What do people actually prefer?

[Euromotorshop]

We are at a bit of crossraods at present.......

We have a large (1000m2) old farm house that we are currently renovating. Downstairs is in resonable condition, and doesn't require much more than a little decorating (we have installed a fantastic modernish bathroom at a cost of about 20k). The upstairs I dont think has ever been lived in and so we will be starting with only the walls (mud brick) and ceiling.

the crossroads....

Do we convert the upstairs using modern materails i.e. plasterboard the walls and insulate througout or go for the traditional appraoch i.e. crepie and plaster.

As we see it modern methods would provide a very good Finish, warm rooms in winter, lower heating costs. Whilst tradional methods are more in line with "the French way" and would be somewhat cheaper.

If you were looking to buy a propery in France which type of finish would you prefer and why? How have you renovated your houses?

We really cant make up our minds!!!!!!! Help!!!!

[Anton Redman]

At 20k for a bath room either Euros or Sterling you are so far away for my renovation  or purchase budget that I am not sure my views can be relevant. However, assuming a selling price based on a  renovation budget  of 1000 euros a square metre you are at 1 million euros. If you want a decent job I cannot make the tradditional approach any cheaper than modern materials and techniques. We used the materials and methods we did because we were starting from an end of Longiere the house was honest with reused oak beans but had had concrete put on the upstairs walls up to five feet and no doors,windows or other features of any Architectural import..

If we had purchased a 'Fin de Siecle' / 'Edwardien'  Masion de Maitre I would have used better quality fittings and probably reinstated proper plaster work. When we were looking for a permenant house we saw lots of badly and unsympathetically renovated houses. Some British owned and some French. The only 'heart breaker' we saw was owned by a French lady and had good quality modern plaster work and the best 'pocket doors' I have ever seen. It was too much money for not enough space

[Euromotorshop]

Thanks and of course your views are relevant.

The bathroom cost was in € and also included a new septic tank, windows/doors, electrics, plumbing (including new cumulas) fixtures and fittings etc.... Size is about 10m x 4m and we built it from nothing. There is so much space I thought it would be a shame to downsize on such an important room. By no means will we be spending the same cost / m2 in the rest of the house. When finished, I would think the house would sell for €700-1,000k (depending on the level of finish) and I expect to spend about €130-160k.

Personally I prefer the modern look, with a nice clean finish; but we are in France :-)

[Alex H]

I would match the upstairs to the downstairs.

In my own case, I have a stone walled farmhouse inside a barn, so I feel traditional is the way to go.

Plaster over the stone walls has blown so we are removing it all and going back to chaux pointed stone.

The size and shape of the rooms I feel would look out of place if we did not use traditional materials.

Do you have any pictures you could put on the web somewhere? It may make it easier for people to comment.

[zeb]

"Traditional" methods are very draughty so best to use modern methods as well!

You are way out of our league valuewise but for what it's worth, we have repointed the best walls (all wires were chased into the stonework by our French electrician). We plasterboarded (using French metal railing), then rough plastered the rest keeping as much woodwork on show as possible. We used really good foil sandwich insulation for the ceilings and plasterboarded them but if you have super beams and valige (sp?) you could always have the insulation put under the tiles (means reroofing though).

Don't forget to use accoustic insulation between bedrooms, bathrooms and when constructing the floor. Sound travels! Traditional boarded floors/ceilings look super but not much fun living with them especially if you share the house with others.

[Anton Redman]

Re request for photo's. The interior stone walls were a mixture of stone and rubble. We displayed/ presevered the best bits and boarded over the the worst. Reused most of the upper floor floor boards but sacrificed the small bedroom as it had had a large area cut out for a redundant chimney. We exposed the stone work on the main living room chimney only to find the 'stone' was a mixtute of broken tiles, rubble concrete with no decent looking stone.

Some stone as a feature but not to the extent of being unable to clean the kitchen walls etc.

http://www.totalfrance.com/france/gallery/mandrake

[Euromotorshop]

Thanks all and fantastic photos Anton, thanks very much - love your choice of colours and what a great job!

Just returned from a bad day at the office (with the accountant) and now the missus is moaning I dont help as much as I should with the kids!!! We have 4, the youngest 10 days old - do women realise we actually work too!

Will take some photos and post them tonight / tomorrow. Perhaps will keep a mini diary over the next 6 months! I really welcome and appreciate all the input.

Bonne soire.

[Blanche Neige]

 

 

"......................and now the missus is moaning I dont help as much as I should with the kids!!! We have 4, the youngest 10 days old - do women realise we actually work too!"

Motoro'................I take it that this comment was just an aside and not serious?

[^o)] ever tried your hand at being a nursing mother with 4 kids to care for?

Bon courage with the renovations, with a family like yours I think you should go with the more modern options. Water from the well could be a bit of a no, no!

[WJT]

Hi, I find this subject very interesting and I am sorry if it appears that I am hijacking. Personally, I much prefer the traditional authentic look, particularly with an old stone property.  Having said that, ours has been ruined in the 70's with cement covering the walls and much of the beautiful deep yellow stone on the exterior, not to mention many other things . We would like to of course remove most of the cement but I found your comment interesting regarding plasterboard. The rooms upstairs need rearranging at some stage with partition walls removed etc.. Plasterboard has been used on all of the ceilings and walls. When you ask the question of preference between plasterboard or plaster, my answer would be plaster hands down but how could this be achieved without plasterboard. In other words, how would you construct the walls or cover the interior of a roof without first using plasterboard prior to plastering? As you can see, I am not that experienced in this area and I assumed you had to use plasterboard. By the way, I have found that their is a bit of resistance from artisans not wanting to plaster over plasterboard.

You mention that it would be less expensive to restore using traditional methods. We have found this to be the opposite. A perfect example of this, on our trip back to the UK last week when we stopped by for the first time some friends that had purchased a house in the Loire and it absolutely made my eyes water. It was (at least to my mind) one of the most beautifully restored French houses I have seen. However, perhaps the biggest difference in this house and ours and others we looked at further south is that it had not been changed, rebuilt and ruined over the years. It is a 15th century yellow stone manor house full of authenticity and restored with the greatest respect.  I think it would cost us an absolute fortune to even try to attempt to bring back a fraction of the quality and authenticity of materials with how this this house was originally constructed.

So, if you could please tell me how we can restore our property with traditional methods and using all reclaimed materials for less money than modern, I will be forever in your debt . 

By the way, I too would look forward to seeing the photo's and would find reading about your progress very interesting as I did with the lovely photo's of Anton's renovation.

[adrianpmills]

1,000m2 is way bigger than what I would call large.  Good luck.

[Euromotorshop]

Gill, of couse the comment was serious :-)

WJT - We actually live in a bud brick house so nothing nice about leaving the walls exposed. Now, I am no expert, but I have picked up some knowledge from my on-site English builders / friends. The choice (for us) is either to use crepie on the walls and then plaster it or plaster board / insulate the walls and then skim it with plaster. This is normal practice and whilst plaster board doesn't need to be plastered afterwards, it isn't good practice to NOT skim it.

Now for the costs.... I am awaiting a detailed break down of the costs before deciding but I will be very surprised if the traditional method of crepie/plastering the walls is not a lot (LOT) cheaper than modern day methods (i.e. plasterboard and then skimming).

Will get to the photos soon...

Bonne soiree.

[Euromotorshop]

"mud brick not bud brick!"

[Le Scouse]

[quote user="WJT"]

When you ask the question of preference between plasterboard or plaster, my answer would be plaster hands down but how could this be achieved without plasterboard. In other words, how would you construct the walls or cover the interior of a roof without first using plasterboard prior to plastering? As you can see, I am not that experienced in this area and I assumed you had to use plasterboard.

[/quote]

Before plasterboard was invented, the only way to create partitions was to create a frame and span little strips of wood across the uprights called laths. These were sometimes twisted around the uprights, a bit like weaving a wicker basket, but usually they were just tacked onto the frame A thick plaster was then applied which seeped through the gaps but clung to the laths. A few coats later you had a "solid" wall. The advantage is that it actually feels solid and you can fix things like shelf brackets to it with more confidence than with plasterboard. the disadvantages are:-

Cost - Plasterboard is ridiculously cheap

Time-Platerboarding is quick (and if using an artisan is therfore Cheaper)

Ease of use - plastering is a skill.. nailing plasterboard to a batten is childsplay

Finish - If you want smooth clean finishes, the basic job is done instantly with plasterboard. You can just run tape over the joins. Some people then paper over it directly. If you want a plaster finish, it requires only a very thin screed. L&P has to be built up in layers (apply too thick a coat and it will crack when it dries)

Convenience- Less mess and easier to construct. I do not know anybody who has ever created lath and plaster walls unless they were sticking to some archaic guidelines for true RESTORATION. Note that renovation differs enormously from restoration.

Practicality - You can hide cables and pipes by encasing them in plasterboard, and even retro fit after boards are fitted. This is much harder with L&P. Also to gain access to a void, you can cut out a section of plasterboard,or remove a section completely, whereas this is more difficult with L&P, which needs full horizontal spans to maintain it's strength

I'm not an expert, but I do recall this info  from attending a plastering class at college in the 80's

It is therefore hard to justify  using anything other than plasterboard, unless you are a purist and wish to conform to original designs. Personally my feeling is that if plasterboard had been invented in the middle ages, they would have used it  !!!!!

Lee

[Chesnelay]

Taking this on to the next step - we are renovating a longere and for the newly constructed upstairs used the plasterboard/skim method, leaving the large original beams partially exposed and we are really pleased with the results.  Downstairs we are going to just clean up and try and keep the 'old scruffy, comfortable' feel to the home.

Our dilemma is what to do with the upstairs floor - it has been left with a light-weight concrete screed by the artisians - not exactly level and whilst my OH disagrees there is a slight bounce when someon walks over it so its not completely immoveable.  Would anyone have any advice on this?  Would it look better with tiles or would they crack, would it be better in wooden planking?  Just getting feedback would be really useful, dont want to pay for the 70 sq m and then realise we have made an extremely expensive booboo!!

Thanks

[WJT]

Hi Le Scouse, just saw your post, thank you for the information. I should have known better, in fact when we bought our place here in the UK we had to have a lath and plaster ceiling replaced  so certainly should have known better.  But, happy to hear your views on plasterboard. I do find that some of the builders just expect to use plasterboard and not skim. In fact they seem to act bemused that this is something that I would want done. That is, if I could only find a good builder!

It is becoming laughable, just had another one completely waist my time again last weekend, numerous e-mails and explanations later cannot reach him and has not bothered calling back. I am beginning to see a pattern with English builders!  One has taken my only copy of a drawing of some stone stairs and continues to promise to send them on to me and one month later has still not bothered. Suffice to say the question about his devis has not arisen. Sorry about going off subject with the rant but really becoming frustrated. I will start a thread on this in the near future perhaps, just too angry at the moment

[Eslier]

The "French way" with plasterboard seems to be to simply tape and fill the joints. A good artisan will achieve a very smooth finish and the wall will be ready to paint - first with "sous couche plaque de platre" and then vinyl emulsion. The end result will look excellent. Strangely,the filling of the joins seems to take about three times longer than a UK plasterer would take to simply skim the wall. The reason for doing it this way, so I was told by my builder, is that UK style plaster is difficult to obtain in France (despite most of being made by a French company!) and there aren't so many skilled plasterers as a result (not sue if this is true but it is the reason I was given).

If you decide to keep exposed stone walls then this will be great providing you intend to heat your house 24hrs a day through the winter months.  Stone will retain the heat well but will cool down quickly if there is no heating on. Once a room has cooled down it can take several days to get back up to temperature again once you turn the heating back on.

We have exposed granit walls downstairs which look great (and keep the house cool in teh summer) but platerboard insulated walls in the upstairs bedrooms which certainly doesn't detract from the character of our house which dates back at least 700 years. This works well for us but I guess everyone's views will be diferent so I would say do whatever you feel happy with.

 

[dodgey dave]

A stone house looks grreat but is b***y cold in winter and will cost an arm and a leg to heat.

Our 1880s house now has plasterboard, insulation and white pvc windows.

Its cheap to heat I don't have to paint the windows every year, and no mould appears on the walls. The rooms are warm in deep winter, and as I pump free water from a well, and heating costs are low, I can not imagine any sensible person not liking it!!

only a fool or someone with a listed building puts in what was in fashion 50 years ago.

lomg live plasterboard and insulation, a warm house and i can still enjoy the same great view.

Ps its started snowing here !!