How to Turn a Bathroom into a Kitchen!

Okay, the 10 key steps for turning a bathroom into a kitchen!

1.Find a bathroom you really don't like.
2. Take out the bath, the shower, the sink, the toilet, the tiles, the flooring, the lighting, and that crappy soap holder.
3. Add a wooden floor, which you will later cover with vinyl.
4. Call in an electrician and plumber.
5. Cover the walls with plaster boards.
6. Say yes to good, darn good, friends who offer to sand and paint said walls and to help lay the vinyl.
7. Keep all small kids away at this point!
8. Fidget at home as the kitchen company come in and install a kitchen you ordered months ago.
9. Sigh with relief that everything has worked out just fine and that sometime soon your kitchen really will become your kitchen..... that is, in 2 weeks time when the electricity and water are turned on 'for real'.
10. Get on with the remaining rooms/house as 2 weeks pass....

love n hugs n new kitchens,
Robynxxxx

The Big House?

After

Before

After

  Curious to know how things are going in the Big House?

  Just watch this space in the next few days and weeks!

  Big Changes are Taking Place...

  love n hugs,
  Robynx

Home from Home

On the way back from Provence, we stopped off in Scotland.

Well, not really.

We stopped off to visit some dear friends in Lozère.... which, with it's granite-rich landscapes filled with dry stane dykes, rowan, fir and spruce trees, heather, gorse, wild pansies, bluebells and open farming fields filled with cows and some sheep, felt awfully like some place I know in Aberdeenshire !

Of course, the weather was slightly warmer and so the animals and insects are quite different.. but that just made our walks all the more enjoyable!

So, if you're ever looking to visit the northeast of Scotland with a bit of heat, there's a little patch of France that might just do the trick!

Hoping you're feeling at home where ever you are in the world!
Robynxxxx

heather!

grasshopper

lizard!

Two butterflies?

A real butterfly!

Le chateau de Baume

Farmland!

Holiday Time

Hill above Les Omergues

 Hello again,

One of the many upsides of being a high school teacher in France is the great holidays. It's true, while we're 'in school,' the hours are long for teachers and students alike: from 8am to 6pm many days of rhe week. However all those hours crammed together in the classroom give us all a darn good excuse to relax once the school year is all done and dusted. As soon as we were 'out,' I took the kids down to Les Omergues in Provence while Ben, bless his cotton socks, stayed and worked on the 'Big House' (more of that later).

What would Provence be without a little lavender?

We had a lovely few weeks as the kids and I were able to enjoy, once again, the dusty walks, the sandy rivers, the baking heat, the generosity and the grandeur of Provence.

How many hours did we spend in  the Jabron?

Such freedom, with a paddling pool, some of the cutest dressing up clothes in the universe, and lots of books and drawing stuff, meant that Jack and Emma were really able to' chill out'.

That's my boy, looking quite young and innocent!

For the annual village fête, there were nights of dancing and fireworks raining down, and also a sports day - with dunking for lemons, races, and square boules !

Competing in local sports day!

The holidays weren't without danger, as Jack discovered on many an occasion. Here, he's just discovered what happens when you surf down a hillside on your tummy ... at least he got some good looking fossils in return :-)

That's what happens if you look to hard for fossils!

Emma, meanwhile, got herself into equal amounts of trouble... but mostly when she was dressed as a bee!

Emma, the bee!

And I guess that's just the way the cookie crumbles!

hoping your cookie is crumbling the best way possible!
Robynxxxx

How to Build a New Floor in 3 'Easy' Steps

Floor stripped of its covering

Step One: Let 3 men - Ben, his Dad, and a good friend - loose for 2 days. Supply with beer and food as necessary!

Floor as insulation is being laid

 Step Two: Recognise they've done a darn good job when the two rooms are aligned, at the same level!

Ta-dah!

 Step Three: Let two children loose to check things and generally run wild!

Running ground

Opening Up

One day you might see bookcases on that back wall!

 Hello,

Just a wee update to say that our L-shaped living rooms is beginning to take form. The pillars have been pushed back and reinforced. Now all that's left to be done are the walls, the ceiling, the floors...

All that'll be for a future blog.

For tonight, though, we'll just keep our dreams alive!
Hugs,
Robynxxxx
ps/Ben's busy putting up the ceiling in the kitchen. Photos soon x

Try to imagine that the second opening at the back right, is the same opening as you see above

Dance floors

Floor's on and beams are raised in upstairs bedroom

 Hello,

As we spent today varnishing the outside frames of the windows - with Ben on the scaffolding and me standing on the window sills - I'm knackered.

However, I also very happy as things are moving along nicely. As you can see from the photos, the roof's on and the floors on the top two levels are installed. For the moment, it's just cheap chipboard... we'll deal with the posher stuff (much) later on. Indeed, all we need is the space to dance and to imagine how our lives will be in a few short months' time!

love n hugs to one and all,
Robynx
ps/I'm standing on a stepladder as we haven't installed the stairs yet!

Upstairs bedroom

Jack jiving to celebrate new floor in spare room

Silly, us?

Here's a picture of Flash McQueen sheltering his Princess Emma from the rain... should rain ever fall in our kitchen... which is not very likely as we are talking about the kitchen in the apartment, not the house. Where, come to think of it, there's not even a kitchen... and any rain that would fall would clean rather than dirty the place!

Things are moving quickly

Our new roof, almost finished

Hello,

I just wanted to let you know that the renovations have picked up speed. The new roof is almost on and the windows (though not the glass) are in place. Lots of walls have been broken down and the wooden frame of the house has been much reinforced. Upstairs, preparations are being made to lay the floor and the electrician and the plumber of lining up to get started. Ben's also getting ready to 'get back to work' as he'll be installing a lot of the insulation so on and so forth (in short... all I know is he's got loads to do).

Meanwhile, life outside of the 'big house' is going well ... Jack's only got a month left at his école maternelle and Emma at her trusty nourrice/nanny. In real terms, that means we've only got a month left until the summer holidays start... and that means 8 weeks of fresh air and freedom. I can't wait!

love n hugs,
Robynx

One of the new windows, with some of our red roof tiles

Emma in Jack's 2 room bedroom, with the new opening connecting the 2 rooms 

Emma on the kids' level, the stairs to our level have gone and the space above the other stairs extended

Emma, who dressed herself for the sunny weather, with  the wood for the floor

The Games Have Begun

Scaffolding

Hello,

I just wanted to let you know that the games have well and truly begun. Our 'big house' no longer has a roof, or a chimney for that matter, but is wearing a beautiful shower-cap blue plastic cover. Underneath that cover, the workmen are busy installing our new (more expensive than we ever dreamed of) windows. Once the windows are in, the new tiles will go on, and then - voilà - our house will have a roof again.

From inside the spare room, with the start of a new window

And, once the roof is on, we can start thinking about the electricity, the plumbing, the heating, the insulation, the walls, the floors... and all the rest!

Looking upwards, through the 'top floor', to where the roof once was

What fun (seriously, it's a huge adrenaline rush!),
Hoping you're having fun where ever you are in the world!
Robynxxxxx

Knocking Down Walls

Hello, this is just a wee email to say that the workers have started in the house!

Yes!

Today they knocked the stuffing out of the walls in the (three) living rooms.

Yes!

Let's get this party started.

:-)

Robynx

With a Little Bit of Imagination!

Our Heart Cloud

 You know how childishly good it feels to see images in the clouds? Well, Jack and I found a heart in the sky the other day... and I realised that my feelings towards seeing that heart are the same as my feelings towards seeing the house finished!

That is, with a little bit of imagination, I can imagine walking into our battered, empty bathroom and sitting down at the kitchen table with a cup of tea. I can imagine standing in the back corner of the garden (where for the moment there are the ruins of outdoor buildings) drinking a nice glass of wine or two as Ben cooks some of his brilliant food the BBQ. I can imagine a day when we aren't driving from the apartment to the house with dirt in our hair, and plans in our heads...

and perhaps it's getting easier to imagine such as future as the workmen are going to begin their work this coming week.

Yes!

hoping the sky above your head contains lots of blue sky but also clouds worthy of a daydream or two ;-)
Robynxxxx

Finished!

Sunday afternoons

Where the shower used to be

Okay, Sunday afternoon found Jack and I back at the house 'finishing off' the shower, peeling off the vinyl floor (look carefully and you'll see the floor surface has changed), taking off more tiling, and starting to extract the bath from its casing.

Yep, that's all we did... and it was enough!

The funny thing? Once again, Jack was a great help not only actively working beside me but also finding me the right tools. I was busy using the crowbar to take off the tiles when he came to me with a small sledgehammer and a solid triangular device that was just right for job. Then I was trying to pull screws out the wall with a random pair of pliars when he came to me with the 'pliars which are specially made for extracting nails!'

Funny things, kids!

And useful, too :-)

hugs to one and all!
Robynxxxx

Starting to break the bath

Jack sealing up the pipes

Jack taking out the screws