Le Cornillet
Le Cornillet
 
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Exterior
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Exterior

The outside of the house shows how we went from a sloping garden to a two-level terrace with the house doors raised and widened and brought into line with the windows. We painted the front and east wall but the west wall had a lot of attractive stone showing so we raked out the clay matrix that serves as mortar and lime plastered the wall, leaving some of the stones exposed – known here as “pierres apparentes”.
The Fosse

We had no drainage in the house and used a Porta Potti for our first two months, shower and sink water going direct into the garden.
But no work can proceed on a house here without appropriate drainage so we had already arranged to get contractors in to install a septic tank (fosse septique) with filtration bed that emptied the resulting clean water into the ditch around our garden. Conditions in April 2001 were appalling with steady rain throughout but we got the 3000litre concrete tank in and the sand and gravel filter connected and reburied.
All we had to do then was connect a proper loo to it and also the shower room and sink and we were legal. What to do with the spoil heap?
Garden
The triangular site is about a third of an acre in total, 1440 square metres, with a road down two sides and the house along the top. Some attempt had been made to make a hedge but it was straggly and with gaps while a rockery at the far end was out of our sight.
The spoil heap brought the front terrace up to level and we built steps of local blue stone (a form of slate) down to the side gate. The main drive, front terrace and side patio were gravelled with a bluestone walkway along the terrace. The unseen rockery provided huge quartz rocks for the retaining wall/rockery and more for two small rockeries in the middle of the garden.
We have added five birch trees to accompany the huge spruce and the fruit trees and the hedges are nearly joined up...
A garden shed in the angle of the gigantic pampas grass feature along the drive completes the main part but we have just installed a herb garden in the triangle between the garage and the drive and a final tidying up around the garage will complete the lot.
Garage

The last building project was to replace the old corrugated iron garage, built at least 30 years before. Demolition was easy and we have since used the frame – unworked tree trunks and branches! – for a trellis on the side patio. The floor was beaten earth so no problems there.
The last of the spoil heap from the fosse septique made part of the hardcore for the base and a neighbouring farmer provided the rest from a heap of stones on his land. Ready-mix with fibre added made the base and we built a blockwork structure 8 x 3 metres which we roofed, rendered and painted to match the house.