The other day on the phone with Emmanuelle (have you checked out her new blog yet? I’m so proud of my formerly computer-backward friend! bravo! see links on the left) I was bitching about the first estimate I received for work on the house when I had a huge revelation, so to speak.
The background: I need to have the attics insulated, because when the previous owners put on the new roof a few years ago, for some strange reason they didn’t insulate. So, the past couple of weeks have been a blur of various strange men coming into my house (spare me your droll remarks, s’il vous plaît), taking measurements, and then sending me exorbitant estimates for work that as far as I am concerned, they will never perform, given their inflated sums. A text on the sexism problem in France might be soon to follow…! But back to the big story:
Besides the insulation, central heat also needs to be installed, and some of the windows need to be changed. Out of these tasks, I do believe that putting in insulation is by far the easiest of the three. So when I got the estimate, for close to 7,000 euros*, I was blown away. 7,000 euros for basically unrolling fibreglass and stapling it to the rafters. What fool couldn’t do that? And what fool would pay that much money for such simple work?
But here’s the crux of the problem: they bill for this by square meter of course, counting the supply of insulation and the labour together. And I have 166 square meters of attic to insulate. This estimate is what finally drove home the realisation of the enormity of my abode (or should I say my folly?). The official living space according to French law is 220 square meters. This does *not* count the two attics, which are perfectly suitable for living space, once they are insulated and fixed up a bit (nor the three cellars, but they are only good for housing the water heater, garden equipment, firewood and hundreds of bottles of wine…). This means that I have purchased almost 400 square meters* to live in, by myself, with my cat.
Even by Texan standards (and we all know that everything is bigger in Texas ;) this is a ridiculously large house for one person and a very old and rather petit cat (runt is not in our Sheba vocabulary).
What are we possibly going to do with all this space? Fill it up with a herd of dromedaries? Put in an ice-skating rink? (I haven’t mentioned the downside to having a marble floor yet… let all upcoming visitors be warned: bring a sweater. Yes, even if you are coming in June.)
Stay tuned to find out.
*For the conversion phobic:
400 square meters = approximately 4,300 square feet
€7,000 is over $9,500
3 comments:
Chouette, une nouvelle "bloggeuse"! Si tu as besoin d'aide avec blogger, n'hesites pas, je commence à m'y connaitre. Belles photos. A bientot et bonne emménagement.
Actually, my blog is almost a year old, but better late than never!!
=)
Looks amazing! We're so excited about seeing you, ensconced in your new palace... just 4 weeks away! CW regaled us with his tales of yumminess, tho we're still waiting for our promised bottle of Maconnaise. Mmmm-mmm.
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