A guide to our Barn Conversion in Poitou Charentes. Reprise, Review and Re-visit

Reprise, review and re-visit.

When writing the six previous articles it was very easy to bowl along assuming that the steps I took would be understood by everybody. Feedback would suggest otherwise! As a result, therefore, below is a series of notes made as a result of: a) re-reading the articles and thinking ‘maybe this might prove useful’, and, b) responses to enquiries received.

Why a Barn?
Finding a house to renovate to give us what we wanted was proving difficult. They were either too small, in the wrong place, too expensive or required extensive re-modelling. Essentially a barn is four walls and a roof. As blank canvasses go it’s about as blank as you can get. We were able to start adding to the building straight away, without any real demolition. As a bonus to this we did not have tonnes of rubble to dispose of. This is a good thing. I have seen many converted barns, on television and in reality, where the concepts used for interior design have been fairly outlandish; Pods for bedrooms and bathrooms joined by walkways suspended on wires was one “Grand Design” that springs to mind. We chose the more familiar, traditional route and created what can be easily recognised as a three bedroom, two bathroom family home, albeit a big one. I still have to explain to French people that the interior is converted when they stop for a chat at the garden gate, (maximum audience, so far, 32, a walking group passing through, who were puzzled as to why we were living “dans une grange!”)

Heights of rooms.
Many French properties have attics (greniers) that are low or offer restricted headroom because of beam height, or lack of it. By measuring from the highest part of the existing floor to the underside of the lowest beam in our barn, (5,6metres), we knew we had enough height to create a new ground floor, a first floor frame and upper floor ceiling and still have headroom all the way to the walls. This trick was fairly high on the list of things to check as we knew we wanted a good sized upstairs space to create an open plan, double height, entrance hall, mezzanine area. Having looked at many properties with “grenier amenagable” I feel they should add for the “vertically challenged” afterwards.

Formalities and plans.
If you are contemplating, or indeed have a barn that you want to convert, you must ensure that the required paperwork is in place. At the very least a Certificate d’Urbanisme (Operationelle), this must (can’t stress this enough) must say somewhere, if the intention is to live in it, something like “transformation a usage agricole en habitation” or words like it. I have seen somebody ask to convert a barn, and received all consents to create a better barn, which is not what they wanted. Caused all sorts of head scratching and extra expense. A Certificate d‘Urbanisme is only a document that lets you know what you will be allowed to do “in principle” with your building. Full planning permission is required before any works, conversions can start. This also applies to people renovating properties that change the outside appearance, structure of a house, attic conversions etc. As well as the formal planning exercise there is the incidental planning for things like material requisites, work schedules etc. This needs to be personally tailored to your own circumstances, situation and ability. All I can offer on this one is that you can never do enough of it! Make notes, draw sketches, doodle and generally keep track, then when you’ve done this, do some more. Most will be irrelevant, but the odd bit that saves a) money, b) aggravation, and/or c) pain, will make it all worthwhile.

Health & Safety
Don’t let the title put you off, ‘tis nothing official. In a previous existence I was responsible for 7 workshops, 2 domestic science labs, a central store of machinery and a motor vehicle shop. Not to mention the 11 people who worked in them. My knowledge of the Health & Safety at Work act was well honed in those days, especially when you add into the mix the 1,600, students who used the above facilities, with ideas all of their own on what constituted “good practice”. I am not here to tell you how, what and why of being careful. What I will say is that it is very easy to acquire all the safety gear; hard hat, safety boots, ear and eye protection and gloves. They have a role to play. Your responsibility to yourself and others is to apply the biggest portion of common sense you can to any practical activity and ensure that you are confident and capable in its undertaking. Do all you can to stay safe and well.

Help,  advice  required feel free to get in touch.