Page 322 - Demo

318The layout of the house was a room in the front with a toilet leading off it to one side. It was also partitioned with a stud wall to make a narrow galley kitchen with a sink. I removed this stud wall on my first visit. There was another large room at the back. The barn which comprised about 2/3 of the building was accessed through barn doors in the front and also another small door at the end. There was no access from the living areas of the barn but there was a door high up in the barn which gave access to the space above the living rooms. I quickly cut a hole in the ceiling of the back room and that gave access to the loft space up a ladder. There were a couple of small rooms in the end of the barn and another small room at the other end which was really a shed. Outside there was a further stone building that eventually became a workshop and, in the field, a further wooden barn which years later looked as if it was going to fall down across the lane and so I demolished it. One of the first things I had to do was put in a hot water system and a shower. Throughout all the renovations, I tried to do things the French way, which I did with the aid of many French DIY books. At that time there were no large DIY stores in the area and so I had to buy what I wanted from builders%u2019 merchants. Our local one was very good and tried to help me within my limited French. At the end of each transaction, I gave them my cheque book to write the cheque as my spelling of numbers was not up to much. No credit card payments in those days. The French plumbing was different to ours in that they used many different diameter pipes. So, for the wash basin upstairs, I used a 10mm pipe, whilst the shower had a larger bore one. This must have saved a lot of copper but meant that you had many different sized fittings and washers. The hot water system was pressurised and so used a steel tank that was very heavy. They used a pressure reducing valve to bring the internal pressure down to 3 bar and instead of having an expansion accumulator to take in the different water volumes as it got hot, they just put in a small drainpipe. It was surprising how little water overflowed