Creating our gîte d’étape - step 1
In 2023, Molières became part of the Chemin d’Amadour (GR81), a 500 km long hiking trail that links Soulac-sur-Mer to Rocamadour.
As you probably know, we enjoy sharing our little village with the world. What you may not know is that we love hiking and that we live in a house that is too big just for us. So when Molières was put on the “Chemin d’Amadour” (GR81), what else were we to do than to create a place where we could welcome hikers from all around the world?
But converting one of the oldest houses in the village into a gîte d’étape doesn’t happen overnight. And so, as all the hikers who walked by our house did, we took our first step.
Step 1: the basics:
- Renovating the roof
- Insulating the attic and walls
- Installing new double-glaze windows
May 2023: roof renovations
The saying goes: “the first step is always the hardest” and although this is true most of the time, for us, the first step was the longest.
Between applying for a permit, waiting for approval from the architects “des bâtiments de France” (we are in a designated conservation area) and the craftsman’s waiting list, it took two years before we could begin our roof renovations. Luckily we started this process before the “Chemin d’Amadour” passed through our village, gîte or no gîte, no one wants a leaky roof!
And although we were itching to roll up our sleeves and get started with the renovations, we left this part to the professionals. Working on roofs is not for the faint of heart and in this instance, we admit being fainthearted.
Luckily they don’t suffer from vertigo up there!
April 2024: attic insulation
Now that we are safe from the rain it is time to address the insulation issues. Like most old homes, the insulation is lacking, so we decided to replace the old 10 cm thick layer of glass wool insulation in the attic with a 30 cm thick layer.
September 2024: window installation
After spending four draughty winters in the house, filling every little nook and cranny around the windows with newspaper, we knew that we needed to update our windows.
For the front façade of the house we chose handcrafted chestnut window frames with removable face frames. This ensures that the windows maintain their traditional look, while giving us the ease of use we love in this day and age.
The chestnut wood is locally sourced and milled, making it a great sustainable choice. The only downside is that it blackens very quickly when it comes into contact with water. And so, we could finally scratch our itch by staining our new windows before the start of the rainy fall.
End 2024: exterior wall insulation
The last step in making sure our home is protected from the elements is insulating the exterior walls.
Most of our walls have a thickness of 50 cm, but some, namely those from the oldest part of the house, go up to 1 meter in thickness.
In order to keep some of the character and charm of the house, we decided to only insulate the walls that are less than 80 cm thick. This ended up being a great decision, as it led to some amazing discoveries! (which we will share in coming posts)
And although we would have loved to do this ourselves, we thought is best to leave this to the professionals as well.
Now that we are done with the basics, the scene is set and it’s finally our time to shine!!!… I mean, it is finally time for the interior renovations to begin. There are some amazing transformations coming and step 2 is only the beginning!
So stay tuned and follow us on our next step!
