Renovation Project - Moving an old oil tank in France

Renovation Project - Moving an old oil tank in France

I’ve been a bit quiet for the past few days. since coming back we have started on a different job, we have a derelict barn just outside the back door and we have started to empty it, the roof is falling down but we have been able to store our wood in there, but now that the house is starting to get there, we actually need some where to start moving the tools to and the last bits of materials.

The barn also houses a very old oil tank that needs removing and we have our outside toilet in there, if you remember this was the happiest day of my life last year, when we discovered we had a toilet that worked, but times have moved on, we have thought about it and decided that we no longer require an outside toilet, after all we now have 3 other toilets how many places do you need to pee?

The barn is somewhere where you never look up, the roof has collapsed in places and where it is still up, you know that one big gust of wind and it will not stay there!

It is also the most disgusting place you can imagine, and believe me some parts of this house have been disgusting!

The cobwebs are not like the sort that you find in the living room (though obviously being the domestic goddess that I am, I never had cobwebs........) these are big enough and thick enough to actually be strong enough to hold slate!

The tank itself is enormous, and heavy. John makes sure that it is totally empty and removes the little bit of wall that had been built around it, all of the wood for the wood burner is piled into the toilet and it’s time to move the tank.

A friend of a friend has been looking for one and we have said that they can have it if they come and take it, Craig pops round to help move it out of the barn and we realise it cannot go in the back garden, so it is sat on our kitchen terrace (this is where you need a good imagination, it will be a kitchen terrace at some point, currently it is the piece of concrete outside the kitchen window).

A couple of days later someone arrives with a trailer and helps take it outside, it fits in the trailer (sort of!) and we watch it wobble down the road and think, thank goodness we are not in the car that is pulling it.

So the barn is a lot clearer, and we decide that yes, the toilet will definitely have to go, it will double the size of the space, john will be adding a flat roof to the barn so that it can be used as a workshop and the top can be a patio, these are happy days!