All or nothing

When the tradesmen, finally, arrive and the renovations truly begin.

After months of clearing, cleaning and planning, it was finally time to start working on the house. But before we could start creating beautiful rooms and restoring original features we had to create a whole lot of mess. We have done most of the work on the Château ourselves, with the help of generous family and friends. But there were some jobs, that at the time, we weren’t willing to tackle ourselves. Finding tradesmen, willing to work with us with our limited French and at a sensible price was hard. It took months to find people willing to take on the task - but find them we did - in the end.

---

It’s the middle of January, the skies are dark and the rain is falling in icy shards, pinching my cheeks and making my fingers numb, helped by a fierce wind from the north. I am plunging through the woods, my trousers becoming soaked as fingers of wet undergrowth grab at me as I walk. Monty is wet too, his fur slick and shining in the gloom. It is not the best time for a walk, but I needed to get out of the house.

After months and months of searching for tradespeople, having endless, awkward, meetings, trying to make ourselves understood, receiving quote after ridiculous quote with hefty “château” weighting, we have finally found people to do the jobs we need. And the house is suddenly full of plumbers and electricians, everyone has arrived at once, unannounced, on the same day.

They are drilling holes in walls, chiselling channels through old plasterwork, asking endless questions about surface mounted plumbing (no I won’t accept it), whether I really want to keep the original floors (yes, I most certainly would), if there really needs to be so many sockets in each room (yes there does, there is nothing more frustrating that not having enough sockets in a room). The noise is deafening, the dust is everywhere, each room is chaos. I breathe in the calm of the wet woods for a few minutes, listening for winter birds and letting the wind howl around me. I suck in one last gulp of fresh air and then head back into the dust.