There is no doubt that doing up a house, to transform a whole house from one function to another is a whole heap of work.
When we bought our French presbytery in December of 2006 we felt to some extent that we were going down a road we had travelled before.
We had, after all, in 1989, bought a house of similar size and condition in Waterford and within three months we had it up and running as a restaurant.
The difference between a house over a restaurant and a house which has to function as a B&B is however quite vast.
In Mary Street in Waterford all works stopped at the first landing, everything above that point was private and was put on the long finger, so long a finger that in some cases when we sold the house 15 years later they still rested there.
A Chambre d’Hote encompasses virtually the whole house, we will admittedly still have the attic to ourselves but unfortunately, in this case that is the area that required most work so where as it does not need to reach the high standards of the other two floors it needs more work just to make it habitable.

I have been out here now since the middle of March and will be here for another three weeks. I am extremely fortunate to have two skilled wood workmen out here with me for the duration who are, even as I write proceeding with the works in the kitchen.
Having spent the last two weeks here basically having a holiday with my family I have just spent the morning emptying the kitchen, again, I suppose for the fourth time, to permit Clive and Martin (number two) free access to the area to finish the work there.
The person I have to blame for this effort is of course myself.
Having a large house in the south of France is just too tempting a prospect to ignore.
Any sensible person would have not tried to live there until all the works were complete.

Against that, I think that every incarnation of the house that we have lived in so far has been instructive, has made one change one mind about what goes where and will hopefully add to the finished machine for living being more efficient and therefore more beautiful.

For the family holiday I had for the first time a virtually working kitchen with a counter and a double ovened cooker and a five ring hob.
This contrasted dramatically with last summer’s efforts of entertaining on two camping gas rings and a tiny grill (and occasionally for similar numbers)

In fact despite appalling weather for the Easter weekend everything worked extremely well. We were nine adults and a baby for most of the time and it is amazing how simple entertaining these numbers are in a house with five fully functioning bathrooms (and another two extra loos as well) and a kitchen which even if not fully finished has all its working parts in place.

When we moved into Mary Street we were faced with the prospect if what to do with the huge and previously unoccupied attic at the top of the house.
We were inspired to turn it into a large living, dining kitchen and as such it was extremely successful and suited our lifestyle very well.
I always like the idea that when the cook is cooling he isn’t cut off from the rest of the world.

It was with this in mind that we turned the two large downstairs rooms here in Le Presbytere into one large room like that in Waterford.
As a dining space this has the extra advantage that it is possible from behind my counter in the kitchen to cook and to talk to my guests at the same time, turning the feeding aspect of the enterprise into a one man job.

So the work goes on apace, we should have some kitchen to photograph soon.