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Converting Old Properties In Brittany, France.

I've just spent the day removing the mud frominside, and "point" them on the outside so
between the stones of our house in Brittany.that the whole house looks like a wedding
The mud stands in place of lime or cementcake. We've avoided the wedding cake
mortar which were unavailable or unaffordableappearance on the outside - leaving the
when  the  house  was  built."belles pierres" to speak for themselves. On
the inside we try to preserve some of the
The process gave ample time for reflection onunevenness of the walls and leave party walls
what should be done when an old house iswith adjoining houses as they are - the rest
modernised.covered in plasterboard that follows the
contours  of  the  walls.
Here in Brittany it is impossible to preserve
a house in its original state if it is to beThe rooves were nearly always slated in
lived in. All the memories of those times -Brittany, but the old slates have almost
mostly the memories have died with the peopledisappeared. They were of poor quality for
who lived then - would be of bad weather,the most part, but even the smallest were
mud, cramped living space, the cold andused (near the ridge of the roof). Like
privation. Today we can avoid these thingsnearly everybody else we replace with Spanish
but we risk losing the spirit of these oldslates. French slates from the Monts d'Arree
places.or Trelaze in Anjou are only for the very
rich.
Ironically one of the features that we, and
others like us, proudly retain is the datedAs far as the floors are concerned we
front door lintel. But our French neighbourscapitulate to modern practice, so tiled
tell us that many such dated artefacts wereconcrete replaces "terre battue" (=beaten
actually looted from the local manoirs at theearth) which was the traditional floor
time  of  the  revolution.material. This lives on, by the way, in
dances called "pile menu" which originally
The upper storey of old houses was always aaccompanied the actual process of
grenier - never lived in except by mice whoconsolidating  the  "terre".
feasted on whatever was stored there. These
days the grenier becomes several bedrooms.So it is with water, gas, electricity and
They can boxed in as normal rooms or lefttelephone: we have them all but we often
open right up to the ridge - 15 feet, whichthink about the last farming family which
is  what  we  have  done  in  part.lived here. All four daughters "bettered
themselves" and the only remaining sign of
Next the walls would be as rough as the stonefarming is a plough and a harrow at the
that made them, but possibly lime washedbottom  of  our  garden..
indoors every spring to control the
population of bed bugs which spent part ofHow can you reasonably honour such people who
their life in the walls. Nowadays we insulatelived such hard lives ?
them and cover them with plasterboard on the



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