Le-Petit-Logis Development Project ,79130 Neuvy Bouin, The Gatine, Deux Sevres

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the early days

So now we are the proud owners of a plot of land in rural France - the hard work begins.........
From what we have been told no-one has worked on this plot for 15 years, it was originally used as a family fruit & vegetable garden and rabbits were reared in concrete hutches in the barn. Basically a very self sufficient lifestyle. We also believe that the previous owner was a blacksmith as we have found a few horsehoes and nails which we have saved for good luck. When we finally received the deeds the whole history of the land was there to read, former owners, their addresses, spouses, birth dates - basically everything except their inside leg measurement!!! this document told us that our current next door neighbour also owned the land and prior to him the commune. The small stone building housed a 'copper' which we think was used to heat the hot water for the boil wash as the communual laundry(lavoir) is adjacent to us. Basically it was an ancient way of doing the washing. The commune have recently renovated this building of which they are very proud and several visitors come to view this historic building to see how life was before electricity.
   

overgrown building.JPG

longgrass.JPG

The old copper.JPG

dismantling the lean to.JPG

the old potting shed.JPG
cleared stone building.JPG

All these pictures show the property from when we first visited and put the offer in to buy through to the dismantling and clearing of the existing buildings, renovating the stone building, the barn and building a shower room. This took us through until March 2009 but despite the main works being completed the electricity company let us down big time !!!!! As we had no electric we decided to channel our energy into a gravelling the area in front of the buildings and attempt to tidy the land.    

overgrown barn.JPG
before cleared out .JPG
Barn cleared out.JPG
Barn no hutches.JPG
foundations down .JPG
The walls are up.JPG
roofon.JPG
from the road.JPG

Thanks for visiting - please come back soon.