We’ve been steaming ahead since the wedding, on both the inside and the outside of the Château.

On the interior of the Château, we’ve been waiting for the next part of the approvals to come through, everything is approved in stages, every time we complete something, we must have someone come out for an inspection, and they make sure all works are up to building code and safety standards, before the next step can begin.

As we aren’t listed as a heritage property, we come in under the regular renovation regulations and red tape, also because the Château is zoned as a residential premises, and is not available to the public as yet, we have to also bring it up to hotel and public use standards, with fire alarms and safety systems, wheelchair accessibility and general safety,  in which all are considered before we can get our “stars rating”.

Nothing happens fast here, if you yourself have experienced a renovation project, you know every step takes time, everything gets checked, double checked, for safety reasons, and to make sure it’s all done correctly, but like anything, it’s always worth taking it slow, “slow and steady win the race” as they say..! and getting it done right, the first time, is one thing we aim to achieve every time.

But we will admit, the excitement for us to start the dry lining / plastering process is quite overwhelming, because this our trade specialty, and our vision is beginning to come to life.

At this this point, we can’t wait for everyone to see it unfold, with all the decorative cornice, amazing ceiling rose features and wall panels, are going to make the Château even more unique.

We finally have gas heating down the long end of the Château, all the pipes are in place and all the solder jointing is done, with all the hours and hours of man labour finally paying off.

All the new steel wall frames are up, and all the floors that were rotten have been replaced.

On the exterior of the Château, well, after a few big days of harsh storms and high winds, we lost a lot of trees, they were uprooted and came tumbling down.  We also had some bad damage done to the roofs, one being the highest tower roof of the Château, it lost a big section of slate, and one of the out buildings, lost some tiles, we also lost some windows, they were already quite fragile, but they just blew right out…

We also had a lot of flooding, our two fields out the back, that are connected to the river flooded, because of all the rain we’ve been having, but it is slowly but surely drying up.

During the clean up we closed off some of our old wells, we use one already for watering the grounds, along with a second bore hole drilled into the water table, so we can use that one too. But we had two open wells that needed to sealed off for safety, so one has been turned into a seat and still has the original hand pump handle on it, right next to the pump house and water tower, and the other one looks like a piece of art, the boys, used a old technique and traditional local limestone. They cut the stone with the stone saws and stone cutters, to give it a smooth and round look, a lot of work went into rebuilding and capping the well.

We also decided to finish, hand chipping and sandblasting the outhouse walls ready to be repointed when the weather clears up.

We even had some lovely visitors, visting us, in the parkland, around 5;30-6 pm everyday!

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