I understood it not to be landings / halls / stairways. But that was then. Crossed with @Badger . I’ll stop offering anymore as he obviously knows what’s what.
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There used to be the distinction between brut and net, SHOB including everything, and SHON with the exceptions. But I think this has been swept away.
One thing said to us was that our planning department would be far more flexible if we had an architect on board. So we did, but I actually did all the work as it turned out he was a unreliable drunk. However it went through with no problems (150m2 three story total renovation).
Like with many things in France it seems daunting at first as so much of the administration is ridiculously over-complex. But if you take it tiny baby steps at a time it does all fall into place.
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That was always the tricky bit to get a handle on, my friends built their place from scratch and bathrooms, toilets and kitchen was not included on theirs, I asked them to double check as most forums had other ideas, they did and were told they didnt and the 1.8m headheight chopped off quite a bit of the habitable area. So it seems taxable area and planning sq m is different.
Thanks for the explanation and link Badger, very helpful again and as Jane said some bits seemed to have been changed since then.
Very nice. Does habitable sq m include counting all floors? What if what you’re modernising or converting is already over the 150, say if you’re already 250, and what you want to do won’t actually make it any bigger?
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If said space / area is already declared as living space in the majority cases you can do pretty much on the inside as you like. Example, you have a total of 15 rooms on 3 floors, the 3 floors are declared as living space total 250m2. If you decide to convert the living space to have 8 rooms that’s fine. If you have an attic you want to convert to living space or an adjoining outhouse that’s another thing entirely.
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We did all the work on the PdC for our initial building project. We had bought a property of nearly 700m² which we planned to develop into apartments under permanent rental. Having worked earlier in my career as a draughtsman it was not an onerous task to produce drawings that could be read by any builder or official from the Mairie or BdF. We then set about finding an architect who was new to the game and with little work and, for 500€, had them peruse and sign off the plans. Next we set up a SARL covering electricals, plumbing and plaster-boarding and applied for grants to the tune of some 23k for two of the apartments which became subject to fair rent limits for nine years but hey ho that led to the other seven flats being rented at our rates, each one partially financing the next.
Thanks everyone for the amazing feedback and the many ‘nuggets’ of information. I will have more questions, I am sure, and might post as a new topic if it helps some future person searching about a specific aspect of the PdC. Many thanks 
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Will do. I’m still waiting for information from the vendor before I can move forward. It may take some time but I’ll come back if/when I get through the process. Thanks again all.