a Curious Canadian in Provence : photography, art & renovation!
Here are some photos of the full before and after renovation bedroom and bathroom. The difference is just as radical as it is anywhere else in the house. This is officially my favorite room of the house; it’s beautiful and cozy. What do you think?!
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So you’ve bought your fixer-upper in France. The romanticism of Peter Mayle has snared you into the dream (or perhaps my blog?). You’re not a millionaire but you’ve got essentially a ruin of stones to work with. At least that’s a start.
You most likely don’t know anyone. You’ve heard horror stories about local tradesmen. Everything in the DIY stores seems more expensive. You’ll have to be careful about your budget…
We had a budget of only 25,000 euros to completely renovate our tiny house. We were able to accomplish this because we did most of the work ourselves. I have to admit, that Robin is a certified tradesman so this helped enormously. His experience really helped us stay within budget.
If you’re planning on doing the same, here are some tips on how you can spend the least amount of money possible while not compromising on your materials or safety building codes.
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It can be difficult to find stores near you in a foreign country. This is especially true of builder’s merchants in France. Your common knowledge of simple store names just isn’t there. If you’re renovating a house in France, depending on where you’re located, this is where you’ll find your building materials:
Fun Fact: Robin, in addition to offering project management on renovation sites, offers to take his clients to various antique and repurposed material warehouses depending on your needs. Find him on Facebook, Instagram, or renovationprovence.com.
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So we’re still stripping back to try to get to the bare bones of our new tiny house. During the past few days, we’ve gone back upstairs to take down the ceiling that consisted of fake wood made of styrofoam and 2 layers of wonky boards, all the way up to the roof. We’d considered having Ace Roofing Company take a look at it, but for now we’re still confident in our own skills, especially as Robin has also removed the insulation, floorboards and gutted the chimney.
This back wall is slanted at such an angle that our whole house is basically an awkward triangle. The final position of everything is going to be a compromise.
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You’re going to have to brace yourselves for a little hideousness- but we’ve started taking down the wood panels downstairs. The paneling so popular in the 70s is a form of cache misère which basically translates into hiding misery. When our real estate agent told us this- Robin and I nervously laughed. We knew there would invariable be surprises…
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