Stock taking

Just recently I've started to get emails of the 'when do you think you might be ready to open' variety. I suspect what they really mean is 'come on - you can't still be renovating after all this time'. Well, er, yes, we are. But just to prove to you sceptics out there that we are actually doing something, here's a bit of a taste of where we've got to.

L'Atelier's bedroom started like this: bare stone walls, sound but tired oak beams, no window sills, no lighting to speak of and sockets fed by surface cable.

The room was rewired, then the hemp and lime went on. This was the first stage:

I took these pictures a few days ago: the hemp and lime is thoroughly dry, all the beams have been cleaned, treated and oiled, and we have beautiful chestnut window sills and skirting boards. All that's left to do here is to strip, stain and oil the floor.

The bathroom was just a grenier, albeit with good windows and a wooden floor. Work quickly started to convert it:

It's by no means finished - I still have to finish tiling the shower and part of the floor, strip, stain and oil the rest of the floor, and fix a glass shower screen. But it's on the way:

The hallway of La Petite Maison was encumbered by the smallest shower room in the world, suitable only for those with waif like figures. So we knocked it down.

Now it looks like this, which is what it should have looked like to begin with ...

I know I said I wouldn't do this but ... see that wall with the radiator on? I plastered that.

Each floor had two bedrooms which were actually too small to photograph properly. Or do much else in. We've knocked each pair into one bigger room; the downstairs room will be the salon, while the double height room upstairs is the bedroom, shown in these two pictures. Here you can still see the join ...

The new stairway going up to the mezzanine:

We're all taking a few days breathing space this week, then we've got a couple of builder-less months to get on with kitchen fitting, flooring, painting, lime washing, tiling and all the rest before they come back and we all attack the new dining room. But as The Perfectionist said today, it's not half bad for a builder, two counsellors and a guy who drives a pink van.