“Where did last month go?”

Bonjour, my name is Sarah-Jane, I’m the one behind most of the facebook posts, youtube videos, Instagram and this blog, I try to keep everyone up to date with our progress as much as I possibly can, in-between working and being a mother.

Over the past year we’ve been so busy that personal introductions seem to be the last thing on our minds, with the news articles out there and our regular updates, we never even thought twice about introducing ourselves, so better late than never – so here we all are, with a brief introduction…

Sheryl and Gerald are my parents, they are the brains behind everything here at the Chateau, always on the go, they never stop, like mini tornados, and the super glue that keeps us all together, and the voice of reason during family meetings when everyone starts throwing ideas around..

 Sheryl is also the one behind the camera and takes the most spectacular nature shots, there are a few of us that take the pictures here, but the “wow factor” pictures are hers.

Jacob is my brother, he speaks very good French, a passionate workaholic, he is a walking Wikipedia, if you need to know anything, he’s the one to ask, we’ve nicknamed him Mr Google.

Naomi is my sister, recently passed her personal training degree, she is our energetic, go-getter, engaged to Cameron, who both recently became parents to Charlie, our youngest member of the family.

Cecily and Harry, who both love to explore the grounds and are fabulous little helpers!

The last month has been a little crazy, we’ve been soo busy that the weeks have flown by, in the blink of an eye, we’ve not only been renovating the Château but also organizing and preparing for our first wedding, yes! a wedding, you heard us right. like renovating a Château isn’t enough work, Naomi and Cameron will be christening the château with its first wedding in January.

Keep an eye out late January, for all the highlights, pictures, little videos, our ideas, colour schemes, florist, caterer and what the Château will be like for a January (maybe some snow) winter wedding…

And the big question is will we be ready? “we say yes”  but who really knows!

The reception room is starting to come together, we’ve repointed the joints on the feature stone wall, the floor has been screeded ready for finishing, the electricians have run new electrical cables for the lighting, plugs, switches and our special chandeliers.

Everything is prepared for the new heating and air conditioning, and with all the wall studs in place ready for the plasterboards, we also have all the glass coming from this room next week.

The most exciting part arrived last week, it was the black powder coated custom made Spiral Staircase and Banister, our vision of the barn, is coming in to view, for everyone else now to see…

The work on the outside of the Château hasn’t stopped either, we’ve made new pathways, from all the old path and drain stones we’ve found buried around the Chateau, we’ve put down and graded in the second layer of fine chippings down and around the driveway, before the weed mats go down and the final finishing gravel arrives.

Outside the Chapel

Infront of the reception room

We also rebuilt a stone wall, because this tree root was growing through it, massive task to remove it, but we did, and the wall looks as good as new! (or old, however you look at it…)

Rebuilding the stone wall.

The root of tree growing in the wall.

We’ve also removed old plaster from the walls of what will be the new outside public toilet/toilet for the wedding reception, then we prepared the walls to be skimmed, and begun building the walls to turn the room into two separate cubicles, all the plumbing and electrics are next.

Our team of Plumbers have finally arrived at the chateau, replacing an aged and un-efficient water boiler which heats up the large tower.

Which means for the next week, we have no heating at the Château, but we are very excited to have a properly working heater before going into winter.

Their next massive task is to install two boilers down the other end of Château and run pipework throughout the entire three levels..

We’ve also removed old plaster from the walls of the downstairs section of the main foyer and made some trenches to run new electrical cables, then on a scaffold platform, we pulled down the plaster ceiling and cornice in the main foyer, up above the grand stone staircase, we also prepared the walls to be skimmed with plaster, the majority of the time was consisted of scraping back layers of old paint and wallpaper glue.

That is the latest progress, we are always charging forward, there really is an incredible amount of work to be done here for such a small team – but the goal of opening the doors to our beautiful boutique hotel is in our sights and getting ever so closer.

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