Dordogne Retreat - a farmhouse tale

When we bought the house the roof was in a lot better shape than others we had seen but not great. We had hoped to make repairs, rather than replace it.

Perhaps we were being a bit optimistic, especially when looking at the chimney:

In the end we decided that a total replacement (keeping just the A-frames) was the best approach. The pool got put back a year or two and we got 2 quotes, one from a local French roofer (recommended by a neighbour) and the other from an English builder. The quotes were within a few thousand Euro of each other and we decided to go with the higher quote from the French roofer as we felt he had been working on these roofs for 25 plus years!

The work should have started on 16 Jan so we called on the Tuesday evening and 'A problem', we were told. Expecting some lame story we were surprised, and in fact pleased, with the ‘problem’.

Turns out the lorry delivering all the new materials could not get down the track (chemin) to the house. So without the materials they couldn’t do the work.

In France the local mayor has the responsibility to maintain all these tracks. The roofer (apparently a friend of the mayor) called the mayor, who came and inspected and said the problems (poor surface and trees growing into the track) would be fixed within the week - and they were!

So work started and on 26 January we received this photo to prove it:

I visited a few days later and took the following two pictures:

In the photo above you can see the 'space age' insulation we had fitted. This is equivalent to 25cm of fibreglass insulation! The underside of the roof will be fitted with plasterboard with 40cm of insulation. So the roof will be tiles / air gaps / insulation / air gap / insulation.

The a week or so later the roofer emailed a few more:

At the beginning of March Sue and I went out for another visit and while the roof should have been finished due to the weather it was delayed but good progress had been made:

Then we had confirmation at the end of March that it was finished!

On April 4th we arrived for a 10 day visit and were very pleased with the result:

Apart from the light being let in by the 8 Velux windows (3 bedrooms and 2 baths to follow) the other big difference was to the temperature of the house - it was much warmer and the heat retention was significantly better than before. We had frosts most nights but the house (with no central heating) didn't drop below 15 degrees and quickly warmed up to 20 with the electric heaters switched on and to 25 with the woodburner in full swing!

We are very please with the results.

A couple of weeks ago we received the final 'bill' from the roofer, a sure sign that the roof had been finished after a very wet few months. A 4 - 6 week job that started in mid January was finished at the end of March, so despite the weather only a few weeks late.

Most importantly here are the results:

... despite the heavy rain and snow!

We visited the house again last weekend and were pleased with the progress despite many days lost to rain:

While there we also decided to remove more of the plaster behind the woodburner! We were wondering what we would find but were delighted with the exposed stonework. Now all we need to do is clear out a lot of the old mortar and repoint it!

Slowly we seeem to be making progress, another 8 or 9 years should see it finished!

We also managed to also visit the local dump (only open for 2 hours on a Wednesday and Saturday mornings) three times on Saturdayand start to get rid of some of the accumulated rubbish and furniture we don't want.

A couple of new bedside tables also helped lift our spirits as well as finding a good restaurant in a nearby village.

Progress is being made.

Arrived at the house at 7pm on Sunday evening, the journey was eventful with the last 5 kilometres being through 4 - 6 inches of snow!

As you can see good progress on the roof, the large velux windows will allow us to take advantage of the views....

First the good news, work is well underway on the new roof. This picture was taken yesterday:

and now the bad news.... this picture was taken this morning:

guess work might have to stop for a few days......!

Just had an email from our Dutch neighbours to say that there is no roof on the house and that snow is expected tomorrow!

Good to know work has started, I may be in for a cold couple of days next week!