They finally moved in just before Christmas 2020, hoisting some of the furniture through the first-floor windows


oor to make better use of the space, turning four bedrooms into three with a main bathroom and an ensuite guest room. John and Julia wanted to restore the original ground oor layout of three main rooms – a kitchen to the left of the entrance hall along with a dining room and sitting room to the right. This meant reinstating walls and doors and turning an archway into a feature bookcase on either side of the double doors between the two main living rooms. They agreed to keep the original fireplace, which sits at an angle across one corner, but then had to wait a year before they could get the chimney swept and certified safe to use for insurance purposes. “However,” Julia says, “the first time we lit the fire, it smelt ery strange and the next thing we knew, the mirror over the fireplace had cracked and we discoered that the heat was coming straight out of four vents in the chimney breast,” said Julia. “Everything around them was melting! After that we blocked up the ents and the fire worked perfectly. With the rooms reinstated, John lay the electric cables


30 www.sbhonline.co.uk


for the underoor heating before screeding over the top and laying new tiles throughout the ground oor. John and Julia bought their kitchen units in the  and John fitted them himself, along with the granite worktops.


Drainage could hae been a big challenge 


there was no toilet in the main bathroom and therefore insufficient drainage at that end of the house, so John used past experience as a drain layer to put in new drains to serve not only the main house but also the gite.


They finally moed in  hoisting some of


the furniture through the first-oor windows – just before Christmas 2020. “Fortunately, the preious owners had fitted a new family bathroom and upgraded the windows, which saved us considerable expense,” said John. With the help of friends from back in the UK,


John refurbished some of the more dilapidated external shutters, but the long-term plan is to replace them all eventually. “When you are working to a budget you have to prioritise,” he said. “Once we reached


may/jun 2023


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