Sunday 7 February 2016

Renovation project - Decorating in France



Renovation project - Decorating in France

EDF are arriving today to change the electric meter and up our ampage, John gets to the house for 8 am and I stay at home to have another go at the casserole in the slow cooker, it will have to work at some point!

I join John at the house and he has really cracked on. He has sanded all the walls in one of the bedrooms and has started to decorate. We are painting the whole room white including the wooden ceilings, for some reason most Bretagne houses have wooden ceilings that make the rooms very dark, added to the choice of dark wallpaper the rooms look much smaller and more closed in.

The white paint makes a massive difference already.

This is also French paint, normally we always use English paint as the quality is so much better, but this paint was on special offer when we went shopping and we wanted to see if it had improved.

The paint covers really well, this may be because it is external paint. But we are happy with it, which means no more buying in the UK.

In case you were wondering why we are using external paint, it is because it has anti mould and other things already added to it. This makes the paint more long lasting and durable, especially if you have concrete or stone walls.


This was advice John had received from a master decorator many years ago and has always worked well. But beware the rooms do need to be fully ventilated as the paint fumes can be much stronger.

Decorating in France, renovation project

Decorating in France, renovation project


Decorating in France, renovation project

Ignore the bath in the photos that is just moving around the house until we build a new bathroom

I make a start on removing the tiles in the kitchen and then scraping those walls. The prep for decorating takes so much longer than the actual decorating itself, it is also the worst part, it is dirty and dusty, but necessary, without prepping correctly your decorating will not look good.

Decorating is preparation, preparation and preparation.

We do wonder whether to keep the tiles as they are very retro, but decide against it, we do have a pile though if anybody wants them?

Removing old french tiles - Renovation project

Removing old french tiles - Renovation project

Removing old french tiles - Renovation project

John fits the water heater (it is not fully connected yet) we need some more bits but soon we will have hot water, which means we will be moving in, I am so looking forward too being in the house.

installing an electric water heater in France - Renovation project

I have got the decorating bug now and move on to the other bedroom where I spend an age stripping the wall paper, John pops up to see how I am getting on and asks why I have stripped a wall that is being removed, it is at this point I could scream, I had completely forgotten we were removing this wall, he says it will be easier to knock down without wall paper on, I am not sure if he is just making me feel better, so I take this as a positive with out questioning it.

Decorating in France - Renovation project

Decorating in France - Renovation project

Decorating in France - Renovation project

Decorating in France - Renovation project

And by the way, todays casserole was the most bland meal we have ever eaten, one more attempt and then it is being given away as a present (to some one we don't like very much obviously!)

Top tips:

  • You will hear many people say you need to buy your paint in the UK and bring it with you. but this worked out at a similar price to good quality paint in the UK with no travelling.
  • If you see something on special offer, buy it, as it won't be there on your next visit

6 comments:

  1. Hi Jenny, Great to see you have your new project to work on. Are you renovating the big house or small house to move into at the moment?
    I don't understand why you are having such a hard time with your slow cooker. They are usually pretty foolproof! Are you browning your meat before you put it in the slow cooker? I always coat the meat in seasoned flour (I have a big container of it made up at all times) before I brown it. It is highly seasoned and the flour also helps to make a thickened gravy too. Hope it all gets figured out for you.

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    1. Hi janice, we are doing the big house first as that will be more habitable quickly. I have no idea what is going wrong with the slow cooker, I have not tried browning it off first, i will try that next time, thank you :)

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  2. Hi Jenny & John. Have been following your excellent blog for a while now. At the end of February, we are moving to a cottage just outside of Berrien. We too will be painting walls and wooden ceilings and were going to bring paint from the UK, so this lost has been really helpful. Would you mind letting me know which paint you are using for the ceiling? Might bump into you in Huelgoat on market day. Thanks, Ray.

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    1. Hi so sorry for the delay in replying, I have had a bit of a problem with my comments :) we have always brought paint from the UK, but this time we didn't we have used external paint which is called AVI perform activ, peinture facade 2 en 1, it has covered really well, we were lucky and got it in the sale for 40 euro's instead of 80. there are lots of paints around, make sure you go for a good quality, we tried the cheap ones and they were really bad, we have also used the own brand (exterior), which seems to be OK. both of these were from Brico depot. Look forward to bumping into you both and good luck with the move

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  3. Have you checked what's above those... umm... lovely 70s wood ceilings? In my experience about the only thing you can do to make these bearable is to paint them white as you did and decorate the room in something like a Scandinavian style.

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    1. yes we have the old floors but by keeping them we get to have insulation, so painting them white is the only reasonable option :)

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