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This week the house had it’s first étanchité (air seal) test, which was fine for the 1st test, but resulted in lots more work on sealing the plaster boarding throughout, before the artisan starts on Monday on the final wall & ceiling finishes in the “guest wing”.
The British will see that it’s a very different system for plaster board, but it works well. Our previous house was done in exactly the same way.

The outside is also progressing well, with the 2nd gable end almost finished, after which the roof can then be completed.
The house front facade is well on its way to being done & then there’s just the rear of the house to complete.
The guys doing the stonework are excellent!

We’ll be finishing the interior step by step whilst the builder will be starting on all the external earthworks, filling in all around the house, grading the site, fitting the drive/parking areas etc.
Before long all of the heaps of spoil will be distributed to raise up the land to the house level, with hopefully some stones left over to build some walls.

There’s also a water ‘sack” of 15,000 litres (15 cubic metres) to go in the back garden. Water’s very important here as the summers get hotter & drier. Even today the temp is over 30°c & it’s forecast to continue well into October. It’s not easy on the team working outside.

The flow chart for finishing is interesting these days!

We love the stone work & the mason is doing a great job.

We were wondering how all the finishes to the plasterboard were done, especially the ceilings. Well, wonder no more. Rather than taping over the joints they use a long-handled machine containing a sealant & then roll it over or down the joints. The man on stilts plays an important roll in doing the ceilings!

The interior is moving on towards the final finishes to the walls, ceilings & floors, with the electrics & plumbing keeping on track.

The really important stage now is to put a layer of concrete in/on the floor to cover all the pipes & ducting, let it set, put in all the underfloor heating pipes & cover with a thermic screed, let it set & then apply the floor finish, let it set and then the final polish.
Of course all of this stops the others from progressing. The teams all seem to get on well & yesterday the site meeting was more about organising the artisans for the next couple of weeks. We can’t afford any delays now as we have to organise deliveries of fitted furniture, white goods, sanitary ware etc.

Outside, one gable end is now finished & the roof can be fully closed there. The other gable end will follow on next week, & the the front & back of the house can then be finished. There’s at least 2 to 3 weeks work there!!

We’re staying with the handover to us being the last week of November & then we can move in. We need to confirm with our removers & with people helping us to put up shelving etc immediately we have the house so that we can empty boxes as they arrive!

Vaour is now a 2 crane village. If they mate there’ll be lots of little cranes sprouting up.

There’s work going on with the church roof as well.

Well, the interior walls & ceilings and the associated electrics & plumbing are almost finished. We’ve spent a lot of time there this week with the detailed positioning. Hope that we’ve got it right.

As the stone cladding is being fixed the house looks better & better. We just need the 2 gable ends finishing to entirely fix the roof, before any more rain.

On Friday morning we had a site meeting with the architects, us and all the contractors involved from here on in. The good news is that they’re all working well together to get it finished.
The bad news is that there is a delay of 4 weeks, which means that we should be moving in at the end of November. We can’t wait.

It was this time last year that we posted photos of wonderful sunsets. Well just to be different, as I was out for the first day of the chasse this morning, how’s this for a sunrise?

What a difference 2 days make.
We didn’t really understand how important the lintels were until we saw these lintels in situ & took the photos on Monday.

And then yesterday, with more stone work!

We’ve also been there for long periods agreeing with the electricians exactly where the sockets & lighting etc. are going, all of which is made more complicated by not having the finished floor levels in place, & this can’t be done until the underfloor heating pipes are in & the screed laid.
That could be a little while yet, but then we’ll be on to fitting the fixed furniture – kitchens, wardrobes, white goods & woodburner etc.