Third time’s the charm: French Property Renovation

With two renovations under their belts, Amanda and Mike Richardson worked their way up to a stunning former épicerie…

After holidaying in various parts of France, from Brittany to Hérault, with their three young daughters over several years, Kent couple Mike and Amanda Richardson decided to go in search of a French property of their own.

Initially, this was a static mobile home on a caravan camping site in the Languedoc, which they used as a holiday home and a base to explore the region throughout the year. Every stay, they would go off in the car for a couple of days armed with a map of the region and explore the towns and villages between Montpellier and Béziers in search of their French dream home.

Their criteria included somewhere that didn’t depend totally on tourism and would, therefore, remain vibrant in the winter seasons. Places that had schools, a bank, a post office, a café, bar tabac, boulangerie and hairdresser generally fitted that brief. After having lived mainly in the countryside in the UK, they thought they would prefer all the things a small town or village in rural France could offer, but first and foremost the property needed to be cheap. Having renovated several homes in the UK, they felt confident about taking on a property in need of renovation.

TICKING THE BOXES

Over the years, the map became a picture of ticks and crosses as towns and villages were ruled in or out. Then, in October 2018, they found the house they went on to buy: a decrepit townhouse in the vibrant town of Cassagnes-Bégonhès in Aveyron. It was built over four storeys, but only two had ever been habitable.

Neglected and remaining empty for many years, it wasn’t a renovation project for the fainthearted. Amanda recalls asking Mike if he was up to the task the renovation required, and he said he thought he was. That was all the convincing she needed to agree to go ahead and purchase the house.
Armed with more vision than skill at that point, it would be three long years of graft before they moved in. While Amanda ran their Kent-based recruitment business from the UK, Mike spent most of his time in France renovating, initial renting a nearby holiday cottage to base himself at.

A fortunate turn of events occurred when a French couple offered to assist him carrying a staircase into the house and they got into conversation, only to discover that their daughter owned the house opposite. She was in the process of selling, but said they could rent it until it sold.That turned out to be nearly two years and proved very convenient: no commute to the house, plus a handy source of electricity for the renovation.

The couple employed a local artisan to reconstruct the roof and open it up to create a terrace off the attic level. In addition, they created three bedrooms on the first and second floors and a utility room in the basement, while they opened up the ground floor to make an open-plan kitchen, dining and sitting room.

Amanda joined Mike regularly throughout, helping with the renovations where possible, until the advent of working remotely from home (primarily due to the Covid pandemic) meant she could be based in France full time. Working in a telephone-based service industry combined with having a supportive team of staff in the UK meant she was able to do this fairly easily. In 2021, they formalised their working status in France for a UK company and established their French residency.

LOOKING FOR LAND

Although it was a beautiful home, Amanda and Mike’s house lacked outdoor space, apart from the roof terrace. Living the French dream had always included a home with enough land to have a good-sized garden, potager, pool and terrace. So, with the wish list getting bigger, in the summer of 2021 their search for the next renovation project started. They loved Cassagnes-Bégonhès so they limited their search to places nearby and with their local geographical knowledge they were quickly able to locate potential towns and villages.

Amanda says it really was love at first sight with their new home. Knowing what they’d learned through renovating their previous place, they weren’t put off by the crumbling walls, dated electrics and plumbing and overgrown plot. What they saw was a fabulous 180-degree view from the back garden over the surrounding hilly countryside and the potential of converting an integral garage into a vaulted ceilinged kitchen, and of exposing the beautiful stone walls hidden by render, inside and out. Added to this were two useful outbuildings in the form of a hangar and a porcherie (pigsty), which they used for storage and as a workroom during the renovations, and have been earmarked for the next projects: conversion into a garage, outdoor games area and log store.

FIELDS OF DREAMS

In October 2021, they got the keys and started the process of transforming the house into their forever home. They started on the garden – the previous owners also owned fields that wrapped around the plot on two sides and as part of the house purchase, they agreed to include two parcels of this adjacent land.

The first job was to remove a bramble and nettle wilderness, erect a fence and plant 56 bare-root hedge plants along the new boundary. Next came the construction of a greenhouse that would be vital for establishing the plants that would eventually fill the garden and potager. Amanda has grown almost every new plant from seed or cutting, the thought process being to get the garden renovation started and let nature take its course over the years while they carried on with work on the house. Then when they had finished, they would have more than a wasteland surrounding it. The previous owners and neighbours also donated plants and seeds, which has been incredibly useful, knowing what the local soil and growing conditions are like.

As renovations continued inside the house, they quickly realised that the wooden floor in the sitting room would need to be replaced, and on lifting it found an open water duct for draining the front courtyard. Water pipes were fitted instead, and the old floorboards were taken out and moved to the garden to be recycled into what became 12 raised beds built around the greenhouse.

In fact, Amanda and Mike were able to recycle a lot of things from the house – in particular, the stone from the walls. The house has been a school and an épicerie (grocery) previously, with the current entrance hall being the original shop. On removing the render, they discovered a back door that had been blocked up. As the lintel was still in place, it was a relatively easy job to remove the stone filling the doorway. Two other windows and doors were also created later. The stone walls surrounding their three garden terraces are all made from these removed stones, while the render from the walls became a rubble base for two of the terraces.

On clearing out a mezzanine above the garage, they found more than a dozen planks of cherry wood, which later became window ledges all through the house, as well as a coat rack in the entrance hall.

TRADE SECRETS

The roofer artisan they’d previously used was called to help with some tiling and creation of Velux windows in the attic, while a builder friend used his structural knowledge to help with opening up the new windows, and an electrician put the house’s vast network of new electrics safely in place. But for the most part, Mike learned what needed to be done by watching YouTube videos or reading manuals.

He explained that the smaller first renovation had been a training ground, where the mistakes made were learned from and the knowledge gained proved invaluable. This included planning ahead when deciding where to locate plug sockets by picturing where a bed would be positioned or, in the sitting room, knowing the measurements and arrangement of sofas and chairs and where floor sockets would need to be situated under side tables two years before the concrete was laid!

By February 2024, they were able to move into the house. Some small renovations remained outstanding, including the installation of a 10m pool, but after the excavations for this had finished, the couple were able to start work on the garden.

Last summer saw family and friends visiting to enjoy the fruits of Amanda and Mike’s labour, and the kitchen garden produced an abundance of fruit and vegetables to accompany barbeque evenings.

Much has been said about moving to France and living the dream, but the bureaucracy and slow pace can sometimes be frustrating. It’s not always easy establishing yourself in a new social and healthcare system, not to mention learning a new language, but Amanda and Mike have enjoyed the experience.

They’d recommend that anyone considering it should do their research first though. Amanda notes that there are plenty of resources available on social media and the internet including, of course, French Property News!