Renovating a Gite in Brittany

The staircase guys came this week to fit the stairs. Two men and a lorry arrived with all the bits Wednesday morning and they finished Friday lunchtime.

The photos show the construction process. I didn’t actually see much of process first hand because for the two days we were trapped downstairs we finished off bits of plasterboarding in the kitchen and lounge and had a major tidy up to move all the materials and tools into the garage ready to tile the kitchen floor.

The staircase is made of a hardwood (not sure of the name) but during construction it did look quite yellow, however right at the end it was all sanded down and a light oak tint was applied. That really made quite a difference to the look and brought up the grain.

The guys suggested that I should apply a clear wax coating to stabilise the tint to prevent further darkening over time and also to protect and nourish the wood.

The stairs were quite expensive, but I’m really pleased with the result. They just seem to curve and sweep up the stairwell and walking up and down is really comfortable. Each step is about 30cm wide and the rise is very shallow. Compared to an off-the-peg staircase it’s a world of difference. But then I have to say that to convince myself of the extra expense.

The last major shopping decision is the staircase. I've been toying with the idea of buying an off-the-shelf hardwood staircase and fitting that. The only problem is a standard height staircase is about one step higher than I need. I could cut off the bottom step and adjust the banister etc. to fit, but it's not something I relish.

Now that the oak flooring has been ordered I thought I might as well go the whole hog and order a made-to-measure staircase and have it professionally fitted. I've decided to use a local guy because I've used him before to fit two staircases into some gites, and he did a good job.

Again, the cost is an issue and it's going to be an extra 1500 euros compared to an off the peg solution, but the staircase will be hardwood, with a oak tint applied. It's also a job I can just forget about and I think worth the extra because you can see the quality of a hand-made staircase and it should add a little more of the wow factor (and hopefully value) to the house.

I'm glad the shooping week is over !

Two main jobs this week, increasing the size of the opening for the staircase and building a door step.

As I mentioned before I've got two pieces of granite from a broken mantlepiece. I did consider using them as external door steps but neither piece was really long enough. The sill of the side door from the lounge is about 20cm about finished floor height, so why not use the granite inside. It should tie together the stone walls and complete the picture. Each piece of granite had to be cut to length. I used an angle grinder with a diamond blade to cut around all four sides then a couple of whacks with a coal chisel and lump hammer saw the two pieces part company.

The idea here is to remove the broken ends of each piece then butt up the clean original outside edges in the center of a new step. The cut ends will be pointed in.

In order to get the levels right it did require some excavation under the door. A bit of hard core, sand, plastic membrane, then mortar to lay the granite blocks on. Positioning the blocks was really really difficult. We couldn't get our hands round the blocks and anyway they were just too heavy. After quite a bit of shuffling the blocks were in and positioned and level, but too low! The mortar shifted around, squeezed out and mucked everything up.

It was a tough decision, but it would have annoyed me every night, so out came the whole lot. The mortar dug out, more hard core and packing and second attempt. This time it went much smoother. We used a technique of aligning the blocks on a plank then rolling them onto the bed of mortar. It worked much better than trying to lift and shuffle.

The new opening for the stairs was necessary in order to fit a standard 'off-the-peg' hardwood two quarter turn staircase. I've choosen the staircase I like and it required a 180cm square opening. The current opening was too narrow. I could have had a staircase made to measure but that doubles the price of the stairs, so a bit of elbow grease was required.

The cross beam (the one with the ladder on it) needed removing and moving back about 30cm to ensure the hole was large enough. Because the cross beam was buried about 40cm into the wall the only option I really had was to cut off the tenons to remove the old beam. With the other beams supported by acro-props the cross beams could be wiggled free. The existing beams cut where short and new tenons made at the beam ends to fit into the cross beam mortices which where then pegged with new oak pegs. These seasoned oak beams are like cutting concrete and I've completely trashed a couple of panel saws hacking away.

Re-using the existing cross beam meant I didn't have the extra length to remake the tenon and I certainly didn't fancy cutting a new mortice so I cheated and got some 14mm steel bar and just drilled right though the beam and into the end grain of the cross beam. A couple of 'pegs' and it's rock solid.

You can just see above the blue clamp some shuttering where the hole has been filled from the old cross beam position. The horizontal acro-prop is just there to ensure the cross beam was pushed up tight.