Our story

It all started with a family holiday in 2018 to a lovely gite in the Dordogne, our first holiday in France.

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I'm Louise and essentially this was all my idea. I have never been one to stick with the flow and have had many ideas over the years, not all good, but I like to be different.

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My husband, Pete, has worked in the insurance industry for over 30 years and his career had many ups and downs. He has always enjoyed a DIY project and after some convincing has been 'sensitive' to most of my ideas, but he's the more sensible one and doesn't like to take risks.  Was this a step too far.....

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Charlotte (Charlie) our eldest daughter was off to university and Isobel, our younger daughter was finishing primary school.  It seemed the perfect time to make the jump into something new.

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As a family we enjoyed the trip to France so much we booked another, after which I convinced Pete it might be a good idea to buy somewhere in France with a view to setting up some guest accommodation and to my huge surprise, he agreed and the property hunt was on.

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We viewed a large number of properties in varying states of repair and it was the very last property, and not one we had chosen to see, which took our interest.  Pete could see the potential immediately but I felt very overwhelmed by all the hard work.  The house hadn't been lived in for 6 years, was very dirty, there was bat poo in the cupboards and pigeon wings behind the radiators, don't ask! The barns were full of lots of nasty surprises and all of the gardens were completely overgrown.  I will admit that it did have everything on our list but it was grim with a capital G!

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Anyway, Pete was convinced and while all I could think was grim, we decided this was the one, made an offer and the rest is history.

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Pete finally stepped off the hamster wheel in May 2019, his boss was fantastic and asked him to remain as a consultant and continue to look after a number of his longstanding clients, which he still does today.

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The first thing to do was to make sure the house had the basic amenities (a toilet that flushed, shower, hot water etc.). So, the car was packed with a lot of shiny new tools and he set off with his 'to do' list. All of our possessions were to arrive a couple of days later and had to be stored in the barns before I arrived with the girls a week later to start making the house our home.

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After that first week we all stayed, as a family, in the slightly less but sill very grim house. Isobel and I headed back to the UK for Isobel to finish her school year and Charlie and Pete got on with getting the house in a better condition.

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By July, still very grim had become a better and cleaner grim but we were all together and starting our new life, Charlie was due to leave us in the September for her new start but until then it was roll up the sleeves and get stuck in!

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