This has been a long time coming and we're happy enough with the preparations re barn and gardens to begin the indoor work. We've dedicated a new page to this and you can find the previous stuff in the archive titled monthly.
Given the change in the weather, it's rather timely. We're starting at the top with the upper floors (greniers). The one above the long bedroom has a layer of hard-packed earth called 'torchis' or 'cob' in England. It was used for insulation and fire protection but the downside is the weight. This stuff has bowed the ceiling beams about 30cms out of alignment. We want to convert this into a mezzanine above the main bedroom, so we had to get the earth out. We're going to raise the floor level by about fifteen centimetres, to provide better ceiling height below. This still gives plenty of head height above.
In the next block there is also an upper floor which we're considering converting. The pics for that are the last four at the bottom of the page.