House Renovation – Floor, windows and wall

I know, I know. I just posted an update about our house renovation progress (all about getting new beams and what to do with the original ones). But as I have been in the south of France for longer than usual, there is more that has happened in the house that I’d like to document and share.

It is not an awful lot. After all, it’s only been a week and it is hot and the beach calls us from time to time. If you watched last week’s video or read the post, we (a.k.a not me, I don’t have that kind of upper body strength) inserted new beams (in French they’re called bastaing). After inserting new beams where the future second bedroom will be, Hagen was then able to add rafters (in French chevrons, if that helps) on which he then screwed wooden planks, which serve as the basis for the floor. In case anyone is interested, the sizes used for the chevron (rafter) is 63mm x 75mm, for the wooden planks is 25mm x 150mm and the wood is spruce.

Since the house and our neighbour’s used to be one house and the separation wall is too thin, we built a wall from the ground up for a proper separation and also structural support. The wall has not yet been built all the way to the top, as we have floors missing and it is simply easier, if you can stand on something whilst mixing mortar and piling bricks on top of one another.

In order to continue building the wall on the second floor, my mum and I built a concrete foundation first made from a gravel, cement and sand mixture enforced with iron rods. Since my mum is much better at making a wall straight, I was tasked to mix the mortar in a bucket almost the size of a bathtub. I think I am getting better and better getting the mixture right quicker, not to thick and not too thin.

We’re also getting to a stage where we need to figure out what entrance door and windows we want. Unfortunately, none of the originals are in a good condition to keep, so everything has to be replaced. Experiencing the quality of doors and windows when renovating other houses, we realised that it would be better to get the windows in Germany or maybe from a Polish vendor conforming to German quality standards. It’s a bit annoying, but you can definitely tell that they last longer, need less maintenance and are just generally easier to handle in hot weather conditions. For the entrance door, we found a company in Perpignan called Verdié that make nice and new doors with good quality.