Renovating the Pantry

Over the past few weeks Simon has been hard at work renovating our pantry. The picture below shows you what he started with.

The original intention had just been to block off the window as a temporary measure and mouseproof the room. The window is in poor condition and lets in a lot of both heat and cold, but we didn't want to have to spend the money replacing it just yet. He's created a false wall with insulation behind and lined the recess with plasterboard. It now makes a handy nook for boxes of wine.

The pantry is in the oldest part of the building and was the old grain merchant's office. When we bought the place we gave it a quick lick of cream paint to freshen it up a bit and it served initially as our bedroom, then as the temporary kitchen. The only real renovation work that was done on it was putting up plasterboard on the ceiling, with a layer of fibreglass insulation above, and doing the electrics. Once the proper kitchen was installed it became the pantry.

This autumn for the first time we started getting mice and we couldn't keep them out, so we took everything out with a view to blocking up all the holes. It was clear that the mice could come in under the walls just about anywhere. There are no foundations and the vide sanitaire under the granary is higher than the floor level of the pantry. Simon decided to initially block the holes with expanding foam, then dry line the room with plasterboard. He's never really done this on his own, so just hoped he had learnt enough by watching Stéphane and Patrick to make a success of it. He needn't have worried. With fairly minimal swearing he has managed a perfectly competant job of putting the plasterboard up and plastering the joints then the hateful job of sanding. I'm very proud of him.

The original terracotta tiles are laid directly on the earth, with no grouting. We didn't want to lift them, but they weren't terribly hygenic looking so Simon washed them with a Starwax detergent that was suitable, then I gave them a couple of coats of Sarpasol to revive them and help repel dirt. He's finished the room by installing the lights and repositioning the powerpoints and painting it a subtle duck egg colour.

He was determined to get it finished by Christmas, and on 23 December he installed new shelving and we reinstated everything. The freezer, which so far has lived in the kitchen still needs to be moved and he has one or two ideas for improving the initial arrangement of storage, but essentially it's finished.

In total we spent about €120 of 'new money' on the renovation, relying mostly on using up stocks that we already had of plasterboard, storage units and other hardware.

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Au potager hier: The first few spring onions are showing through the earth and a garlic.

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Mobile Phones: Simon treated us both to new mobile phones for Christmas, using some money from his birthday present. They are dual SIM phones and our idea is to continue using our current Virgin UK pay as you go numbers on one of the SIMs and buy a second SIM which will give us a French number.  We don't use the phones much at all - even allowing for roaming charges Simon's mobile phone bill can be as much as 30 pence a month - so it isn't as if we need an "all you can eat" plan. Now we have the task of wading through all the deals on offer and try to make sense of which ones are the least worst for us. We don't need to be able to make international calls on the French SIM, it's mainly for incoming calls and some texting.

For our sort of usage, most French mobile phone deals appear to be a complete rip off. If you don't use your credit with PAYG within the specified time period, the telecomms provider pockets the balance. It's a delicate juggling act to spend the least amount possible that is valid for the longest possible time. So far, the smallest block of credit top up we can find is €5, and the longest credit remains valid without top up is 6 months. Needless to say, these two offers are not from the same company, and we would not use €5 worth of credit in the measly amount of time the phone company allows. The bigger the block of credit one buys the lower the cost per unit of calls and the longer the credit remains valid. Prices for calls out vary between 5c and 35c per minute. Texts are around 5-7c. Calls in are free. After some research, the LeClerc Formule Mini+ package looks OK and we are also considering SIM+ and NFR.

If anyone has experience of buying a simple basic mobile phone package in France and has some hints for getting the best deal, please let us know.

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Loire Valley Nature: A new entry has been added for Social Wasps Vespidae.