Monday

7 days ago we were having our first BBQ at around 20 deg, today we have snow. Welcome to the mountains. It’s a pleasant change from the UK’s constant rain but definitely harder to know whether to take sun cream, an umbrella or snow boots!

Matt and I are busy working but so are builder mates Steve. R1 is taping and joining while R2 cracks on with the sound insulating wall between Rooms 1 &2, you really could hear every word said in the other room.

Ooh, exciting delivery. Matt ordered me some seed germinating matts from China and they have finally arrived. This is pretty exciting!!

It’s good having a team here to help out, but of course we need to work more too.

[27 February 2023]

Tuesday

Builder mates Steve have finished taking out the door and putting up the frame to start the rebuild of the wall. It’s quickly taking shape and includes space for two new windows at the top, reflecting the other end of the hallway and bringing more natural light into the corridor.

Their next job was to take out the window above the external door in room 1 to provide access to make the changes to the shutter and convert it to an electric motor, as well as changing one of the panes which had broken. While the window is out it provides me with a good opportunity to sand it back and get rid of that old blue that they’d put on it years ago. It was quite a job and eventually I gave up on the by-hand approach and we took to the power tools. Much easier with the electric sander. The outside has been repainted white to match the rest of the windows and we’ll leave the inside as bare wood until we’ve decided what we are doing with the decor in this room.

[28 February 2023]

Wednesday

Last day of the month so time to do wages and invoicing. Apparently losing my phone isn’t ideal for that. I’ve had a number of calls from the bank and Matt being on conference hasn’t worked out too well so far. When they suddenly switched from French to English however it did get a bit easier. With Matt on a call I’m not too sure if we did the right thing but it seemed to work out ok.

I’ve finished my work and uploaded my bid so I’m off out.

Stop 1: Noz – none of the previous stock that I wanted, so I bought a mixed case of other stuff and couple of Basque beers for Matt.

Stop 2: Isosol – I need to get the downstairs bathroom flooring ordered, and need to seek ideas for Room 1 ensuite. As I have told Matt repeatedly however, it needs to work with the design of the main room. It’s not easy when I’m not clear what that looks like. So I’m looking for just about anything, so apart from the ones that were already priced I got quotes for two more, we will see.

Stop 3: Decor Discount to look at fabrics. The had the right colour in the wrong material and the wrong colour in the right material. I’m going to have to find another, better stocked fabric shop, but they did have some good prices on some other bits and pieces.

Stop 4: Gifi. I had no idea what was in this shop, just always wondered and since I was alone I had time to look at it. Very strange shop, it’s like Action meets B&M Bargains. Nothing here I need today though.

Stop 5: Lidl to pick up a cactus for Rane, unfortunately they didn’t have any so will have to go to Montrejeau as I know they have some there.

Stop 6: Maison de la Peinture to look at wallpapers. I found one very beautiful book but was horrified when I looked at the pricing page. We know the room will need about 20 rolls, but at €265 per roll I don’t think there’s any chance I can have those ones. I looked through a bunch more but not really finding what I’m looking for, it’s a bit like trying to find a needle in a haystack with all the ones available.

So after all that I’m still no closer to finding exactly what I want, within a reasonable budget.

[1 March 2023]

Thursday

Steve 2 is working on the Room 1 ensuite, finishing the replacement flooring and sealing the gaps in the insulation I did for Room 7.

We however are off to Spain this afternoon to go to Mercadona but also take the opportunity to investigate the Spanish brico type shop. It’s not great to be honest. More showroom than brico and you have to go to speak to the person to get prices and information, which since we don’t speak any Spanish really just makes the whole thing rather intimidating and impossible.

We had more success at the Mercadona and Boya, a few bottles of wine and spanish tortilla.

Dinner ready we also had to get some more wood stacked in the basement to dry out a bit. I suspect we won’t be ‘firing’ through our wood the same this year as we have done previously as it takes a while to dry out sufficiently. Entirely our fault, you really need to plan ahead for such things.

[2 March 2023]