Randomshenans French Renovation Journey

[randomshenans]

I don't want to tempt fate, but we've been looking at a house that needs a huge renovation and a barn that is attached and needs ripping down and a new building put in it's place. If/when we get it sorted and if we get it, I'll start a proper build thread as it'll be a massive one for sure.

On that though, been looking at all options of what the hell would you put in the house if you could?

Now, this could be room wise, tech wise, or just anything you think that needed to be in a house today!

Little things for us are things like USB sockets are important.
Then, a gym area is also important for us, and an office and I'm pushing for a wine cellar... must haves obviously but the office is.

Is it still worth getting cat5 wired in? Anything else tech wise that people would recommend?

We'd like air source heat pump, and looked at solar but unsure we would get the most from it from the angle of the house, but still looking into it.

So what would be top of your list? And what do you think I should consider I've probably not thought of!

 

[randomshenans]

Cat 6 infrastructure cabling and a centralised cabinet for router, switch, NAS et al

Nest/Hive/Tado or similar. Individual room TRVs with a Tado solution for example. Air source with full underfloor would be my choice over central heating though.

Smart lighting and switching. The latter avoiding any cabling down to switches.

Yea, I was thinking air source and underfloor. New part will be easy to do this but working out best options for old flooring and underfloor heating. I thought about smart lighting but no idea what's best at the moment for control across a large house?

Why does the barn need ripping down?

You can't quite see it in this pic, but the walls are not exactly walls for the most part of the barn. It's frame seems decent, but there is just so much that wouldn't be worth keeping. The slope at the back pushing into the back wall of the barn, which we have asked our architect about excavating as we want to make some space out the back for extension as well as garden. There is about 900m2 out the back, it's just all on a slope! We looked at costs of renovating the barn vs. building up a new one, and we need the access to the back to excavate anyway, plus costs would be cheaper to get what we want, so makes more sense.

*excuse lack of proportions and scale, I knocked it up in sketchup*

This is what we're aiming for in the end:

Perhaps PIR light switches to some rooms.

Yea, definitely a good shout. Kids are a nightmare for lights on everywhere in the place as it is.

I'm not too fussed about all the 'little things' and would be more focused on the overall design but I guess:

-Ethernet connection from near master phone socket to my computer (ethernet to a few rooms would be nice)
-Ensuite in master bedroom
-Proper doorbell that doesn't need batteries changing, randomly stop working etc
-Blackout blinds
-Power to garage
-LED lighting
-Access to loft
-Durable flooring in hall, easy to clean flooring in kitchen and bathrooms
-Satellite dish
-Utility area
-At least one toilet that isn't in a bathroom

Yep to all of those tbh! We've got them all on the list.

Few thoughts from me.

Good points, I'll have to read wtf half of it meant

 

[randomshenans]

Think I'll change the title of this thread... @Maccy can you change it? Randomshenans French Renovation Journey? Sutin like that...?

So that house fell through... dammit. The whole process is a bit of a stress as anyone knows with buying houses. When it's for a project too, we can only apply for a mortgage once we have a full detailed project plan from the architect and that takes time.

Anyway, we found out we couldn't excavate the back to create a garden, or at all, which would cause issues due to the land pushing on the property so probably best off.

We found another place... we've had an offer accepted and it's a bit more like @NickK mentioned about courtyard and outbuildings. We now have to see if the architect can knock up what we want based on my plans.

Quoting from the Careers thread:

Now you've asked it lol













If you can navigate your way around that lot. There is also a basement there currently, which we'll kit out with just storage for all our crap lol

Anyway, compromis de vente is being drafted with conditions in saying it's based on successful planning being granted and mortgage successfulness. We have our mortgage broker doing his job, the architect is on board and next week going out to take full measurements... my wife is pinteresting the world!

Price of the house is 229,000 EUR
Build / Renovation budget is 450,000 EUR

Fingers crossed... so much can go to **** still which keeps me not at all stressed.

 

[randomshenans]

Thanks @Maccy mate!

 

[randomshenans]

The architect has come back and said we can't do the glass walkway shown, due to it being too close to a window of the neighbouring property (although it's a frosted tiny one) and we get that. We thought this could be the case. Though, they also came back and said "The ground floor of the house could have the kitchen, the pantry, mudroom, toilet (keeping it in the same area as the existant bathroom for technical reasons) and a little gym space."
Which I completely disagree with. You could fit me in a size small tshirt but no **** wants to see that and doesn't mean you should. The space would not be sufficient for the large kitchen we want. Likewise they have suggested we don't rebuild the barns opposite and just knock them down... (err?) and that they could fit the things we're asking for in the house.
They suggested putting the office in the master bedroom area (no chance) and as above, gym area next to the kitchen, deleted the TV room, moved the dining room to the existing garage with the sitting room, removed a further downstairs toilet and also guest room. Which is nice. I don't think the French get this open plan stuff, where things flow with large open spaces. I've asked for their thoughts on how exactly they propose the above with rough outline dimensions though.

Does my head in. 2nd house in already and I hate dealing with people and not even got anywhere

 

[randomshenans]

We had some meetings over the weekend and discussions about maintaining rear access to the site, and redid some of the drawings.

Would keep ground floor access from the rear and also give some way of me getting bikes in and out, which was a concern of mine before.

Need to confirm with the architect, to get them to confirm with the mairie that we would be allowed to do this piece as the estate agent is bugging us to sign the forms. Obviously we don't want to sign unless we can get the approval on what we want to build though. Coming along though and this week we should have more movement forward.

On the gadgets side I've been looking at things like speakers in each room, and using some pis to create some internet enabled speakers etc. as well as running kodi in each kids room on them direct from the wall.

 

[randomshenans]

Balls ***** ****. Mairie won't allow us to do what we want on the house. I've come up with a very simple renovation for the house and lowered the budget significantly with the view to trying to renovate and make a profit on it. Sent this to the architect and will see what they come back with. Our issue is that there really aren't that many properties that come up in our area (where we want to stay) that match this criteria and scope. If we can get this one and do a good job on a budget, we could hopefully not only make somewhere nice to live (wife is so desperate to move due to building work around us) but also get us some cash out of it in the end and the next build will be even better

Mairies are a pain in the ring.

 

[randomshenans]

Been working with architect and changed things up but still should give us everything we're after. Signed the sales agreement last weds, kicked off mortgage process friday and met the architect today to start building out full details for the mortgage with costings etc based on spec. Should have some drawings by next monday and rough starting estimates.

 

[randomshenans]

Current plans from the architect, which we have already changed slightly but gives you an idea. We have moved the office wall back 1m to make that room smaller by a bit but open out the dining room some more. Wrap the kitchen worktops and cupboards around the south facing wall and move the island down a bit. Remove the wall between kitchen/dining and the stairs and have wine cellar under the stairs. That's a pantry behind the kitchen to store a lot of food/ appliances in to free up kitchen space.
First floor will have chambre 4 made slightly bigger by moving the main bathroom slightly as this is my eldest's room. Otherwise this floor is OK. Top floor we're going to move this all around but also bear in mind that there are sloped ceilings, so main space in the middle sections while utilising the sloped space for storage.

Next step is our changes and trying to get some cash monies ha

 

[randomshenans]

Add 50%

Funny you say that... it's now been upped to 600k ha

 

[randomshenans]

Ha

Make that 900K then.

It can't be... well, never say never but that's not including furniture or anything but the main build. Build cost comes in at about 320k, and 230k house price. We've added on 50k for the rest of the unknowns. That 320k already has some contingency built in, so let's hope!!

that will be an epic master suite

With full open ceilings and exposed beams too, so should be nice. Will be about 55m2 I think. Need to do some work to maximise the use of space with dressing room and en suite too though. Still trying to work that one out.

 

[randomshenans]

One of the things we need to do is raise the ceiling heights in the house, which means in doing so the space in the attic area is reduced. The compound effect of this floor move is quite a bit at the top being lost.
The way we want to combat this, to ensure we have big open space up in our suite is to add dormer windows, or one large one all along the inside edge, overlooking our courtyard side.



The benefit of this would mean full height maximised as well as much better windows out, compared to the velux ones before.

This would make the layout, something like...



Though, we now need to get this change approved by the mayor, as they obviously hold all the power and they're away for the next week.

Typically, the current roof doesn't conform to the current rules for planning, as they came in after the roof was constructed. So we can't make minor changes, as it will mean that the roof is not within the rules. So we need to make changes that are enough to make it conform, it's just whether this option will be allowed or if it breaks any other rules that they see. One possible outcome I see is that they might make us start the dormer further down the building, not right on the bathroom edge, due to a rule of "you must build on the boundary line, or 4m from it". You can argue against this for a number of reasons, but I think it really just depends on what the mayor had for lunch that day and how many lunchtime vin rouges.
Will have to see...

In the meantime our mortgage broker is trying to find someone who will give us some cash monies to pay for it all no pressure.

 

[randomshenans]

Still a couple of changes here, but minor things to change.



So you can see the velux windows on this floor now as we are moving the floor up, and this is going to mean on this side the rood pitch puts us having a part double height in those rooms and then setting the floor above back slightly. Also moving that toilet, back to the main bathroom.



Top floor now has dormer roof, so much more space on that side. Means we can actually use it, but we will have much bigger windows present and our dressing room will be smaller as we're putting the bedroom below on split levels.


All windows will be grey, not sure why it shows white. Also front door much bigger.





Hopefully have indoor renders soon and everything moving the right way... hopefully!