Saturday 23 March 2013

Renovation Project - I am not felicity Kendal!!!!!!!!


Renovation Project - I am not felicity Kendal!!!!!!!!

I wake up and realise I am not Felicity Kendal, I have been worrying about the sheep all night, the weather was dreadful and I wonder if we should bring them into the barn. We’ve only had them one night and I already want to bring them into the house! But as John points out they are a breed from a small Island just off Brittany and are used to the weather and actually prefer the cold.


Today was to be spent continuing with the bathroom, but after a while John decided he needed to install the new heating system. 


If it is completed now it will all be able to be hidden away with in the new wall in the bathroom. It really is much easier to be able to install systems in a house which is not finished, if we had found this system any later it would’ve meant taking down walls or putting up additional boxing in, this way is quicker and less messy (though to be honest mess is the least of our worries as each day I am sweeping up a couple of dust pan’s full of dust and debris from the living room floor!)

We have fun (this is said very ironically!) putting the system in place. John is of the mindset that you don’t need to read instructions and I am so anal that instructions are to be followed to the last letter, this causes some friction as I am typing the instructions into Google translate and John is just getting on with it. This leads to some rather harsh words from both sides.

As I point out what is the point in having instructions if you are not going to read them and John points out that he can see all the measurements and understands the diagrams, plus it is common sense, what he doesn’t point out till we are almost finished is that he has done something very similar before!!!!!!!!

By adding this aspect to the hot air heating system it will compliment what we have already put in place and means that we do not have to buy an insert fire and build a whole new fire place, We get to keep the wood burner that we love and the open fire place, only a small part will need to be closed in when we replaster the wall, so once we have finished with all the shouting, we have the new system installed, we can’t wait to try it out later.



I have to admit that at times I do wish we had just installed central heating or economy 7 storage heaters, as in France you can get cheap rate night time electric, but we have yet to find storage heaters here, they are much easier to find in the UK from places such as About Heating The central heating is much more costly in France as the price of oil has gone up so much and the cost of installing a full central heating system was not in our budget, but now I am just moaning, we don’t live in the UK, we live here and once it is all in place and we have more insulation the house will be toasty throughout.

After dinner I have a lovely relaxing bath in the warm bathroom, so yes what we have chosen works well in the rooms that are almost finished, it is only in the morning when I am catching up on my writing that I realise I seem to be having baths on Friday nights, I feel like a small child with the Sunday night bath for school ritual. I think back to what used to be the highlight of a Friday night and it was quite different to a bath, a book and a glass of wine, but to tell you the truth, I wouldn’t swap it, ever!

6 comments:

  1. It's obviously a man thing I'm a big fan of following the instructions doubt Steve would though!!!

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    1. Yes I think it is definitely a man thing, we visited friends here yesterday and had the same conversation!

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  2. we have had a wood burner for the last 30 years and have installed one within our house here in Huelgoat during the last year, I can't recommend them highly enough

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    1. Hi Michael

      totally agree, a wood burner is fantastic, not only gives heat but really improves the look of the room

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  3. Was the original system so rotten you couldn't keep it, minus the ancient oil-fired boiler? Based on your descriptions of the shoddy 1960s work you uncovered it probably was I guess :-)

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    1. Hi Ragnar, the old system was completely unusable, so we had decided to go for electric heating which is very popular in france, this system just complements the electric heaters

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