern practice.
En-suite bathrooms are often required, and usually somewhere upstairs…What we did, and may often be the best solution, is to lose a bedroom somewhere centrally placed and to convert it into one or two bathrooms. This enabled us to have a family bathroom and an en-suite shower-room in what had been previously been a bedroom. It also has the significant benefit of keeping the plumbing work restricted to one section of the house, reducing costs and minimising disruption.
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When you are planning a barn renovation there are some special considerations that do not arise with a house based project. Some of these have been already discussed in their specific sections, so here I will give an overview of the main things to be considered.

Space

The biggest challenge of planning a barn renovation, is knowing how to use the space available to its best advantage.

Often an unconverted barn will have several metres of head-room, and a floor area of perhaps 120-250 square metres. That is a lot of space, and there are two fundamentally different approaches that are taken to using it.

The first approach aims to build more or less a conventional house within the barn shell; and the second aims to keep the barn ‘as a barn’. There is inevitably a bit of the two approaches in any barn renovation, a middle path that attempts to combine the best of both options. In practice you inevitably move towards one or the other of the two possibilities. You will ned to know at the outset what you are intending.
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