MY EXCITING ENCOUNTER WITH A FRENCH PUSSY - MARVEILLEUX

Brilliant!

We had a collective heart attack in the cellar, when we moved a large sheet of old plywood out of the way. There, on the floor, lay a fully dressed female mannequin! In the dim glow of a solitary low wattage light bulb, it made for some strange stomach noises, I can tell you.

My bruv and I wanted to keep it, and place it next to the road on special occasions, so that it would look like it was hitching a lift, but the rest of the gang (mainly women - spoilsports) wanted it dumped.

We took it to the local disposal point, and sat it on an old dumped wicker chair, with an empty wine bottle placed in her lap.

What about the floor, Lord? What is the construction? Stone? Might there be a loose stone with something buried beneath?

You bastard! There's treasure in that friggin' house!

I hope there is, Gus. You'll be the first person I'll tell.

I'll enjoy that.

I'm off to bed now. I'll sort out the pics tomorrow.

G'Night!

I thought something was creepy......?

It's been a bad year for Ellpus willows!

Oh, I think I meant that in a good way.

Very cool LE.

Oh no you dont you HAVE TO stay up and post those pics so that I have something to keep myself amused with for the rest of the day.

Watch it, cheese lover.

l l

Is it morning yet for LordE? Come on, wake up and show us the photos!! I'll bring over coffee and my special brownies while we all watch the slide show.

Ok that enough sleep

.......................WAKE UP




ya lazy pommy git

Re: MY EXCITING ENCOUNTER WITH A FRENCH PUSSY - MARVEILLEUX
OK.....now the little house.

OK....going through that doorway, there is this small living room.



It had the beams covering half the ceiling, and we can only assume that there was some kind of floor up there, once upon a time.
The original floor in the living room was in a terrible condition, so it was totally removed, and we replaced it with a concrete one. Before laying the concrete, we put in an underfloor heating system as there is no chimney in this part of the house (bread oven only) and it was by far the most efficient way of providing heat to the living area.

The spiral staircase is one of our "finds", and once stripped down and varnished properly, it will be bolted into place (pretty much where it is now) and proper handrails/safety guards put round it. There's a blacksmith not too far away, and we've already had a word with him to come up with a design.

View taken from other side of room (next to staircase) looking back.
You'll see that we've already covered the beams, making a proper mezzanine.



As you can imagine, the beams are not exactly straight or level.

If you look, you'll see various thicknesses of timber pads fixed onto the tops of these beams.



This is to ensure that the mezzanine floor, when laid, was dead level.

What a fiddly job that turned out to be......but that was nothing compared to the levelling up we had to do over the kitchen area.

But first of all, the big "rip out" had to be done on the old ceiling in the kitchen area.

Great fun, but what a bloody mess it made..........

before.....looking down into kitchen, with old ceiling still in place.



...and from below, after we'd smacked out the ceiling. There was so much dust and cr*p up there, it covered my camera lens, even though the camera was in my pocket.

Above kitchen again, after the first of many clean ups had taken place...

I certainly hope you're not going to tarnish the integrity of the place by installing plasterboard or some such thing.

How close do you suppose you will come to attaining the original look?

Then came the most annoying, and hardest part of the job.

Having nothing to stand on, apart from the beams, we had to first of all find the highest spot on the top of the beams, to start our task of then finding the overall "level" for the flooring.

Hopping about from beam to beam, is not only a bit worrying, but is fantastic exercise for every single leg muscle. We didn't really appreciate this at the time, though.

Using a long, straight aluminium beam and tow spirit levels, we found the highest spot, where one particular beam curved upwards as it entered the wall.

From that, we worked the aluminium beam towards the centre of the room (well, what will eventually be a room), fixing wooden pads on the underneath beams as we went.

Once that had been done, the same exercise was carried out in all directions, eventually ending with each beam having its own unique set of pads nailed in place.
We double checked it all as we went along, and checked the whole thing again when we'd finished.

As you can see, these beams curved so much, that some had to have about six inches of pad fixed to them.

The original look as far as we could make out, Gus, was just these beams spanning from wall to wall. We assume that they just laid loose planks originally, as there were no nail marks in the top of the beams.

It was probably used as a landing up there, just to store bags of flour or something. It wasn't a house, you see....more a small bakery. Locals say that nobody has ever actually lived in it before, so we're converting its usage, I suppose.

....and from underneath....




(that's bruv in last shot...hands in pockets, as usual)

More later, as it's time for brekkie..........

Oooooh, aaaaaah....what fun project, what a wonderful house and landscape!

Lordie, if you ever need somebody to rip floors out, mix cement, paint and whatnot, let me know.I live for manual labor and there ain't enough in my life right now. I'll work for food... and champagne.

I will come and visit as soon as everything is finished and the guest suite
prepared.