Dordogne Retreat - a farmhouse tale

Five of the last 6 days have been spent in the guest bathroom. This bathroom has been a challenge from the start, with the main problem being overcoming the plumbing challenge of getting water and waste connected. The toilet waste conection was the last great challenge and on this trip half of it was completed in that the run from the toilets (there will be another in the en suite just the other side of the right hand wall in the photo below) to the downstairs bathroom was made.

With the required drop of 2cm per metre there was just enough rise to make it over the total 5 metre run.

The waste appears in the ceiling of the downstairs bathroom and awaits connecting to current stack and Fosse Septique. This however requires taking out the bath so next trip!

Once the pipe was run it needed to be enclosed:

The velux window was then framed. The wall pointing department will work their magic on the wall over the summer.

The tiling on two walls finished:

And after grouting - voila! The grouting is not great, it was so hot (nearly 40 degrees) that the grout was drying before it could be smoothed, remedial work will be required when it is cooler.

The sink was connected up, well nearly. The waste was run but I could not connect the tap as I needed a 1/2" to 3/8" adapter which I couldn't find in my plumbing kit. But it looks good at least.

The last wall had been covered with pasterboard and was then filled, rubbed down and painted, with a heated towel radiator then fitted.

Still left to do: painting the ceiling, treating the wood, laying the PVC floor, connecting the taps, connecting the waste in the downstairs bathroom, connecting water to the toilet and pointing the wall. Just a couple of hours then...........

On this trip down I was joined for the first four days by Paul, who despite having been made to work hard on at least four previous visits still willingly joined me again! Thanks to Pauls assistance we made great progress on the guest bathroom.

The first job was to clear the area, two bathrooms are going into this space:

 Next we took up the floor to create a flatter and firmer new floor:

 A new sub-frame was then constructed:

 and the plumbing run to the wall:

 Then after treating the wood, insulation was added and waterproof chipboard laid over the top:

 This created a flat and much firmer floor. This took nearly three days and while we were pleased with the results it was two steps back then two forward to end up with just a different floor!

We then did the same to the floor under what will be the shower in the master en-suite:

 At last we could then start creating something new and the framing of walls was much more rewarding:

 The water feed comes up from the cave and will then be distributed to the batrooms, with seperate feeds for each shower and the sinks:

 The mess was suddenly a lot neater once the manifolds were installed:

 Paul then had to return home (for a rest I suspect!) so did not see the plasterboard installed:

 The waste for the shower had been installed ready for the shower base:

And then the shower base was installed and tiling was soon underway:

 The water distribution will be under the sink with each pipe having a shut off valve:

 The tiling was completed around the shower:

 And finally after grouting, masticing and taking two hours to fit the shower enclosure (it was a three handed job and I was on my own. It should have taken about 15 minutes!) we had a working shower:

 The sink needs to be plumbed in ( only a couple of hours work but I ran out of time) and the toilet needs the waste pipes running which requires the downstairs bathroom to be ripped out! But it is looking good:

After little internal work for a couple of years I finally gave in to pressure and started work on the first of the two new bathrooms. This had all been waiting for the fourth side of the chimney to be pointed (by she who will be nameless) and after a littel encouragement it was done:

Before:

After:

With this (finally!) completed the back of the shower wall was constructed:

The end wall and ceiling plasterboard was then cut and installed (it is so much quickler to type this than to do it!):

Two bathrroms will be installed in this space with the dividing wall just the other side of the first Velux window.

Ceiling rafters and plasterboard were fitted:

The plumbing was the next challenge but after much investigation, crawling around in the 'cave' and drilling through 4 inches of concrete a way was found to get the hot and cold water and grey waste pipes up to the attic. Luckily there is room under the floor to run them from the current shown position!

The next plumbing challenge will be the soil pipe for the toilets. This is not so simple as it involves a lot of work to the existing downstairs bathroom.

We should have the guest bathroom functional with a sink and shower in time for the 'season', however the toilet may take a little longer.

Unfortunately I forgot to take a 'before' picture so the 'after' will have to suffice on it's own. We decided back in October that the bathroom would benefit from some natural light (there is no window) and that by removing the pretty horrible solid bathroom door and replacing with a semi glazed door would be a positive move. We found the door we wanted in Lapeyre and during a visit in October obtained the dimensions of the piece of glass needed. A piece of appropriately discrete toughened glass was cut to size in the UK and brought over. So with the door collected yesterday I had no excuse but to fit it today.

The job went, unusually, according to plan and three hours later the door and frame were installed.

Quick tests indicate that if you stand directly behind the door nearly all will be revealed! However when in the shower your modesty is protected. The younger members of the family however want some hooks on the door so they can hang towels over the glass!

One of the many projects (this was about number 147 on the list) that needed doing was to get some ventilation into the bathroom. There are no external windows or vents and just a small window going into the main bedroom which clearly wasn't ideal for many reasons! A couple of trips ago we had bought the bits to fit a ventilation fan through the wall. Now you must remember that old French farmhouse walls are pretty thick so this was a daunting task, but having asked around had been told that it's not as a bad a job as you think.

So having worked out where we wanted the vent I chiseled off the plaster to reveal the bare wall and slowly started removing stones. After about 20 cms I then used a 50 cm long 10mm drill to go through the rest of the wall and work out where on the outside I needed to start work. The drill was only just long enough! So the same procedure was repeated externally, removing the rendering and then slowly removing stones. Repeating this procedure eventually created a hole about twice the size needed but allowing a slightly sloping (towards the outside) 100m tube to be fitted and then expanding foam in the middle with cement on each side.

Then with a couple of goes at plastering the inside, connecting the electricity supply we had take off!

So all in all not as bad a job as expected and hopefully the problems with condensation and damp will now disappear.

The hole in the bathroom wall has been filled (see earlier article) and we also installed a shower screen on the bath so the high tech shower curtain (held up by chain from nails in the ceiling beams) can be dispensed with. Overall the bathroom looks like a different room now, and all we did was paint, add new mirror, new lights and shower screen. We will add a false ceiling at a later date.....