Our Tiny Village House in Provence
This tiny garden of ours has endured quite a lot since we started renovating last December. There’s been so much debris, stones, machinery, and all sorts to the point where we often could barely get in and out! It’s not much to work with, but I think it’s improved enormously. People unashamedly peer over our fence to tell us our little garden is charming all the time. There is still so much that we want to do to this garden, like build a pond. We’ve even started looking into Nymphaea Pygmaea water lilies and how much goldfishes would be ready for when the pond is ready. Still got a while to go before this can happen, but if it best to be prepared. Renovating this garden has been a challenge, but we are proud of how far we’ve come. Here are some images of the garden transformation of our renovation in Provence.
The original garden, photo taken from front door of house. There were various ‘sheds’, one with an enormous oil tank, taking up half of the already minuscule garden, which I eventually wanted to use the space for teak garden furniture UK products.
Starting to remove everything including the odd plastic roof and everything that goes with it. Luckily though, we didn’t have to replace the guttering attached as it was fairly new and just needed a couple repairs! So we got in touch with Clean Pro Gutter Cleaning Tallahassee and they sorted that part for us. We had to rebuild the wall at the back which connected directly to our neighbour’s garden.
Hom Renovation is Messy!
Just a few materials!
The cement mixer, unfortunately, took up quite a bit of space for some time. The local builder for some reason thought our garden was a good place for it. Notice the reclaimed roof tiles.
My poor plant pots in the middle of the chaos of doors, building debris and sacks of sand.
Building a Tiny Roof
One day I got home and Robin had decided to create a little terra-cotta tiled roof over the niche in the back of the garden. At first, I was doubtful… but it ended up being quite cute!
So is he…
Pavé Stones
In truth, Robin made most of the decisions. I would never have thought of using pavé stones. He left a step in the garden as the cement on the back half of the garden was extremely difficult to extract. We also thought that perhaps a change in level would make it look larger. We found these pavé stones on Le Bon Coin or the French version of Gumtree/Kijiji/Craigslist.
Building a Wall and Plastering
That darn cement mixer has re-appeared. Robin has built a wall here facing the street to replace the gate that was there beforehand.
The garden half-plastered. Notice the difference between the new walls and the orange.
Plastering done! Thank goodness for that. We hired workers to do this and they completed it at the absolute last minute before the filming crew arrived. It was quite stressful. The colour of the enduit is more yellow here as it’s still drying. It goes very well with the exposed stone on the outside of the house. And, most importantly, our neighbours approve. Unlike another wall, that was redone down our street this month…
Still drying! But done. Phew. I like the white gravel that is used so much here in Provence. However, it leaves traces when you walk in the house. I want to clean the least amount possible!
The Front of the House
This is looking at our front door when we first bought the house. Grim- isn’t it?
New door, window, and walls! It would have been lovely to have entirely windows to allow for the most light. If we had done that, you would see the sides of appliances in our tiny kitchen. I think I’d rather look at the wall!
Almost…
This is the finished view of our front door and house. We painted the shutters blue and of course I added as many plants as would fit in our tiny garden!
What do you think? Have you had any experiences renovating in a tiny space? My friend told me that he had experience installing a shed from Shedman (https://www.shedman.co.uk/) and it was great fun! Our lives would have been so much easier if we had room to get rid of the debris. I feel like half of the reno was just moving stuff around!
Ah. I think I’m going to sit in my garden now with a glass of wine.
