When we arrived the room ran with condensation from the stone walls and polished cement floor – a nightmare. The fireplace was completely open and even had a spit for cooking! We had to dry it out, get a proper fire, line the walls and generally build a room inside the stone walls.
The doors to outside and the hallway were raised and widened and we filled in between the exposed ceiling joists and insulated everything. Access to upstairs was via a “miller’s” stair (virtually a ladder!) and we removed this and filled in the ceiling above.
We kept the 20-inch square x 20 feet long oak beam that is such a feature of these old cottages but it took gallons of anti-woodworm treatment and varnish.
We carpeted the floor but it was a disaster. French people much prefer tiles so the quality of carpeting here is not what we would expect – in fact it was rubbish and last year we replaced the carpet with ceramic tiles.
The resulting room is about 5.5 metres square, a bit cluttered but we like it.