Following the recent sale of the Florensac house, we took the opportunity to review the facilities and chattels at Marseillan. We went round the house, threw out and updated a fair bit of stuff and took measurements to allow us to draw up floor plans for a series of changes that we believe will make a great improvement to the property.
We recognised that initially, it was becoming urgent to tackle the remise (workshop area), as the 300 year old plaster between the stones was getting very crumbly. We engaged Nicholas Agud, our trusty stonemason, to complete this task over the European winter and he was finished by the end of February this year. As a result of this very dusty work, poor Sigrid spent many hours trying to get rid of the fine plaster dust that permeated the whole house but despite all her work, the first tenants this year were still finding remnants of dust in unlikely places, such as in the tops of curtains and in the basket of books and maps. But the remise looks great and is ready for further developments out in the courtyard area.
The main change inside the house to date has been the installation of an en suite bathroom in the top floor attic bedroom. This was another major undertaking, as the work in getting all the piping to connect up with the outlets through 3 levels and into the remise involved some fairly complicated boring through remarkably thick stone walls. Now that it’s complete, it provides a great bedroom suite in the quaint top floor attic area, which is a delightful spot overlooking the village streets on warm summer nights.
We ventured off to ‘BUT’ furniture store in Agde and bought two new beds and mattresses for the attic to create a king sized bed. This necessitated my going to Beziers to the wonderful Monte Leone linen shop which was the only place I could find which had king sized fitted and flat sheets. A trip to Ikea in Montpellier provided the extra furniture we need to complete the attic bedroom, which is now fully equipped and ready for visitors.
This has increased the capacity of the house for visitors with two double bedrooms with en suites, together with the little twin bedroom on the first floor and, if needed, the double sofa-bed in the lounge on the first floor.
We have further plans over the next couple of years to expand and tile the yard and to restore the façade of the building to its former authentic historic state.
