Latest Pics from France are in and it shows the difference quite remarkably, when you see this type of transformation in a renovation project you can easily get carried away. Its amazing that nobody from the TV renovation programmes wanted to track the progress of this Watermill renovation.
Still it is their loss, this is one of the biggest projects for renovation in the region and because there is an internal mill race it is also one of the rarer and more important renovations.
Well the Mill is coming on so fast and yet I cannot get time to relay this to the blog, I am so frustrated with this as the idea was to get the whole journey mapped onto the blog in pictorial/editorial fashion.
I have so many fantastic pictures of this renovation project, taking it from a shell to almost habitable, it is full of history and mystique, I have massive desire to learn more, old pictures and stories, things like the reputed gun stash from the German occupation of the town, the whereabouts of old tools and maybe the mill wheel.
Thankfully when we obtained our mortgage in France we didn’t have to deal with a company like Capstone Mortgages and the way that BN Paribas has treated us has been exemplary.
Even our insurance for the mill has been fantastic value too.
Capstone Mortgages are currently forcing clients to have expensive home insurance, even signing people to the policies without them knowing, once that is done they bombard the client with threats until they give in and pay for home insurance twice.
Well its been really busy at work for the last week and so far it has been difficult to get in and structure the blog, I have been sorting out my pictures into categories so that the timeline will be accurate.
At the same time we need to keep the renovation going at full momentum, this means our trusted builder Mark Sabastini will be able to work right through the summer and into the Autumn. If we are able to keep this momentum the the Moulin will be completely renovated externally before the Winter and that will leave us the second fix inside.
Well I suppose if we made one mistake so far it was overlooking the gains made by the Euro against Sterling, when we started we got two Euro’s to the pound, now its almost a parity.
We should of spotted this because we had a good fund here in the UK that we transferred our renovation budget from, this went into our BNP Paribas account and then we used that to pay the builder. With hindsight we should of pushed the money over sooner, as soon as the pound started losing significantly against the Euro.
It is beautiful, It is secluded, It is atmospheric…
Our lovely French water mill is being renovated 8 years after buying it, I have decided now to create and maintain a record of this important renovation, include as many pictures as I can and see how it develops. Of course we are 8 months into this renovation but thankfully I have many many great pictures to use as reference.
The renovation is sympathetic to the building, everything Oak that is replaced is replaced by mature local Oak, same with the stonework and we are using French artisans too.
For the first time in ages I have found myself looking at property with an interest to actually move house, I have always kept an interest folloing prices and trends but all of a sudden I feel itchy feet!!
Usually I will be looking at specific period houses, I spend lots of time also looking at land and property abroad especially in Ireland and France.
In Ireland there are some fabulous older properties laying in fields slowly falling apart, the Irish have not quite caught on to the prospect of renovation and usually build new homes beside the old ones, sometimes they pull them down and sometimes they are just left as stone monuments to a by gone age.