Travels around the world.

This should be the last attic post.  I’ll try to get more travel pictures in the next few posts. We are leaving tomorrow for Le Havre, Etretat, Honfleur, Houlgate, Dives sur Mer, etc. We’ll be back Tuesday or Wednesday. It’s a short trip. But yesterday we bought a few things for this room , so I did a little arranging today.  This room was a blank slate.  I figured I could do whatever I wanted here, but really didn’t want to spend much money on it and wanted to use the furniture we had.  That consisted of three items that were black metal—a bed, a futon bench and a clothes organizer.  So we started by moving those three items into the room. After much scanning images on the internet, I decided I wanted a brown and turquoise color scheme. I wanted a brown futon with turquoise accent pillows and lamps. We came home with a black futon, because brown wasn’t available.  I also couldn’t find any turquoise lamp shades for the little lamps we have, but I did fi...

I cleaned up the beams, stained them and Jim helped me with the priming and painting this week. We cleaned up today and took some pictures. So here’s what you see when you enter the room. The laminate floor will be really easy to maintain. The new window and lower part of the beams.  If you compare to how they looked in the previous post you’ll see the result of the cleaning I did.  Though, getting the plaster off was easy. The hard part was that they were very dirty too. Another view of the beams, stained. The builder put that new bit on the floor to hide the part of the iron rod that came above the floor level. Last shot, looking up. And in case attic renovation isn’t your thing: We went to a flea market in the next town on Monday (Pentecost) and picked up these items for 10 Euros. On Wednesday, I decided to try to figure out how to recreate a Tarte Tatin we had had in St. Ceneri. It came out pretty well. This morning it was nice enough ...

We are told they will be done today. They are making a lot of noise up there today, installing the floor.  This is the first time we’ve heard hammering and banging. They brought in more wall board yesterday, which baffled us.  Maybe they will use it to level the floor?  They also brought in pressed board, which I assume is for the subflooring. Here are some pictures. The wall board is all finished now. We are going to paint it ourselves. The new window. How the window looks from outside.  I had kind of liked the old brown window, which I asked them to leave for us, but it was in pretty rough condition, especially on the outside. And it was pretty drafty. I have some plans for it.  Stay tuned.  [ link to picture of window project ] I asked Jim to stand in the dormer space to show how tall it is. Now for the floor and to answer anyone who might ask why didn’t we just use the floor that was there.  First of all it didn’t cover the entire sp...

Day 3 progress pictures. It appears they are squaring things up.  We may have some right angles up here, which we don’t have below. And we are losing some space. They use these metal studs instead of wood.  They take up less space and are easier to carry up the narrow stairway as they stack together. Close-up of the western wall. Looking down at the floor on the eastern wall. The ceiling.   Most of the wall board is up now. They just have this east wall to finish. They insulated this wall as well, though on the other side is the neighbor’s house, not the outdoors. So that’s how the project stood for the long weekend. Here are the new pictures from yesterday. One guy was here doing the taping and mudding. He also added more drywall on the front wall.  We won’t be able to see the original walls, but they weren’t great looking. I guess he ran out before he could finish the last corner.  He brought in one more half sheet tod...

The work progresses.  Wednesday May 16, 2012. The second skylight is installed. And here is the wallboard ready to install. It is labeled 1200 mm, which, I guess is the width: 1.2 meters or 47 inches. In other words almost 4 ft. They look to be about 8 ft. long. I can’t find that measurement printed on them. Are you wondering yet how they got those up here? What with the narrow enclosed stairway. I wanted to see how they would do it, but I needed to go to the grocery store.  Jim stayed here, but he almost missed it because he wasn’t paying attention.  He was writing.  I think he had his priorities confused. So he didn’t get pictures, but he was able to tell me that they brought in a crane and lifted the wallboard up to the third floor and loaded it through the window.  He said it was all done very quickly. I imagine they had to block the street while doing it, so wanted to get that crane in and out quickly. I wish I hadn’t had to go to the store ju...

Here are a couple photos taken at the end of the day yesterday. They are tucking insulation behind the metal bars they put up. Here’s the view out the skylight. I think I climbed up on the lower rung of the ladder to take this. You can see what a nice day it was yesterday. We had some rain this morning, but the sun is out now. I spent some time in the garden yesterday. It was quite cool in the shade, but quite warm in the sun.  I got overheated after a short time working in the sun.  Here are a few shots from the garden. A few of the pots that Alice planted on the corner near the house. I think there’s something charming about the profusion of forget-me-nots in front of the old outhouse door.  The picture would have come out better on an overcast day, but we seem to have sunshine or rain. I snapped this photo of a bird at the feeder that Alice put up. I think this is a Rouge Gorge familier, or a European Robin. And finally the drapes that I ord...

It is lunchtime on the first day of this project. I ran up and took pictures as soon as the 2 workmen left for lunch. So far they have cut away the beams in front of the window and opened up a hole in the roof for the first of the skylights. They have also installed some metal bars that I assume will support the wallboard or whatever they put up there. Here’s the skylight. And again. Here’s where they stacked the slates they removed. And I reached out the hole to take this one of the roof. Okay, that’s it for now. Stay tuned.