Renovation project - How much is an oil change and new oil filter in France?

Renovation project - How much is an oil change and new oil filter in France?

Well we are up bright and early and head down to the garage for half past nine; we had almost forgotten what the world looked like at this time of the morning! The brother was still not at the garage and was expected to arrive at nearer to 10am; we are still a bit worried about the cost so decide to come back.

We meet the bother and though his English is not fantastic we manage to muddle through with my French and his English, the cost is only going to be 96 euro’s so we are really impressed and leave the car.

We go back to pick it up later in the afternoon, when we arrive the garage is open but there is nobody about, we have a look around but cannot find the owners, it is at this moment that we notice all of the car keys just hung on hooks next to the open door, we are struck by how safe this area is again, if this had been in Manchester, it would have taken approx 5 mins for the garage to be emptied and all of the cars to be gone!

I head to the petrol forecourt and the owner is in there, he comes out and says that the car is all sorted; we now have the fun of trying to ask for the car computer to be reset, no easy task in any country or garage. This takes a little while but is all completed.

As we are waiting we have a look around, the view from this garage is amazing, it is crazy to think that a garage has such a prime water front location, imagine working with this as your view from the door!

The rest of the day is spent discussing the kitchen, we are starting to change our mind about our plans, I had really wanted free standing units made from the old floorboards with a lot of chrome. But we realise that we now have to put the big electric water heater in the kitchen (this has moved all around the house, it was originally planned to be in the walk-in wardrobe in the loft, but we want that space for clothes, then it was going in to the small utility, until John went to install it and it didn’t fit, so it is now going to be installed in the kitchen).

This means that we will need a big cupboard in the kitchen, we also need to cover the consumer unit in the kitchen, so we decide to have two large floor to ceiling cupboards with the cooker and a sink unit in between them. John is worried that this will make the kitchen look small but I think it will look fantastic, as a compromise I agree that we can knock down the remaining wall in the kitchen, so this will give a bigger sense of space.

This is yet another example of where having fixed ideas is not good, as the kitchen is now going to be very different to the one we had originally planned on, but how exciting we are getting ready to do the kitchen, I can’t wait, the idea of being able to cook and entertain without moving around the piles of rubbish and building materials and not having anything drop on your head (I had a freak out yesterday because I felt something drop on my head, I’m still sure it was a spider!)