Up to the belvedere
Bonjour everyone
What a week of contrasts weather-wise – hard frost, snow, rain, mist and sunshine and so cold. Winter in the Tarn, so many beautiful and differing views each day whether out on walks or from the kitchen windows. I have it on good authority from locals that it hasn’t been this cold here since 2014! A good time to have no central heating. We are racing through all those logs we neatly stacked for the winter. It will be a miracle if they last this month! More wood stacking to come I suspect – at least it keeps you warm.
We have been treated this week to lots of lovely sightings of deer, a hare, birds of prey (I am not that good at identifying them yet – on my list for 2021) as well as delightful garden birds including one of my favourites – the robin.
Back in November’s Storeys for Kittens post, we started a tour of the house together, discovering the ground and first floors. This week I thought we should complete it – exploring the second floor and attics, as well as the pigeonnier and belvedere in the tower.
Second Floor
You can only reach the second floor from the tower end of the house so up we go from the Billiard room, where, as a total aside, we found this at the back of the fireplace just before Christmas – a very old fireplace plate or plaque:
The second floor landing is spacious and full of light when the shutters are open, and will become our office eventually. Off the landing is a small shower room, a door to two interconnecting rooms and a door onto a fabulous covered terrace with stunning views and a bit of a micro climate. A lovely place to sit with coffee and chocolatines.
The two interconnecting rooms are huge, one facing west and the second facing east. We are going to turn these two rooms into our bedroom, dressing room and bathroom. The first room overlooks the front garden with a lovely aerial view of the rose garden we are developing. Sadly it has had its corner fireplace removed, which is a shame but I don’t think we will reinstate it. This room will become the bathroom and dressing room – very grand but why not. The dressing room area will have a large walk-in wardrobe – I am very excited about this – something to look forward to!
You reach the second room through beautiful panelled double doors which open to face double French doors onto a balcony – again fabulous views but not somewhere to hang about at the moment as the balcony needs work.
The second room has a pretty fireplace, smaller than the room below – maybe somewhere for a woodburner one day. Neither of these rooms have had much done to them for a long time, just a lick of paint, but plenty of potential, with lots of space and high ceilings. The final and best feature of this room is that you can access the covered terrace from the room – so morning coffee on the terrace – one day!
Back onto the landing and we continue up the stairs to the third floor:
The third floor, once upon a time, had a landing which is currently boarded off so the resident owls cannot get into the house. The plan is to rehang the two missing doors (not actually missing), one to the attic room and one to the pigeonnier, and then be able to open up the landing again. An old and tiny skylight was upgraded to a larger velux window during the roof replacement to give more natural light to the stairwell, and eventually the landing.
When we had the roof done last year, we also added an extra velux window to the main attic area and enlarged the existing skylight so the attic is now a large light space – a great future studio. There are also windows at either end – or rather window spaces – no actual windows, only shutters. We need to add windows here. We also plan to adjust the beams to open up the space.
From the landing, a second doorway leads to the tower and pigeonnier. Not the most glamourous of areas and a good deal of imagination is needed as it is very dilapidated but I think the small area here will make a great future reading/writing nook. Currently there is a stepladder of sorts leading up to the belvedere – a look-out balcony open on 3 sides, complete with very rotten floorboards, but with a stunning view. The word belvedere actually comes from the Italian belvidere meaning beautiful view, and they are usually found at rooftop level and are open-sided.
Above this is the pigeonnier space, accessible by further stepladder stairs and a trap door. In the tower roof space we often have nesting owls – usually a Little Owl but we have also seen Barn Owls up there. This needs to remain their space so we have to renovate with caution and care up here and not when they are nesting. A big project – not that high on the list right now, although making the space water and draught tight, as well as reinstating a door, would be a good plan! Owls can be a little messy as you can see in the photos!
There is also an attic at the other end of the house, above the Directoire rooms. You can see where on the 2nd floor plan. There are 2 attic spaces here, accessed by stairs from the first of the Directoire rooms. When we had the roof done here we discovered that instead of roof timbers, the roof tiles were laid on flat terracotta tiles – perhaps a type of early insulation. There are also areas of the attic that have these on the floor too and we know that they exist between the ceiling of the rooms below and attic floor. All these tiles must weigh a tonne – the house seems to be pretty sturdy. No wonder the walls are so thick. The first attic over the Directoire will remain as storage.
The second attic which is over the Nun’s rooms is currently only accessible via a hole in the wall – I have a theory that there must have been access from the other end before the addition of the tower but it is only a theory! This attic we hope will house our central heating system one day – an air source system. Hopefully this will be possible before next winter. Two winters without heat is perhaps enough. However I am remaining realistic about this and currently trying to find my skiing thermals!
We found all sorts of things in the attics, including old doors, windows, beds, zinc pans, papers and much more. A story for another day.
So there you are, a complete tour of the house. If you want a reminder of the rest of the house, have a look at Storeys for Kittens and Hidden Doors and Corridors.
Back next week with our news, Friday as usual – just in time for the weekend. Perhaps something to read with your coffee and chocolatine?
Next week I will also be launching a new series of posts on the third Wednesday of each month. Look out for details on Instagram in the coming days.
Have a lovely weekend.
A bientôt
Ali xx
2 Comments
Sunshine Sarah
What a fantastic house you have here it looks beautiful and do the views from those upstairs rooms! 😍🤗 Plenty of space to spot much wildlife!
How gorgeous will that reading nook be when it’s finished? Aahh, dreamy 😊
It’s absolutely beautiful and will be even more so when it’s finished I’m sure 🏘️🏘️
Ali
Thank you Sarah.