Unpack, uncork and unwind

After 25 years of dreaming of finding a place in France, Christina and David Laycock finally found their ‘little corner of French paradise’ in the Dordogne…

As a middle-aged couple from the Cotswolds in the UK, we held onto a dream for 25 years of living in rural France. We hankered after an old property with enough land to become as self-sufficient as possible and to set up a gîte to supplement our income, be mortgage-free and to embrace the slower pace of life and amazing culture of France.

In 2011, I had an operation that went terribly wrong and I needed another major operation to save my life. After a spell in intensive care and my return to normal life, we reflected on what was a very difficult period in our lives. It really did focus our minds, highlighting that tomorrow isn’t promised and we should follow our dreams. So we did exactly that!

We settled in the northern Dordogne in southwest France, known locally as Périgord Vert. We fell in love with this enchanting region, which offered a warmer climate than the UK, but had easy access back there to visit family, or for them to come and see us.

Most people know the popular and beautiful tourist spots, such as Sarlat-la-Canéda, La Roque-Gageac, Domme and Beynac-et-Cazenac in the south of the Dordogne – an area known as Périgord Noir – but less is known about the north of the region. For us, it offered the perfect combination of idyllic towns and villages, like Brantôme-en-Périgord, tourist attractions and perhaps a more authentic French experience and lifestyle due to less tourism and crowds. We can still travel to the south of the region for days out if we wish, so we felt it was the perfect combination.

It is fair to say that I invest with my heart while David is the more sensible one, who considers things like finances and the investment required -not just things like renovation costs, but time too. Of course, I fell in love with the first place we viewed – despite it being in an appalling state, I could see a diamond in the rough. David hated it, he felt it was a money pit and found nothing to love.

I had to work hard to get him on board. A large discount off the property helped me to achieve this and would allow us to replace all three of its roofs.
We decided to give up our full-time careers and sell everything we owned – our UK home and cars – and kept just smaller items that had special memories attached to them.

I still remember the shock it caused when I rocked up to the boarding school where I worked in a Peugeot Partner van, rather than my flashy little sports car.
To us it made total sense to have a workhorse and a van that could be filled with rubble and building materials. Everyone thought that we had gone completely mad!

We took ownership of our house in France, which dates back to 1798, in July 2018. We came to the property for a final viewing before going to complete the legal side of the purchase. This is standard practice in France, as you tend to buy ‘as seen’. In our case, everything was falling down, or had seen better days, and the mould had taken over in some parts of the house.

It was a hot and sunny day without a cloud in the sky, but we had seen a danger-to-life storm forecast for that evening. It seemed hard to believe, but after the legal side was completed, and as we were driving to the property with a very rusty and bent front door key, the storm came out of nowhere. We were driving along narrow little lanes for 20 minutes, trees falling around us with wind and rain that made visibility almost impossible.

It was a terrifying experience and an introduction to how violent the storms can be in this region. As we arrived at the property, the storm had just passed through. The house was filthy as it hadn’t been lived in full time for years. I took a few things upstairs to what is now our bedroom and immediately saw something was wrong – the windows had blown in during the storm and there was smashed glass everywhere.

Undeterred, I set to cleaning the kitchen sink; this was the only thing in the kitchen apart from one small cupboard. David started cleaning the bath in the bathroom upstairs. This immediately brought water flooding through the kitchen ceiling, while I was having my own challenge with the kitchen tap spraying water everywhere but in the sink. A small work space to prepare food and a clean bath that leaked like a sieve was the best we could manage that night.
We had bought some delicious cheese and French bread earlier in the day and had a bottle of champagne that our estate agent gifted us to say ‘congratulations’. We decided the best option was to eat it in bed as we had no other furniture. We had black bin bags taped to the bedroom windows, but never felt happier.

We spent the next 10 days cleaning inside the house, getting it to the point where we could effectively camp indoors as there was no kitchen, no heating and only a very crude bathroom. We began strimming and clearing the land in preparation for our full-time move in December.

We returned for 10 days in October to bring a van load of things over, including a range cooker and woodburner. These two items pre-Brexit were much cheaper to buy in the UK. We also made contact with a number of trades at this time. Our full-time life here started on 31 December 2018. We arrived with another vanload of things and a bottle of champagne to see in the New Year. While unloading, we noticed the house smelt like a bonfire and it quickly filled with acrid smoke. The mice had been busy since our last visit, building a nest on top of a light fitting upstairs, beneath the bathroom floor. New Year’s Eve wasn’t quite what we had planned – we spent it ripping up the floor and extinguishing the smouldering fire.

For the next 10 days we had no heating, as trades were still on Christmas shutdown. It was one of the region’s coldest winters and we recorded a temperature of -6°C inside our bedroom. We drank whisky or hot chocolate in a bid to try and keep warm – we don’t even like whisky!

The first woodburner was installed in mid-January and our two-year renovation adventure began. We employed professionals for the electrics, sewer, roofs and the swimming pool, and a builder to take the former barn used for drying tobacco to first fix. We did everything else ourselves – from building walls, pointing interior and exterior walls, plumbing, tiling, fitting kitchens and bathrooms to landscaping the plot. It was incredibly hard work, but such an epic adventure dragging this old property into a habitable state -a real labour of love.

We had planned to open the gîte in May 2020, but Covid closed the business before it could even get going. In late June, the French government said gîtes and hospitality businesses could open. We advertised and were fully booked within a few days. Since then, we have flourished in every aspect of French life and enjoyed a very successful gîte business that continues to thrive into our sixth season. We have integrated with the locals and have made amazing French, British and Swiss friends.

Our gîte has been described by our guests as a little corner of French paradise, quite apt given that we had previously chosen the name Le Petit Coin (the little corner). It is exclusively reserved for two adults with no other people on site. We are fortunate to welcome guests from across the globe to the gîte each year, some of whom have been househunting themselves. We have estate agent contacts that we can share and are very happy to help prospective homeowners in any way we can.

Without doubt, our guests love our idyllic location: the open views, tranquillity and nature, but with so much to do and see locally too. It really is a destination where you can choose to do as much or as little – as you wish. Just unpack, uncork and unwind. We are both firm believers that if you want something badly enough, you can make it happen and that something good can often come from something bad. Remember to follow your dreams, they know the way…

To find about more about Christina and David’s gîte, visit Ipcdordogneholidays.com

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