So this is what we began with !

In many of the magazines, photographs and blogs from beautiful old houses in France everything looks wonderful.

The reality for some of us brave souls was slightly different when we found our coup de couer.

That is the dream that we'd searched for.

When we came here over 8 years ago and found the house there was so much to be done.

I cannot tell you how horrible we found it inside but the shell was wonderful and we knew we could make it lovely. 

 These photographs show you the reality of what would become our lounge finished for Christmas 2011.

This was the horrible fireplace.

The walls of the bedroom were covered in blue carpet, the mice loved to live behind that !

Lovely blue carpet and elegant panelling !!!!

It won't then come as a surprise to you that we slept in our caravan for six months and then another six months in the kitchen.

I still remember carrying the mattress in every night and carrying it out every morning.

I must say sleeping in front of the dying flames of our woodstove was lovely and very romantic.

After a year we had a proper kitchen and the beginnings of an upstairs bedroom - in what would have been the storage area for hay etc.

The white door led to a bathroom.

The bathroom

There was a corridor that had a  toilet - the walls here were covered in brown carpet.

Pie especially loved to climb the walls in there !

Her own private climbing wall.

The corridor with equally lovely tiles !

The area you can see to the left was our ' wardrobe '.

In the next post I'll show you the next stage in our work.