Fireplace done.

I wish I was getting paid by the hour for this.  By a er, be about 30 quid richer.  Still, that's 120 bottles of home brew.

Voila.  One massive fireplace in a wee room.  Very, very hard to do - as I got to the top it was getting nigh on impossible to back-fill and get the side of the flue straight, and tie in everything.  Got there in the end.

The back was black with soot so after a bit of research, cow poo came to the rescue.  There are lots of different ratios, but basically, cow poo has a mucus in it that reacts with lime to form a gel that keeps soot and tar from leaching through plaster, staining it.  Also flexible and fire-proof, so good for chimneys.  My French wasn't up to explaining that to our neighbour, so  they are ...bemused, thinking I'm spraying my house with cow shit.  Which I am.  Sand, lime, poo and hair mixed to a slurry and harled on the back.  Got some in my mouth.  Tastes like shit.

Next on the list - a bloody concrete slab.  Rather have lime-crete, but we're not made of money.  Better plant more trees this winter to offset it.

Fireplace update.

Moved the very heavy concrete lintel into place, possibly like the Easter Islanders did their big rocks: with rollers and wee bits of wood.  If you have two supports near enough to the centre so it see-saws a bit, you can lift one end with one hand, put a taller bit of wood in, rock it back, do the other side, and voila - it's higher and your spine discs are still where they should be.  Got help to put it in but it wasn't sitting right so I rocked one side out on an accro prop, fiddled about at the back, re-mortared and rocked it back again, then repeated for the other side.  All level and square and plumb and all those other words the original builders were not aware of!  I wish I'd built the hearth out a bit, then I could have had a bit of oak as a lintel but didn't think of that until too late!  Can't have a wood lintel flush with the wall as it would be too close to the flue and would burn, hence concrete... Still, it'll look good - if I ever finish it!

The next thing is to support the middle of the wall, between the lintel and the back, outer wall.  I was advised to cast concrete in with some shuttering, but after fiddling about I worked out that this will only work for square spaces and I wasn't about to spend a week scribing wood to fit the wall (the concrete would seep out of any gaps).  So, once again, simpler solutions work: a big stone acting like a bridge from the lintel, through the back wall.  Took minutes as opposed to hours fiddling about with moulds and casting concrete.  Also a lot better for the planet, like.  I had stone, and lime mortar in me bucket.  Job done.

We have also been wiring the house in our spare time.  Not as hard as everyone thinks.  Wires go from fusebox, along wall to socket and back again.  Earth wires go to the earth - a copper spike in the ground.  Bit hard to get everything level due to the crumbling stone and mud walls, but near as can be.

Summer update

We're living in the gite for the foreseeable future.  Very glad it's not a caravan!

 Been doing various very dull and longer-than-I-thought-it-would-take jobs, like doing the drain properly.

 The original Breton fireplace was taken out in the 60s and a small coal grate was put in.  I have taken the small coal grate out and am putting a Breton fireplace back in!  We're getting a woodburner with backboiler and want something nice for it to stand on.  Took forever to do the hearth, but pleased with how it's going so far.  Dead level as well, for once!

Also re-enforced a rotten roof timber by putting a new one in front and screwing it in.  Nice bit of planed and oiled oak, which will be showing in the bedroom after the wall's been re-plastered.

Also working on the electrics and have been planing some oak posts to hold up a possibly supporting wall that has been knocked through to make the living room bigger.