I’ve discovered that it’s quite hard to keep a blog post about renovating a property going, especially when your available spare time is going into the project itself. Hence there has been a total absence of any updates here since June.
To make amends, here’s a quick review of where we are up to:
After some jeopardy (see previous posts) the pool was finally finished in time for our August holiday and it’s pretty stunning as you can see from this picture. You get the view across right across the valley. It was surrounded by earth but constant watering meant that some grass appeared during our visit in the summer.- The kitchen was unusable when we arrived.
There was no running water and no work surfaces. A few days after our arrival, temporary chipboard worktops went in to tide us over and both the water and the dishwasher came on stream during our August visit. Francophiles will know that things grind to a halt during August so we had several dates confirmed and then cancelled for the installation of the granite worktops. 
The granite did finally arrive before we returned to the UK and had to be ‘craned’ in. The light fittings are in and so now is the woodburning stove. We’ve kept the original red fired clay floor tiles, known locally as ‘tomates’ but we’ll need to find a way of sealing them. We also picked up a fabulous table from the local charity shop. The kitchen/dining is now more or less completed and we are delighted with the results that you can see below.
Since the summer visit we were out in September, October and November for short weekend visits and we have progressed with other rooms and staircases. Essentially half of the main house is complete and (until we knock a doorway through) is a self-contained three bedroom, two bathroom cottage with a large dining kitchen, large salon, downstairs loo, and utility room with washer and dryer (thankfully, these arrived at the start of our August trip).
Magnol 