Renovation Project - Replacing old french windows

Renovation Project - Replacing old french windows

Oh bugger, we have a letter from the planning department, it looks very exciting and it’s all in French (at some point I will get used to letters arriving that are in French, after all we do live in France!!!!!!) I read through it, to a point, and then John takes it and attempts to read through, I love it when he does this, he can’t read French but insists on looking at mail, maybe it will magically change to English? This is apparently a male thing, to be in charge of mail, and yes I do know that is a very sexist thing to say, but you know it’s true.

As far as I can see we have planning permission, but it does look like there are restrictions, and there is a date for 2 months in the future, I try to make an appointment at the planning office, but the planning officer is busy again, so I call into the estate agent and ask if they understand it, after all they must have seen these documents before.

The person in the estate agent is not sure as she also says that it is not clear with the date, I leave it with her and call back later in the day, she has managed to speak to the planning officer on the phone and we do have planning permission for our windows, but the planning office can change their mind in the next two months. 

We can go ahead but if they do change their minds we will have to put the old windows back (that will be fun as at the moment they are being held in place by screws and a piece of wood, we can’t believe they haven’t just fallen out on their own). We are also told that we cannot add external blinds to the windows, now when we put in the planning permission we had to provide 3 photographs of what the windows look like now and what they will look like, they very clearly showed that there were external shutters in place, when I pointed this out, I was told, oh if you already have them, then that’s OK!  How much notice has anybody in planning actually paid to what we are doing? But still not to complain as we can now install the new windows, the room should be warm then, there will be no more gales blowing through the rotten wooden frames.

I give John the good news. John has already painted the frames as they are much easier to paint before being fitted. 

The old window (not the new painted one!)

As we remove the old windows, the dust and rubbish that falls out is disgusting, parts of the frame just disintegrate as they are removed.

John has to remove some of the fittings with his grinder as they are enormous metal pegs, at this rate the fittings would have stayed for many more years than the windows. 

But they’re out and the window goes in. 

It takes a couple of days to get both fitted and the rubbish removed, the broken windows need to be taken to the tip, there is a bucket full of broken glass, these really were not safety glass windows! The frames with the rest of the glass panes are loaded into the car and I drive (very carefully!) to the tip, I’m doing so well until I drive over a bump and the car bounces, only slightly, but enough, I hear the crash from behind me, I now have the pleasure of removing, the even more, broken panes form the car, have you ever noticed how much more glass there is when it is broken?