Robin wanted to stick to the traditional non-baked cement tile. They add a lot of local character. Check out my Instagram for a couple photos of local cement time floors. These tiles are well known in Portugal, but have been used all over Europe. In Provence, they are quite common …Continue …

By David Taylor: As many of our regular guests know occasionally it rains in Provence! Over time this has impacted the condition of our entrance driveway so in the autumn of last year we started gaining advice and estimates for the work to be carried out before the start of …

We’ve recently painted our upstairs with chaux/lime wash. We wanted to apply a wall covering that respected the age of the building. It’s important that old walls breathe in order to reduce trapped moisture. We quite liked the texture of the traditional lime wash (peinture à la chaux). We knew …

Contributor blog post by Vaucluse Dreamer: Firstly apologies for any glitches in this blog – it’s been a bit chaotic trying to do it with intermittent internet and different wifi locations! I can’t believe where the last few days have gone. A week ago, I had just hosted the village book …

Up until now, Robin has been doing all of the renovation to standard building codes (he has done some serious homework and seems to be the only person around here actually following the rules). We knew we would always need a little help with one thing – knocking down the …

Replacing the steep, narrow and dangerous staircase in our house with a space-effective spiral staircase was always part of our renovation plan. We looked online at beautiful industrial era staircases from Britain and compared those to the rickety plastic structures available at the local DIY stores. As always, it was …

Shopping for Antique Patina Doors in Provence The treasure and charm of antique doors. It seems that we like to make our lives difficult; dating for 5 years long distance Montreal-London, moving to a new country without proper jobs, buying a tiny house in a rural village and now- trying …

Our Renovation: More Ceiling Surprises So we’re still stripping back to try to get to the bare bones or our new tiny house. During the past few days we’ve gone back upstairs to take down the ceiling that consisted of fake wood made of styrofoam and 2 layers of wonky …

Our Renovation in Provence: The Demolition Continues! You’re going to have to brace yourselves for a little hideousness- but we’ve started taring down the wood panels downstairs. This panelling so popular in the 70s is a form of cache misère which basically translates into hiding misery. When our real estate …

Our New House (!!!) is just the end section of this Mas (Provencal farmhouse) that is actually well known in the area as the Mas Longue (Long Farmhouse). There are even postcards of this building from 100 years ago! We are in the centre of beautiful Maussane-les-Alpilles, just a …Continue …