New Build - Diary Of A French New Build (Iss 187)

Now that the roof was on, work on our new house switched to the inside. The house and garage were still one huge space, with grey block walls, a rough concrete floor and the underside of the roof tiles visible beyond the bones of the roof structure.

In just two days in mid-October, men came and fixed aluminium rails to the roof timbers, then attached plasterboards to make the ceilings. Next they put up horizontal and vertical rails all around the inside of the block walls – making a framework for more plasterboard. The space was marked out with blue chalk on the ceiling, and wooden battens on the floor, defining the position of internal walls. The reason for this soon became clear…

First fix electrics

The cables were delivered – a great stack of coiled conduit; ready loaded with the wiring, already cut to length, labelled and connected up to junction boxes. All pre-prepared for fixing in place, according to the plan. On the last day of October the electricians arrived and soon we had cables swathed around the block walls behind the aluminium rails, all converging on the back wall of the garage where the breaker boxes were to be fitted.

Cables for ceiling lights hung like lianas from the middle of rooms, others for power sockets and switches hung down from the blue chalk lines – that’s why they marked the wall positions on the ceiling! They also hung the ventilation machine on string from a roof truss (to reduce vibration noise) and connected it by bendy hoses to ceiling fans in bathroom and kitchen. The other end was attached to the roof-tile vent.

Walls appear

A few days later a team of Turkish workers started on the wall insulation and plasterboarding. First the block walls were lined with the paper-backed wadding then sheets of plasterboard were screwed to the aluminium framework, making the place instantly tidy by hiding all the cables.

Next the internal walls were formed using two layers of plasterboard connected by cardboard webbing, strengthened with timber at the corners. Internal doors, which come already fitted into their frames, hinged and pre-painted, were fixed in place hovering a few centimetres above the concrete to allow for the floor screed and tiles. This dramatically changed the aspect of the interior from one wide open space into visible, viable living rooms.

Filling and sanding

The men used a fine plaster to fill all the dents where the screws attach the plasterboards to the frame. They’d punched holes in the plasterboards for electrical fittings but every one was in the wrong place. So after ‘words’ from the electrician they made new holes and patched up the old ones with plaster. Unfortunately they over-filled all these so what should have been flat was actually mounded and had to be sanded down to give a smooth surface, to be invisible under paint. But we discovered the plasterers didn’t consider sanding as part of their job. Tony and I had opted to do the painting ourselves, so we were left with a huge task of sanding every join, every screw-dent and every patch-up. It was difficult, tedious and impossible to do successfully because of their poor workmanship.

Under-floor heating

The electrician also installed our electric under-floor heating in the living room, kitchen and studio, laying 7cm-thick insulation sheets then clipping on the heating mats holding the electrical wires. In the bedrooms he fitted convection heaters and in the bathroom a neat heater with blow-dry towel-rail, all connected to a central controller. It may not be the cheapest heating system to run, but warm tiles underfoot in winter are bliss.

Screed and tiles

Next was the turn of the tilers – a Portuguese team – who swiftly mixed and laid 5cm-thick screed over the heating mats. At the same time they put down tile cement and the floor tiles we’d chosen so long ago, all lined up skilfully by eye. We misunderstood the spec, thinking all the walls in the bathroom would get tiled, but they just did the shower corner. So we bought more of the same tiles and continued them all round the room. When the tilers saw the standard of my tiling next to theirs, they offered me a job! Flattered, but not tempted!