Joyeuses Fêtes

As our first year (or few months) comes to a close, we would like to thank everyone who has supported us as we launched our new business. It was a pleasure to finally welcome our first guests this year, who have shared our vision and passion for creating a haven for driving enthusiast; our first bikers who couldn’t wait to come back to try out more of the local roads and sights; and to meet lots of new petrolheads who we hope to welcome at Bonnes Routes in 2020 and beyond.

Thanks particularly to the team at Petrolheads Welcome for helping to raise our profile and link us in with some great people who are passionate about getting people out on the road with their cars.

Merry Christmas, and we hope you all have some great driving adventures in 2020.

Joyeuses fêtes at bonne année.

First foray into lime pointing

After four years of being in France this year has seen us finish the gite ready for business, tackle the garden and fencing, and now we’re starting on the barn. The interior is pretty much a dry stone wall, with some rather large stones missing and the outside is a mish-mash of finishes that is serious need of renovation. So - lime pointing …. where to begin?!

After many hours ‘Googling’ we’d like to thanks to Jude and Phil of La Basse Cour in Normandy for their blog of their house renovation. We took inspiration from their step by step process, sand/lime mix and application method, and hope that eventually our barn will look as good as their house.

So armed with a bag of sand and some chaux blanc we (that’s the Royal ‘we’) decided to give it a test and see how it worked out. See for yourself! For a first attempt we’re pretty pleased with it (although if any experts have any hints and tips please feel free to share them}.

So now its time to buy a cement mixer, source the supplies in bulk and then we can start in earnest.

Once we’ve done the lower wall we can pull down the mezzanine and start to open up the barn, before trying to level the floor so we can get some decent car storage in place. That’s before we even think about starting on the end gable of the barn and house - we haven’t measured it, but at some point I’ll add the square meterage at the bottom of this post so you can appreciate the size of the task at hand! It’s going to be a LONG job!

Before & After