Le Passeu Spring 2005
This photo gives you some idea of the project that we had taken on and that is just from the outside! The property at this stage consisted of a 4 bedroom house (called habitable space) and a barn that was up the back of the building and ran across the top floor (called uninhabitable space). There were also 2 caves and a cellar. The building was a traditionally built stone house with a wooden and tin roof. The caves where the animals were kept had earth floors and there are no “foundations” so as to speak. The whole building is held in place by an ancient structure which had to stay in place throughout the whole renovation. The configuration of the renovation had to take this central fabric of the building into consideration. Strange but true.
Here are a few photographs of the barn as we saw it
Ancient Barn
View of Barn
Upper Barn
Here are some views of the cave where the animals used to live
Main Cave - looking towards chicken run
Main Cave looking towards "smoking" area
Courtyard small cave
The habital house consisted of 4 bedrooms, one shower room, a kitchen, workshop and “utility” area, lounge/dining room and a separate toilet.
This was to be our home in France until 2007 when we finally got planning permission to turn our dream into reality.
We are often asked why we didn’t submit our “project” to Grand Designs – we did but we were assured that it wasn’t likely to be of great interest since it looked to be a “simple” renovation. Little did Kevin McCloud know!! He would have had a field day with our “little” project.
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