Renovation Project - driving across the Monts D'Aree, Brittany

Renovation Project - driving across the Monts D'Aree, Brittany

I seem to have gotten a little bit lost with the blog, so much has been happening and I have not been able to dedicate as much time to writing as I used too, but we don’t seem to be much further along, somehow life has got in the way, not in a bad way as we have been very busy, but after being so ill a few months ago I have tried to relax more and not get stressed, this has now resulted in me getting very stressed as I am now behind! At some point I will find a happy medium.

What have we been doing, well as I said we have not really stopped but not much has changed. John has spent a lot of time in the shed; he has managed to empty it and then refill it with wood and tried to make it a bit more waterproof (the roof is falling down on the shed).

Now when you talk about sheds you generally think of a little wooden hut in the garden, this is not, it is a stone building and was advertised as a barn when we bought the house, but at the moment it is just a pain, at some point it will become our garden terrace with a workshop underneath, but that feels like a distant dream (quite a dangerous distant dream as the roof seems to be a little bit lower every time we walk under it!)

I have moved back to the top floor of the house and am once again scrubbing floorboards, I have completely emptied the top floor and the back bedroom is now a store room for all of the furniture, I feel like I am going round in circles, as soon as we get a room almost there we start again!

This is not bad planning (it just feels like it!) but we now have our clean boxes with most of the big jobs completed and it is time to start on the finishing jobs (I still don’t understand how I seem to be scrubbing floors no matter what stage we are at!)

We are going to stain the floor the same colour as the wood work in the living room, so I have to make sure that all of the old varnish is removed, this consists of being on my hands and knees with a piece of wire wool, its dusty, dirty and horrible but once finished it will be worth it, or so I keep telling myself!

One of the worst things about doing a project like this is that you can spend weeks working hard and not see any real difference, but then one little bit will transform the room, you can’t lose heart, although it is quite easy to get fed up and want to do a different job, but all of the jobs need to be done no matter how menial or tiresome.

We do have some good moments though,  I am totally fed up and feel grubby so I take a break to go to the shop for some bread, I’m told it will not be ready for 5 minutes so I stroll around the town square, when I go back I am handed a warm baguette, the smell is divine, I stop and take a minute (forgetting about the floor) and realise why we are here, I am stood in a beautiful town square, with fresh baked bread in my hand, some one passes and smiles and says bonjour, I am revived again, yes the jobs now maybe menial but I just look around me and at the fresh warm bread I have in my hand and the world feels a good place. We have to make sure that we get out more and enjoy the life we have rather than be consumed with work.

As another highlight this week we are invited to two Christmas parties, sods law they are both on the same night, but hey it’s Christmas. We go to both and have an absolute ball and as a bonus I leave without falling down any storm drains.

Our first trip out is to the builders merchants but this time we take the time to stop and admire the view, well john gets out and takes some photographs of it, I stay in the car as it is freezing!