French la Vie

 

 

When we renovated in Paris I was there every single day, most the time inside the apartment watching the hunks do their thing. But this renovation it was not possible to stay inside as the work was far more intense, the spaces were smaller (though the same size as Paris) though Cassis in on three floors, and the stairs connecting the three floors no longer exist because we torn them out for the remodel, we eventually we reconstructed a stairwell.

But the main reason I was not in the apartment everyday… INCREDIBLE DUST!

 

 

 

 

This is a fuller view, walking around was not easy, and debris and supplies were constantly being moved as the work area is small, plus everything needs to be done inside.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The apartment is on three floors, here you can see the bedroom floor up above.

We took down the walls to make the bedroom into an open loft and to have the light from the skylight extend downstairs. Also we removed the fake ceiling to expose the roof line. There was a ladder accessing the bedroom, which we did not want and had stairs made to connect it to the second floor and bedroom loft.

 

 

 

Question: Can we make the skylight larger? No. There are strict historical monument codes in Cassis. Nothing on the outside of the building can be changed. This code came into practice no so long ago…

 

 

 

 

 

 

A hole was cut out to access the bottom floor. Back in March 2016 on Facebook I added a video, showing the floor being cut out. 

 

 

 

 

 

The renovation team carried out seventeen tons of debris. They had to carry the debris out in buckets as the stairwell access the building were too steep and narrow to do otherwise.

 

To complicate matters, Cassis only allows delivery to and from the port before 10:30 am. After that no vehicles are allowed on the port. So we had to do any delivery or removal before 10:30 am.

Seventeen tons before 10:30 am, and much more delivered before 10:30 am, massive organization which Rene, our contractor was brilliant at doing.

 

 

 

 

 

This is the top floor, the loft bedroom. The wall in front was removed and the roof line exposed for more light and to have a open feel. The guard rail was were the ladder came up, that will be removed as well. The stairs come up on the other side.

 

 

 

 

 

The stairs use to come up under the toilet. There was a tiny entrance where the rubble is piled to access the apartment. A tiny entrance equals a truck load of rubble. How many buckets did it take to unload it downstairs?

 

 

 

 

 

 

When we bought the apartment, the first thing we knew we had to do, was figure out the stairs. We had a suspicion that when we removed the old unusable stairs that we would find a problem, and we did. The two main beams in the apartment, one of them under the stairs, had been cut and did not reach the supporting wall. YIKES! Also the other beam was cut in half so the toilet could fit underneath the stairs. YIKES again. When renovating century old buildings/apartments/houses such interesting discoveries are made. Some beautiful, others shocking and some just curious.

 

 

 

 

 

Needless to say two old oak beams were purchased and hauled upstairs… a feat for Hercules.

 

 

 

 

Rubble cleared.

 

The other question many of you asked was can we make the windows larger? No we cannot as the outside cannot be changed.

If you have any questions or want to see a detail of whatever, let me know in the comment section and I will try my best to answer you.