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bathroom ‘furniture’ – shower unit, shower head, sink, tap, wall panels and more white fl oor tiles. My chatty plumber would show up most days between 8am and 9am. Some days he didn’t show up at all, citing other commitments. Some days he’d hang around until the early evening. His cell phone rang constantly, interrupting his work fl ow, and he regularly took three-hour lunches. My air conditioning ran all day long... The job took him three


weeks. The cost, €3,000. While I was very pleased with the fi nal result, it took a lot of my time and patience and could have been done in six days.


Gillie's holiday home is in the hills above the Riviera coast


Recipe for success


Following a slow bathroom renovation, Gillie Hutchinson tries a diff erent tack for the transformation of her kitchen


R


en-o-vate: to restore to good condition; to create a sense of wellbeing in a


familiar, personal space. This is something we can all relate to in current times. Renovations can be daunting and often expensive, yet they can be extremely satisfying and give your home a new lease of life which is certainly cheaper than moving. My fi rst foray into


renovation at my holiday home on the Côte d’Azur began in the summer of 2021


during a brief period of relaxed Covid travel restrictions. After 32 years, the ‘bijou’ bathroom was crying out to be modernised. I was determined to create more space by hauling out the giant peach bathtub and installing a corner shower. Of course, renovations


of a small kind can still feel like a major undertaking, the disruption was the same as if it was an entire French farmhouse – the huge amounts of dust from drilled concrete fl ooring seeps into every nook and cranny; the carnage of


shattered tiles; the noise levels, not to mention the anxiety that a water pipe may burst at any moment. I hired a freelance plumber whose fl ier I found in my letterbox. Jean Marc promised to be prompt and reliable. He was aff ordable and he was available immediately. Since my summer sojourn had just begun, I fi gured I’d get the work done and still have time to relax in the Mediterranean sun. So, off we went in Jean


Marc’s white transit van to ‘Castorama’, the local DIY box store, to choose my new


HEART OF THE HOME Bring on the summer of 2022 and my kitchen make- over! This time I went with a professional outfi t rather than an individual, deciding to pay the money to get the best quality and service. I was not disappointed. Schmidt is a nationwide enterprise


“At some point, you have to let go of things to make room for change – and I was doing just that”


that began its life in Germany over 60 years ago. During the war, founder Hubert Schmidt relocated to Alsace, where the factory still fabricates the made-to-measure units for every outlet in France. When I met Monsieur


Gillie has a lovely new bathroom now, but the work took rather longer than she anticipated 68 FRENCH PROPERTY NEWS: March/April 2023


Tartarin, head of the Fréjus branch fi rst opened by his parents in 2007, he explained more about the company: 70% of his business comes from kitchens, of which 50% is for holiday homes or maisons secondaires, which includes owners from UK, Holland, Belgium and Germany. Typical budgets range from €5,000 to €20,000 with an average of 200 contracts per year. Designs can be agreed online


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