Mail From Morzine

Arrived Friday night for a quick weekend visit determined to get a lot done. I had a list, I was on my own, no interruptions, I was going to get a load of stuff done. This new determination arises as a result of inviting my brother and his family to the chalet for Christmas. My mum is invited too (although as I haven't actually talked to her about this, she is on holiday, she may well read this before we talk, well, Hello Mum, Your invited to the chalet for Christmas. Let me know if you want to come!) My sister will be invited as well but unfortunately if she decides to come she and her family will have to stay elsewhere as my brother has three kids I have 2 and with my mum makes 10 people in a chalet that officially sleeps 6/7! My sisters family would be another four which we just don't have room for. Maybe Robs chaet is available, I will have to ask.

Anyway I figured I had about 15 weekends before Christmas which didn't sound to many and with all the work ahead of me I thought I needed to get cracking. In order to have all these people here I need the electrics all certified and I need that done soon. Hopefully I can get Robs electrician to fix this up for me.

So Saturday morning and before the traditional trip down to the DIY shop in Morzine to fetch the required gear.  I had to unload the car. 20 packs of laminate flooring, about 250 kg and that is only half of what I need had to come out of the car and be stacked in the salon. When I finally made it down to Voiron's I managed to get a letter box. Arrived back and started work on the third and fourth bedroom doors.
I fixed the uprights to either side of the doorway after extensive calculations and determining the gap between the uprights should be just enough for the door frame, only to discover that the timber is not exactly the desired dimensions. 50 by 70 mm timber when rough sawn is only nominally that size it varies. It varies quite a lot, so much so that my careful calculations were completely useless. The door frame would not fit.

Shiny toys to the rescue. Rob had brought with him from the UK a new electric planer, just the job. It took a while to get the hang of the thing and figure out just how to get the best out of it. You have to apply most of the pressure at the front of the plane and it really helps if you go with the grain and don't use the silly shavings collection bag. It just gets full very quickly, as it is far too small, and this somehow stops the plane planing off any more wood. It took a couple of hours of some quite hard work to get the timber down to the right size and ready for the frames. as well as reducing the size I had to chop out notches for the hinges and at the top for the fixings that keep the frame square. Once the frame would fit I had to pad out all the edges with plaster board which is pretty easy, just nail up the board then run the hand saw down the frame to trim the edge. Glue up the frame and glue the uprights then slide the frame in. Fix the other side of the frame together and slide that into the frame. Make suer its all squashed in together as far as it will go and the frame touches the paster board all around then brace:

While that was setting I was looking at the door next door. After having to mess about with the plane I was a bit more careful with this side and quickly spotted there was not enough room for the uprights on this side either! I only had 40 mm to play with so that meant either cutting down a 50 by 70 plank or getting 40mm some other way. I ended up taking 2 strips of 19mm chipboard and gluing them together and gluing that to the wall. Brace it off and let it set. Then i would hang the frame on that.

While I was waiting for this to dry I was thinking about the stairway tiles. I was on my own which was a perfect opportunity to do the steps as only I would be walking and I would be the only one to blame if I stepped on the wet tiles. I started to figure out what I would need.

Rob invited me to dinner and before I could really start we were eating freshly caught trout from the trout farm down the road caught and killed that very morning, They were delicious. Anyway after the meal, Rob went to put his kids to bed and I started on the step tiling, I thought I would just do the risers and leave the treads for another day but when Rob turned up after about an hour we progressed on to do the whole thing. About 2 in the morning we had all the tiles for the first flight of steps cut (all except one) and Rob, who was driving back to the UK the next day, decided he had to get some sleep. So about an hour and a half later I had fixed all the bits on the steps and left them to clean up.

Sunday morning and a bit of grouting later:

Not bad but took ages to do.

Sunday was also the day I out the post box up.

And finally got round to putting up my official number. Well, not actually the number I thought I was. I received, via Rob another number!

 

4215? where does that come from? Now, last time we were here we told the mayor of Morzine that Rob owned 4235 and I owned 4225. So where does 4215 come into this? There is a rumor that these numbers are supposed to be the distance from the mayor of Morzine's office in the square, but this is not strictly true as many places the numbers do not run in sequence. Anyhow its a bit weird and How I ended up with 4215 I dont know. I somehow do not think this is the last we shall hear of this. So I putthe new number on the house:

I also found out that the huge bill I got last weekend was for tax Froncier and tax habitation . The habitation part I should not be paying so I will write to them and explain and ask for some money back!

Floored by the tax bill

Saturday and I went to buy the floor, the laminate flooring that will finish the salon, dining and bedrooms. Overall I need 100 square meters of this stuff which turns out to be 42 packs! So I am in Ikea (yes I know ikea but they sell some good flooring that is pretty cheap) and I need another double bed so I buy that then down to the ground floor to get the flooring, 42 packs is never going to fit in my car with food shopping and the bed and then I notice the carts have a 130 kg limit on them. Each pack weighs 14kg so 10 packs will put me over and ten packs is about all I am going to be able to push and fit in the car. Right 10 packs it is I will have to come back for the rest in a couple of more trips. Well I loaded up the car and it was full so I am glad I did not push it. Anyway I got home and there was a letter waiting. Unfortunately the episode in the mayors office last time has started something unpleasent. It means the French tax people have figured out where I live! So now I get a letter demanding payment or they will stop my bank account and freeze my assets the whole none yards - this is the first I have heard of this bill - presumably someone is Swindon has been getting wierd letters from France demading money for a while now! Any way I will have to pay this or bad things will happen. I will try to talk to them on Monday and prevent them stopping my bank or anything silly so I can see them next Saturday to sort it out.

Two week Transformation (part 2)

This is the second post describing the second of the 2 weeks I have just spent in Morzine. I got up to Saturday, so on with Sunday...

Sunday and I was due to pick up my son from Geneva train station. He had just spent a week on a camp, had been home for a day then been put on a train on his own for Geneva. He was not fantastically happy about the situation and was a bit overwhelmed by the culture shock of coming from a noisy camp with 40 other kids to the quite of the chalet with nobody about. Well not quite nobody as Robs kids were there and he plays well with them. Still he was not himself for a few days while he sort of recovered. Anyway I picked him up from Geneva and drove back to Morzine arriving back just after lunch. Once back I started on the shower room. I wanted a toilet and basin as well as the shower and wanted to work out the best position. I thought the toilet would work against the external wall. These suspended toilets (I like them a lot) have about six bolts that hold the frame against the wall. These have to be marked and drilled all in the right position to get the toilet bowl at the right height to sit on, all relative to a floor that does not actually exist at the time. So it quite a fiddly process to set all the adjustments up mark the wall, remove the frame, drill the holes and bolt the frame to the wall. Well, this I did against the external wall.

The frame has 2 long bolts onto which the toilet slides and is bolted back to the frame. I slid the toilet bowl onto the bolts and then to get a look to see if it would work I stepped back towards the door. It was not going to work. It was too close to the shower and you would not be able to sit with your legs comfortably. OK it would have to be moved. Just as I was coming to this conclusion. The toilet bowl fell off! It must have heard me! There was a bit of a horrible crunch as it hit the concrete floor and I realized, as I jumped forward to save it, that it was broken. It had cracked.


So this shower room really did not want to get built. First the shower doors and now the toilet. Bugger! Well, the toilet (frame) was in the wrong place and it needed moving, so off come the bolts and I have to readjust the frame in its new position and redo the whole process. Here is the (blue) frame in its final (hopefully) position


With the toilet frame in position I looked at the basin. These I had bought from Zürich as I have had no luck at all finding a decent hand basin in France. I am sure they are available but just not in the few shops I have tried. Anyway I bought 2 basins from Zürich with us in the car. One was going to replace the basin in the first bathroom, the second was going in here. I installed the big bolts that hold in up and slid the basin on, (making sure this time to put a nut on the bolts so the basin could not fall off!) It looks too big and too low. Right thats it for today enough It's all going wrong. I am quitting for the day. Maybe tomorrow will be better.
Monday morning was spent in town at the mayors offices. Some time last week Rob had found a letter with my name on it but his address stating that I had not paid my water bill and I would be disconnected on August the 17th! So Sharon (Robs partner) and I were in the mayors office to sort it out. Also we were able to sort out (maybe you never really know) the numbering issue. We were able to tell the lady in charge that I owned number 4325 and Rob owned 4225 and to which plot of land these numbers belonged. She diligently entered and changed things on her computer system so maybe we will all have the right addresses now. Anyway I paid my water bill which they had been sending to England, to an address about 3 addresses old. I guess it was probably my fault for not telling everyone where we live and when we change. You would have thought with the number of times I move and change address I would be quite good at it by now but I think it has the opposite effect.
Monday afternoon saw me painting. I mixed up a batch of porridge, and started by finishing off the second bedroom.
With the bedroom walls finished I moved out on to the landing and began to paint the pillar on the stairs. The porridge is really good at filling in the holes and bubbles left in the concrete and when smoothed off against the metal corner strengtheners it really looks quite nice.

Tuesday morning and Rob and I rescued his old trailer from the ditch in which it had been buried about 2 or three years ago. It was full of rubbish but it was in surprisingly good nick for lying in a ditch for three years. We jet washed the inside and bought a new plug for the lights, put Robs new number plate on it and we were off. Down town to get me some more chipboard. We returned with 10 sheets of chip board strapped down to the trailer. Very good first trip. Now all I need is a tow bar on my car and I could make full use of it.
I set to work using up the chip board by fitting the floor in the shower. To do this I had to finish up the electrics and carve all the blue insulation around the cables then fit the chipboard into the floor. It certainly tidies up the place when its down. No more snaking cables and pipes all over the place.
My wife was due back tomorrow and I wanted to get the entrance floored out with chipboard too. We ate with Rob and his family and over dinner I removed my wedding ring as my fingers were swelling and it was beginning to hurt me. So I removed my wedding ring and wore it on my little finger as a pinky ring. It was a bit loose but I thought "I will put it somewhere safe when I get back" Rrrriiiigghhhhtttt. So there I am with Robs help laying the chipboard for the entrance floor. Rob showed me his patent method for stopping the chipboard from moving about - put a bloody big bolt through the chipboard, through the insulation and into the concrete. Fix the bolt in the concrete and tighten the whole lot down. Then grind of the top of the bolt and leave just a sliver of nut to hold it. Tile over this. Interesting but it looks like a lot of work. I will bear it in mind for the awkward bits that keep bouncing. Anyway around midnight we finished the chipboard and went to bed. As I retired for the night I noticed the inevitable, my ring had disappeared. F***K **@@/((()='*** (good job my son was asleep!) My wife is going to kill me! I will have to tear up the floor to find it all that work for nothing. Arragggggghhh.
After a look around the floor, down all the cracks and crannies I could not see it so I thought I would leave the ripping up of the floor until Wednesday.


Wednesday and when I got up out of bed I went to put on my trousers and ping my wedding ring rolled out across the floor. Oh thank God for that. I dont have to rip up the floor. How did it get there? I will not question how or what put it there but just accept that I have found it now and am saved from some horrible and embarrassing explanations not to mention ripping up the floor. I spent most of Wednesday tidying up the house and hoovering all the dust and concrete bits and rubbish that seems to accumulate when ever I leave a room for more than a few moments. That evening I collected my wife and youngest from Geneva.

Thursday was spent putting in the landing floor between the bedrooms and laying the chipboard in the bathroom. The blue insulation on the landing was a nightmare. In other rooms I had tried hard to keep the cables in a regular shapes but the landing was a mess there were cables all over it going in all different directions. This made cutting the blue insulation very tricky. The 19mm chipboard went down on top and mad it all so much better. My wife and I cleared out all my stuff from the second bedroom and moved the double bed in. We had our own room! The boys would stay in the first bedroom in the bunk beds cos they really like the bunk beds.

Friday and we took the boys out most of the day to a rope park were we exhausted ourselves climbing about on wire ropes and cargo nets high up in the trees. Friday night saw me fixing a few metal corner strengtheners on in preparation for painting the walls. My wife then suggested that we should get on with the mezzanine floor. OK lets do that. So Midnight finds us cutting and hammering away at the mezzanine floor, which the next morning looked a bit like this


Saturday morning and I asked Rob for his help again. This time I wanted to borrow an Acro prop. He had a couple in his newest property "The Farm" and I needed something to replace the tiny piece of wood that was in effect holding up me entire chalet and that was disintegrating. This is a picture of the piece of wood a year ago


That was a year ago and it was cracked and basically the wood had failed. The block of wood was supposed to be about 50mm (5 cm or 2 inches) square but now the block had been squashed to about 30mm or just over an inch high. This was effecting the entire roof. If you look at the picture of the mezzanine the big vertical wooden column to the left of the coffee cup, this holds up half the roof. Between that column and the concrete was this small piece of slowly disintegrating wood. It really had to be changed. It was a major error on the part of the builder in my opinion and it should never have been left as it was. In my thoughts this job could go 2 ways. It would either be quite easy and we would position the prop under the beam wind up the prop. Prop the roof up about 20mm and replace the wood with something else. Alternatively we would try to wind the prop up and nothing would move. If that happened than I would have to deal with it as it was. Fortunately someone was smiling on us that day as the prop was wound up the roof moved, well the column lifted. It lifted enough to get the old piece of wood out and replace it with a handy slab of stone which was ideally suited and just the right size.
Here is Rob jacking up the house


and here is the replacement chalet support. You can see the old piece of wood on top of the beam


That afternoon I used the last bag of porridge paint to paint the landing and one wall of the entrance. It makes such a difference and really tidies up the bare concrete.


Sunday was spent doing a bit of tidying up and packing before we left.

All in all a very good two weeks I did not do half of what I wanted to do but then that is the way of it I suppose. Next time I must get to grips with tiling the stairs and landing.

That should be fun.

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Two week Transformation (part 1)

Just returned from 2 weeks "holiday" at the chalet. 2 Weeks of hard work building. 2 weeks turning what was really a building site into something livable.
We arrived on Saturday evening and installed our selves.
Priorities were set and established. A kitchen sink and the shower were at the top of these priorities, but it being Sunday and both of these activities required the purchase of stuff we made do with placing the dining room floor. This meant I had to complete all the electrics in the kitchen and dining room before the patchwork of blue insulation could be laid around the cables and have green 22mm chipboard laid on top of it. Sunday night at 1 am (Monday morning) We had a dining room floor.


Covers up the snake pit nicely!

Monday and after a trip down to Voiron's I return to plumb the sink in with what I thought was 8 meters of 40mm diameter waste pipe. This is to carry the waste water from the sink along under the kitchen units then down into what will be the second bathroom and connect into the drain. Easy thing to buy you would think and it should be. I went to the shop requested 8m of 40mm waste pipe in my best French and it was understood (a minor miracle in its self) and I was pointed at a formidable rack of grey pipes that presumably contained my pipe. OK. The rack it turns out contains every diameter of grey waste pipe known to man and several unknown bits and pieces. Well 40mm is 40mm how hard can it be? I spent a literally a 10 minutes trying to decide which pipe was the correct one knowing that I would almost certainly choose the wrong one. Most of the pipes could be ignored as they were obviously too big or too small and it came down to a choice of three, 40mm external diameter (yes I had a tape measure with me) 40 mm internal diameter and some other pipe that said it was 40mm but I couldn't measure 40mm anywhere, 35 internal and 37/8 external, anyway there was not much of this strange pipe around so I chose the 40mm internal diameter pipe on the basis that there was a lot of it and it looked about right (?) Of course when I got this back to the chalet and compared it to a piece of real 40mm pipe I knew I should have chosen the 40mm external diameter! Fine! I knew this would happen I can return it and swap it for some correct pipe. Only fly in that ointment was that this pipe comes in 6 meter lengths and in order to get it into the car I had to saw up a 6 meter length into 3, 2 meter bits and then with great care I had actually hunted about to find a 2(ish) meter length of this stupid wrong pipe to make up to 8 meters. Anyway I was unsure how they would take back there 8 meters pipes when it was in 4 pieces!.

Well it would have to wait until tomorrow, today I had plumbing to do. I had to get the hot and cold water from one side of the chalet to the other. From the "hot room" across the ceiling to under the shower room (through a concrete beam on the way)
Of course for this I would need copper pipe and this morning Voiron's had had none so I scoured Morzine for 16mm copper pipe, I scrounged up about 5, 2 meter lengths of pipe (i needed at least 8) from about three different shops. Right these all have to be soldered up together and taken through a stud wall and a concrete beam to get to the right place.


Through the beam and to the taps...


Then on with the plastic pipe, through the wall, through what will be the second bathroom...


and up into the kitchen under the fridge, round under all the kitchen units and up into the taps


Now the waste has to reverse that journey via a U bend under the kitchen units down into the second bathroom and into the drain.

All this took me until Tuesday to finish, but Siew Ling was very happy with her kitchen as it now had hot and cold running water (like all good kitchens should have!)
Voiron's very gracefully accepted the 4 bits of pipe and allowed me to take another 4 bits of the correct pipe, they also found a few more copper pipes in the back somewhere that I needed.

So running a little late with the list of priorities, Wednesday saw me started on completion of the shower. Wednesday saw the first real disaster (of the whole build really) I was constructing the shower door assembly and holding one of the glass panels when all of a sudden it turned with a snap, from a glass panel into a pile of windscreen glass


I don't really know what happened just it went from one solid piece to thousands of pieces in a split second for no apparent reason, other than I was holding it.
Well this was pretty bad news the 300 Euro shower was pretty much junk now and I was rather annoyed.

Thursday and I went at the studding around the shower and the bedroom. This went well, and despite the last minute change to on suite the door frames all went in well.


Sound insulation and plaster board


Having finally done this piece of studding I could finish the other side of this wall and plater board the section between the two bedrooms. (sorry no photo)

Electrics in the walls takes forever, setting in the lights and plugs and heating cables demands constant thoughts about what is going where and what will be connected to what. The radiator in the second bedroom in wired in and connected up as is the power socket and then the cable runs up to power the entrance plugs. (Slightly unconventional but something I forgot when we floored the dining room) Still it is still within the 8 plug sockets allowed on one line of 2.5mm cable, 3 in each bedroom, one on the landing and one in the entrance makes 8.

Thursday saw blue insulation go down in the entrance and then the afternoon was spent with the family.

Friday was a trip down to Geneva to drop Siew Ling and Hari off at the train station (Ohmri was at camp this week) and on the way back stop off at Thonon to see what they can do about my shower doors.Nothing it appears. I bought it too long ago so they cannot replace it and the one single shower they have of that model (now reduced from 299 to 199) is for sale fully assembled! I cant get it back even if I buy a completely new shower. Well just below the assembled showroom shower is a set of doors that might just fit. I will have them! 199 euros! bugger. This shower that was pretty cheap just got pretty expensive! That afternoon I fitted the new doors together and with Robs help (he turned up with the family on Wednesday (I think it was Wednesday?) The new doors were fitted.


They look OK and apart from some fiddling about with the tops of the old shower they work quite well. I was able to have my first shower and the shower works really well. (thank heavens)

Saturday and I cleared out the second bedroom, swept and hoovered then put the 40mm blue insulation down followed by the last of the 19mm chipboard. I need another 20 odd bits to finish the rest. Then I painted 2 of the walls of the bedroom with the porridge paint from Zürich. Which is not as porridge as it looks. It seems to dry quite white. White enough to probably not need to be painted.

Thats it for now I will continue with the next week in the next post.