Merry Xmas

The Skater reckons that the Père Noël has brought me the biggest Kapla set in the whole world. A day in advance, the sleigh, pulled by four nervous reindeer, their antlers festonned with glittering frost from the Siberian forest, pulled up outside the Maison Camy to deliver 2km of Russian larch.


It's more or less a year since The Client moved into the Maison Camy and two years since the first blog entry. This time last year the Xmas tree was improvised from a stepladder. There's still a fair amount of improvisation involved in the living arrangements but things are moving in the right direction. The parquet next month will double the habitable surface area. The façade cladding will add a few degrees to the internal temperature.

The best of all seasons greetings to all the visitors to the Maison Camy and especially to those who've spiced things up with their comments; mdw, MOA and TOA and Petunia Girl, - also thank you to those who've offered the occasional encouragement that reassures me I'm not talking to myself. Wherever you are in the world have a good one.

PARQUET n.m. Revêtement de sol en lames

One of those many french words that have found their way into the english language, parquet. Originally a term to describe an enclosure surrounded by a plank fence. There are various laying patterns possible, each has a name;
Parquet Versailles, Parquet à bâtons rompus, Parquet à point de Hongrie and last but not least Parquet à Frises or Parquet à l'Anglaise.
Of course, it goes without saying, we'll be having the Parquet à l'Anglaise in oak. How very english. I think I'll take up cricket. Anyone know how to make cucumber sandwiches?

Singes en laiton avec gelure des couilles

Cold, so cold. New from the people who brought you Croft 3 (mdw), 'skyecommute', an everyday story of country folk that brave the ferocious highland climate day in and day out. Like a trappist monk doing a road test for Top Gear, essentially a visual experience, the daily commute from one side of Skye to the other will leave you breathless with its outstanding beauty and sheer gobsmacking ruggedness.

The right tool

This one’s for mdw who, without realising the awful truth, suggested that I might be kitted up like ‘Bob ze Builder’.
‘Bob ze Builder’ has had exposure here in France, having been liberally sprinkled over the hexagon via multiple satellite channels. Unlike the UK though, the adult population over here has not yet started behaving like Bob. The British mass ‘do-it-yourself’ ‘makeover’ hysteria has yet to be seen in France.

So I suppose I’m a bit avant-garde.

The Skater’s not of the same opinion. He took one look at my orderly organisation of spare garage space, muttered ‘geek’ under his breath and left quickly for an appointment with some poor unsuspecting urban landscaping project.

The Client, drawing on her experience as a psychology graduate back in the 80’s suggested that it was essentially ‘a male thing’ and didn’t think it was a problem as long as I could still maintain eye contact.

Next week I’ll show you my power tools.

The Joiners Tale – or the lace and finery of the humble man

It was about two years ago, the point at which I realised the building industry was going 'boom' crazy. It was the moment when the first joiner, first of many that is, walked into my office wearing a drop dead minimalist dark grey Armani suit.

He’d sent me a quote for a couple of sliding doors and 50 square metres of parquet. When the fax arrived I wasn’t even shocked by the figure, I naturally assumed he’d made an error. After assuring me on the phone that he hadn’t added an extra zero by mistake or he wasn't offering me a luxury bright yellow car worthy of Jeremy Clarkson, I suggested we had a meeting to go through the figures together.

Now, you might say what’s wrong with a joiner wanting to dress up smart when he’s not on site. You might have a point. Maybe on a scale of Political Correctness it comes way down at the bottom to assume that just because of the job they do, certain people can’t once in a while dress smart. It’s was certainly more aesthetically pleasing than the extremely hirsute stone mason that turned up mid-week to sign a contract, fresh from an energetic summer tennis match still in damp shorts, armless string vest and multiple multicoloured sweat bands (that somehow had not quite fulfilled their purpose). I hope you’re getting the mental picture there of what string vest, curly body hair and sweat add up to. Would you have signed?

Somehow you have to look the part. At least make an excuse why you’re out of character. The joiner could have told me he was on his way to a wedding, or a funeral or even that he had the lead role in an amateur dramatic production of The Godfather and I might have been slightly less taken aback.
It even occurred to me that maybe he might have been influenced by rumours that certain builders put about concerning the sexuality of architects (male ones that is)– especially English architects (thank you Edith Cresson). I had this vision of him saying to his spotty faced and pierced sawdust covered apprentices ‘Hey you guys see you later, gotta meet an architect about a job – I’ll just slip out of this overall into something black and sexy’.

Anyway, needless to say, the prices didn’t budge, justified presumably by the joiners high dry cleaning overheads, and the contract wasn’t signed.

All of which is what, in part, explains why The Architect has been investing heavily in woodworking tools.

And, why The Client has had to be so patient.

Quincaillerie

The screws (4 400) and brackets arrived today. In anticipation of global warming bringing the sea closer to Maison Camy The Architect has specified stainless steel for all the fixings.
The order has been placed for the timber cladding. Russian Larch was the final choice.
2 250 metres of 22 x 55 finished russian larch. It should be arriving in three weeks time.

Only two items left on the shopping list before works commence: fibre cement panels for cladding the slab edge detail between first and second floor glazing on the rear elevation, and last but not least - the scaffolding.

Wood

Prices are coming in for the timber cladding. The Red Cedar is looking decidedly expensive. Despite a long tradition of importation into France from Canada via the port of La Rochelle it seems to be the economic outsider. The essence 'most likely to' for the moment is the Siberian Larch. The technical term for the cladding is called 'clairevoie' in french, which translates as 'hit and miss'. This basically means that timber battens, in this case with a trapezoidal section, are screwed or nailed to a timber substructure at regular intervals leaving a small shadow gap. The timber external skin is more or less purely decorative. You could say that it protects the real weatherproof layers behind from attack fromUV light. Siberian Larch, like the Red Cedar, does not need treating for external use.

Timber framing and timber cladding in the domestic housing market has been around in the UK for a long time. Back in the early eighties it was already a commonplace choice of building technique. In France, however, there has always been a reluctance from the general public to accept timber framed houses as a long term solution. The French ideal is of course as everyone knows a chateau built of stone!

Things are changing. Since the turn of the millenium French architects have been adding wood into their palette of materials, essentially in public works projects. The general population has become accustomed to seeing wood on the facades of their libraries and schools. The ecological awakening here is late in coming but quite extraordinary in its ferocity and no self respecting low energy building project is complete without its obligatory 'badge' of visible wood. All this publicity will eventually trickle down into the housing market. The credit crunch will help, along with the increasingly demanding thermal efficiency targets set by the government. Timber wall construction has a lot of voids and filling those voids with insulations means you can easily obtain the lower U values without loosing floor area.

On a recent factory visit, sounding out a steel and aluminium curtain wall contractor for a project, the managing director proudly presented me a partitionned off section of the factory where wood working equipement was being installed for assembly line production. The target market being the timber framed 'pavillon' or detached private residence. He already had is first orders and was, despite current trends, busy hiring technical staff for the drawing office.
The future, at least in France, is wooden.

Yes!

Only one thing to say, apart from thank you America:

I wouldn't like to be a moose in Alaska this weekend.

A wintercoat for Maison Camy

The insulation arrived today and I can confirm; it does smell!


On the positive side however, it is made from 66% 'post consumer' recycled glass. Which gives me a sort of feel good effect from knowing that all my bottled beer drinking efforts are going to good use.


With the insulation came the glue and the elusive 'F bracket'.


Next on the list timber and scaffolding. The Client is going to be so warm this winter.

Going fisching

For those of you who don't think The Architect is serious, here's proof of his intentions.


The insulation is delivered on monday. The feelers are out for the timber cladding. Red cedar, siberian melèze, or oak, what will it be? The Client prefers red cedar.
The cedar would be a nice choice. Especially as The Architect adores the heady vapours given off by freshly sawn red cedar. Perhaps this could be the antidote for insulation that smells like sewer gas?

Silent but deadly

Whist waiting further news on the building insulation front I perused the technical documentation concerning the product. Apparently small amounts of hydrogen sulfide* are trapped inside the bubbles of glass that go to make up the insulating foam. The H2S is a byproduct of the manufacturing process. On cutting or applying pressure to the foam slabs small amounts of H2S are released. The manufacturer advises strongly that the cutting takes place outdoors and not in a non ventilated enclosed space.

I wonder, how much pressure you have to apply for a release of H2S? Would the pressure of a strong wind on the façade do the trick? Imagine a house that farts when the wind blows......

As Buzz Aldrin would say 'bout as welcome as a fart in a space suit'.


*According to wikipedia - implicated in mass extinctions - there ya go!

Sourcing

The Architect is into ‘sourcing’ (as I believe it is now called across the water) all the materials for the facade. This is no mean feat and involves a lot of internet browsing, and faxing and sending of emails. Of course, for any ordinary project, you’d just turn up at the nearest do-it-yourself mega store with a list and a hire truck. Unfortunately for The Architect, he has chosen a panoply of apparently exotic materials (at least in the eyes of the average French builders merchant). Silly architect tempted by all those glossy pamphlets with the buy line ‘as used by Johnny Novelty in his latest you’ve never seen this one before project’.

Take for instance the insulation. Chosen for its quite impressive U value (keep warm factor for the uninitiated) the material comes in the form of black panels of solidified molten glass foam. The material is made in the USA and there is only one authorized dealer for the whole of France. As the only source for this amazing 21st century insulating material one would imagine that they would know all about the product. Well you’d be mistaken. They haven’t a clue.
I know it’s black. They know it’s black; So far so good. I know it needs an F bracket every 4th row. They’ve never heard of the F bracket. I know the glue comes in 13kilo tubs. They’ve only got 28kilo tubs……

Jennifer: ‘Ere Chantal, this blokes asking me for an F bracket, you ‘eard a that?’
Chantal: ‘Naa, never had an F bracket before’

3 days later and there’s still no quote. I suppose they’re out looking for an F bracket.

Sainthood

Petunia Girl has been talking to The Client.

Petunia Girl has been comparing The Client to a saint. She was referring to The Clients extraordinary patience and the understanding she exhibits towards The Architect with respect to the ongoing state of unfinishedness experienced by the inhabitants of Maison Camy.

(Petunia Girl is apparently a lot less saintlike with her man, but that’s a whole other discussion we ain’t going into).

So, Sunday last The Client decided to come down a notch or two in the sainthood rankings in order to make a few things very clear to The Architect. The essence of which was – that not being ‘poulets de printemps’ any more it would be greatly appreciated if one day soon she could expect to actually ‘live’ in the house instead of camping in it.

The Engineer has come back confirming more or less, give or take a couple of mm on the bolt diameter, The Architects specification for attaching the timber cladding.
Nothing to hold me back now.

Indian summer?

Well done to mdw for spotting the sectionned octopus in the last post.

Other delights of distant summer days include – waves, mountains, beautiful tapas ; watching ‘The Skater’ holding his own in a tug-o-war, nose to nose with a Spanish cop (who’d decided to confiscate his board for upsetting old ladies with a few grinds along a black granite bench on the seafront in Donostia,) ; sculptures by Chillida………….etc.

Now that the threat of a rogue black hole ending our existence has become yesterdays news along with lipstick on pigs and other such delights (even though the LHC doesn’t plan to collide at full power for another two weeks) I suppose that I have no excuse for not finishing the façade. Putting off urgent domestic tasks in the face of imminent extinction must run in the family. The Cuban missile crisis made my mother think twice before re-decorating the living room.

Alas, back to work. An Engineer is, at this very moment, checking out my façade project. Verifying that I have the right type and number of bolts to stop the timber cladding flying off with the next tail end of a hurricane that comes by.

Back online

No apologies for absence. Holidays have intervened and curtailed building activity.

House music

The Architect has often compared building to cooking, and everyone is aware of architecture being likened to music, but a building being played as a musical instrument?

David Byrne is still out there pushing back the limits of creative insanity:

David Byrne: Playing the building

Going on tour is going to be difficult unless there are any volunteers. Maybe he'd like to play the Maison Camy?

Sysiphus

Thanks to Petunia girl my hands aren't bleeding this week.

Idle random thoughts whilst laying bricks

The Client doesn't like Wings of Desire. She got up and left the cinema after fifteen minutes. She says that real people don't have profound philosophical thoughts about the meaning of life when they're sat in the metro. She says that they're thinking about things like 'is there enough cat litter to last out the week?'

Do you ever get the feeling that you're watching the movie of your life? Just like in the cinema you watch the hero and say to yourself 'Why is he doing that? I certainly wouldn't do that if I was in his shoes' but the guy justs carries on regardless of your thoughts on the subject. Somewhere in me there's a spectator in the front row seat with a big bucket of popcorn and the answer, but I'M NOT LISTENING.

What else should I write about? After all I'm only building a wall. After you've recovered from the excitement of the first course it's like watching paint dry. The cement burns my skin till it bleeds. The rubber gloves would help but I loose contact with the mortar. On the sack the instructions suggest that the mortar should be 'unctuous'. How could I tell whether or not it was 'unctuous' through rubber gloves?

Living dangerously

The Client has taken to doing nothing.

Girls are always supposed to good at being whilst we boys excel at doing, or so the builders self help guide to laying glass blocks tells me on page 44 (with a diagram).

When I say she’s doing nothing, this is a slight exaggeration as she’s actually sitting with her feet up reading a book next to our chic green garden table, which, as the only big piece of viable furniture we own, adorns the bare concrete living room. She’s been there for nearly an hour and a half and apart from an occasional trip to the window for a cigarette has apparently not changed position since I donned my blue overalls picked up my mighty trowel and sallied forth to fight the anarchy and chaos in our lives. Looking up from my tub of mortar in the garage I see regular wisps of white smoke from the living room window. Another Pope perhaps?

To be fair to The Client, the game consists of working in secret so as to annoy The Architect. As soon as my back is turned she drops the book and gets on with whatever there is to be done. The minute she hears my footsteps on the stair she drops everything and resumes her reading.

It is a well developed technique.

And it works every time.

Encore des briques?

Progress is slow. One row takes a generous half day. The timber form was a help at first but the changing humidity has a disastrous effect on the geometry. The level is now established with a laser.

For The Skater (I know, it's boring.....no kickflips etc.)

Glass blocks

The Architect is back on the job building a wall.
A Glass block wall.

Convoluted temporary timber structures define volumes and curves in space. Concrete, mortar and glass fill the volumes. All this just to daylight the garage? A garage that The Client has already declared as redundant.


The Architect is momentarily struck by a fit of deconstructivism as the formwork becomes more interesting than the finished product.


Beware of false idols.

Garage doors

The finished garage doors look good but the finish will not hold up for long as the steel sheet has only a very thin coating of zinc to protect it from the elements. Paint will be needed at some stage. The Client asked hopefully whether or not it would rust.

The Client likes 'corten'.

She's always trying to be more architect than The Architect.

Riveting stuff

The Client reckons the last post and my paranoid rantings about Telecom were a bit too 'green ink and no margins', so, to avoid being profiled, this week we're back to the hard reality of living on a building site.
The garage doors are receiving their cladding in sheet steel. The Portuguese Neighbour called round to lend me his rivet gun. Despite being dressed up to the nines, he couldn't resist getting down on his hands and knees to show me the right technique and fix the first row of rivets.


The zinc coated steel matches a treat the bare concrete walls of the ground floor. As The Portuguese Neighbour leaves, probably to find a dry cleaners before facing up to his wife, I settle down to the task of drilling and riveting. My back turned to the street, and the front of the house only separated by a thin strip of land from the pavement, I can hear the conversations of everyone that passes by. The steel railings are made of 10cm blades of steel and act like vertical jalousies (Venitian blinds) in the sense that you can't see through them at an angle. Which of course means that my presence, apart from the occasional clack of the rivet gun, goes unnoticed to passers by. Mother and small child, 'Mummy mummy, isn't that the ugly house?', 'shh, yes darling that's the one'.

Voila, the ultimate accolade.

Zapping Zapruder

The next visit from Telecom man proved unfruitful. This time the manhole was not blocked by a parked vehicle, it had disappeared! Unable to find the other end of the wire pulling line left by the previous Telecom man, he had to admit defeat. On being asked whether or not he had access to a plan or an engineer he could call in for assistance he replied :

'I'm private sector mate, I don't 'av any a that stuff'.

Curiously, connecting us to the outside world with this little bit of cable between the house and the manhole (that has taken seven months so far) is one of the last remaining areas where Telecom still have a monopoly. Having subcontracted out every little bit of the task to separate private subcontractors, Telecom have forgotten the essential component - that worked so well in the water company intervention - coordination.

On returning the following day Telecom man managed to find the manhole (probably brought a divining rod with him). Only problem being the distance between the manhole and the house. Unable to accomplish the pull through on his own he enlisted the assistance of the French Neighbour, who, despite his 80 years of age, is a remarkably strong man. Regular exercise tossing boules in the back garden means he can double as a Telecom man apprentice when needed (big thank you needed here for French Neighbour).

So now, roll of drums, we have the telephone. The Client opened a bottle of champagne in celebration and maybe this weekend we'll hang out flags.

On a not unrelated point, according to New Scientist magazine, two Russian mathematicians have suggested that the Large Hadron Collider, or LHC as it's known (actually under construction) will mark a very important turning point in history, so to speak. Apparently the LHC will be sufficiently powerful to send particles back in time. This, say the Russians, will make it the first time machine. If their theory is correct, time travel into the past is not possible beyond the moment of the creation of the first time machine. Implacable logic which implies that from the moment the LHC springs to life we will have the first 'time tourists' visiting us from the future. This will inevitably prove frustrating for the first 'time tourism' companies who will be technically limited to visits from the year 2008 onwards. Which means, more importantly, no special day return trip for The Architect back to the grassy knoll to find out who (or how many) really did it.

Well there's still a ray of hope - judging by my experiences with our national Telecom company they've already invented the time machine and managed to take French telecommunications back to those legendary days of the early sixties.

Where do I book? Anyone got Richard Bransons phone number? I have a phone!

PS: Implacable Russian logic probably involves a lot of vodka.

put a rabbit

The saga continues. Telecom faltered just before the finishing line. We are now 7 months from the start. After the - terribly tiny hole in the pavement - stage, the next, and hopefully last ordeal lined up was supposed to be the - pulling a tiny cable through an overly large plastic conduit - stage.

The appointment was for 14h00. At 13h00 The Architect receives a call from Telecom man, who announces in a voice that hasn't appreciated the ban on smoking in cafés 'Sorry mate, I've arrived early and there's nobody 'ere' *. This of course came as no surprise to The Architect, who is resolutely punctual though never early by one whole hour, except when it's a meeting with The Client .
'Can you come an open up mate?'
'Of course I can my good man.' I replied
The Architect sets of immediately on foot/bicycle/train/bus to regain Maison Camy as quickly as is humanly possible (if you've been waiting 7 months for a telephone you can run really fast whilst eating a sandwhich).
Half way there, somewhere between bicycle and train, another call arrives on the mobile from Telecom man 'Ere guv there's a car parked on the manhole cover, a green Opel'
He obviously thinks I know everyone in town and will instantly be able to call the owner. I suggest he waits another 15 minutes until I get there and together we'll sort the situation out. Needless to say when I arrive he's gone, and in the street, not a single green Opel to be seen.

The Architects mother, who has had many more years of 'call centre/technician intervention' experience, suggested the obvious that I had ignored - the green Opel that was blocking the works actually belonged to the Telecom man and it was his way of saying he'd finished his day and was 'off 'ome mate'

Next time lets hope he parks the car on his bloody foot - that way when I arrive he might just still be around.

' 'ere, that don't 'alf 'urt mate'

*(I've taken the liberty of translating French directly into Cockney to conserve the authenticity of the dialogs - no disrespect to either intended)

A joint problem? look no further

Take a look at this original approach to jointing in the home by MOA and TOA.
It's just like TV shopping (without the subtitles).

Voiture balai

The terribly tiny hole that had to be made in the pavement in order to connect Maison Camy to the outside world has been dug. Finally Telecom are approaching the finishing line in last position 6 months after the first 'prise de contacte'.
Wideband, 200 channels and free phoning are just around the corner.
The next post on Maison Camy will be made FROM the Maison Camy, heralding a new era of blogging - more pertinent, more humourous, more laid back, more informative, more frequent, more.......just more and more (Maison Camy always in the zeitgeist - work less / earn more / score top models).
This new era will be known as Phase II Maison Camy. Posting will be devoted to the 'client works' destined to transform a building site into a habitable dwelling. Upcoming themes include; 'external insulation and timber cladding', 'scaffolding', 'traditionally laid parquet', 'new uses for old satellite dishes', 'the cat flap' etc. Can't wait can you?
Guided tours have started but please don't apply unless you are a fully qualified architect. The Client has decided that only architects can visit, as only they will understand how anyone can live in such conditions of 'inachèvement'.

Winter Sales

The Client, to make a point about living on a building site, has decided to dress appropriately. The unforeseen added advantage will no doubt come in the crush of the January sales....... 'Excuse me madam, would you mind moving to one side please?'