THE FARMHOUSE - The Attic Bedroom

Those of you who visited the website last year will know that the attic bedroom was amongst the plans for this year. Well, having enjoyed a good bottle of wine or three and basking in the reflected glory of finishing the music room, our parents changed their minds and decided to visit us in July. So instead of a well earned rest, we are now in the throes of trying to convert the attic by July 22nd. And I thought this year was going to be easy - not a chance! To try and keep the website up to date a little faster, we invested in a digital camera. I still can't believe that 95% of this website was built with photgraphs using my old SLR.
	The original attic shown left was initially in need of a good clearout, particularly the mountains of straw, old timber and tiles which had been dumped there over the years. This was quickly followed by treatment of all the roof timbers for woodworm. Fortunately most of the timbers were chestnut poles and had survived well for over 30 years without any infestation, so I guess they will probably outlive me now! We cheated by putting in the new floor and the staircase at the same time as we converted the bedroom below last year, thus saving a lot of time and trouble - not to mention mess. The only minor concern was the ridge beam (oak) which had been quite badly attacked in the past, although there was little evidence of recent infestation. To be on the safe side however, we did install some supporting joists at each end just in case - if you didn't know by now when in doubt I'm always a "belt and braces" person!!
Having become old hands at this sort of conversion after four years, the velux window took just 4 hours to install (I obtained the declaration de Travaux last year in case you wondered!) A declaration is all that is needed providing you keep the overall habitable area (<1.8 metres high) to below 20 sq. metres. Naturally ours was less than this??? Next up were the hangars (suspentes) for the ceiling rails, followed by the insulation - which is kept in place with galvanised wire wrapped around the hangers, followed by the rails themselves.
	Meanwhile Joyce had been busy remortaring the walls. We were originally going to plasterboard them but finally decided to put in the effort and mortar them - its also a much cheaper option. With a plain ceiling it adds much more character to the room. During this time I was able to get on with the studwork for the eaves and the toilet and washbasin area. We eventually decided against a bath or shower as the height in the eaves was somewhat tight, and to make the bathroom larger would have meant sacrifing a lot of space in the bedroom. (Actually the real reason was that I didn't leave enough drop on the main waste pipe which feeds along the eaves to the other bathroom - but we won't go into that!)
	The studwork is made up from chevron - which is the closest you can get to 4x2 in France. The opening looks out into the main barn at the moment but will eventually be blocked off with beton cellulaire to form an inset bookcase. At the moment its useful because we can access the attic from the barn so we're able to seal it off from the rest of the house. Saves on the vaccuuming - although according to Joyce I've never really learned to use it. Bloody cheek! The studwork on the left is for the washbasin and is set out from the wall to allow the insertion of a box (made from green chipboard). This will form an inset shelf unit behind the washbasin and help the structure integrate with the rest of the room. Next is the plasterboarding - I can't wait!!!

A couple of weeks on and now the plasterboard for the ceilings and eaves is all in place. Joyce has had the usual job of skimming the joints and sanding, something she has become quite skilled at during the last four years - not by choice as she usually does a fair impersonation of Marley's ghost when she's finished! We decided to use the smaller sheets for the ceiling areas (2.5 metre x 60cm) because they are much easier to handle and place, and although they work out more expensive per square metre the extra cost is worth it believe me.

The washbasin (lavabo) is now also in place and all the associated plumbing. The toilet area is tiled and just waits for the basin. The area in the eaves will be left until last, so that we can sort out any possible problems with the waste pipe and the drop - which is a bit tight. The next job is to block off the entrance into the barn, (after we've finished the plastering and carried up the last sheet of plasterboard).