What a month, with a great start to Autumn!!

We’ve had exciting news, the birth of our newest addition arrived by stork express on the 7th of this month, a little Boy called Charlie.

This month we’ve had some hard days, with beautiful misty mornings and early frost, there has been some great finds and some very close calls!

The work has been challenging for everyone, not only physically, but mentally, with the stress of pushing forward, but then, having unexpected setbacks, like a stone mantle piece over a large fireplace collapsing and rotten floors board found, now they all need replacing! In the big scale of things this is small, but it all adds up, adding that little bit of extra stress, time and hard work!

At the beginning of the month we put in a 10 mm steel border to separate the grass and the chippings, up, down and around the driveway including the teardrop we laid 700 meters and what a job it was!

Everything needed to be measured, doubled measured, we even triple measured it just to make sure, we had to dig out shallow trenches in-between the chippings and grass, and placed the welded steel lengths securely into the trenches, then back filled them.

Next step for the driveway will be, weed mats and the gravel to finish it off.

We also mowed the parkland for the first time, since the grass has started to grow, it took several hours on the ride on mower, but what a difference it has made, the freshly cut grass, wet leaves and that amazing smell of autumn in the air around the Château, is simply perfect!

We were also given permission to have a controlled fire, to burn all the excess wood we have lying around, perfect timing for “All Hallow Eve”!

We started on the inside of the Château this month…

We have been working alongside electricians on and off for the past weeks, helping to run over 20 kilometers of cable, throughout three levels, all through the bedrooms/bathrooms of the Château, we’ve had to drill many holes through 500mm to 2meters thick stone walls, to run the cables between rooms and between levels, everything being prepared to connect it to the sockets and switches.

This has been a task! Because the wiring that was already in the Château was dangerous and outdated, we’ve had to pull it all out and start from fresh, everything will be new, safe and modern with our old fashioned century twist.

In the past few weeks we have been cement rendering, that means we have started to seal up all the exposed limestone walls.

This is an important part of the work, which adds a little stress, mixed in with some strenuous, hard work, we have mixed and applied over 15 tonnes of sand and 2 tonnes of cement (plus waterproofing additive) to the walls.

The coating has many benefits, importantly, it will help to keep the damp out of the ground floor, by stopping moisture from coming in through the external walls. It also allows us to smooth out any bumps and dips in the walls where there has been movement over the years, the render will also add strength to the walls and provide a firm backing to the decorative work that is soon to come.

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The houses around the Château have also started to be cement rendered, and we are screeding the floors, this work is backbreaking!

We also removed the old 20th Century Lift, this lift was almost 100 years old, it has been stuck in-between the second and third floor, for quite some time!

We will replace the lift in the future, unfortunately we can’t use this one, because of its age and lack of maintenance, not to mention the diameter isn’t up to the standards in this day and age, but we will have it on display for everyone to see!

While we were removing it, we did have a “Spooky” moment here at the Château.

The boys had to bring it down to the ground floor, when it finally made it down, with no electricity, the door opened and the lift let out a big “bing” noise, just like an old lift would do… after the boys having mild heart attack, and jumping out of their skin, all you could hear through the Château was hysterical laughter, which as you know is contagious!

We would like to finish this update with:

To everyone who has been sharing this journey with us, watching us make mistakes, cheering us on, it has definitely made this project even more worthwhile, we have always been a close family and we strive to work hard, we are doing this because we love this Château, it’s not a job to us, if anything it an honor to bring it back to it’s full glory.

Seeing other people enjoying it too, makes it even more precious to us, seeing how much pride the community has for the Château, makes us smile.

The support drives us to work harder, longer, and whenever we are little down or have had a very hard day, the messages we get, makes everything better, so Thank You from everyone here at Château Le Mung!

Keep posted, we will be back for another article soon!