Painting Shutters

You’ve picked that up on your way, my experiences are different. That’s why it’s not a good idea to generalise based on limited knowledge and experience. None of my local French neighbours that I talk to, ranging in age from late 20s to 70s would consider moving into a small new build here in the countryside and a young cousin of mine who lives in a large town north of Paris is currently renovating a 19th Century flat sympathetically with period furniture. Yes, he is fitting a new, modern bathroom and a practical kitchen but those are his only concessions to modernity. Once it is finished it will be a comfortable, easy to live home with character and individuality. It would have been quicker and cheaper to cover problem walls with placo and to furnish it from Gifi and But but those are not his ideas or expectations. Different people have different tastes and to generalise about a whole nation is wrong. You talk (write) with an authority that you don’t have.

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Expats tend to move to more rural communities and with respect don’t have a gauge of ‘normal’ French life or what the younger generations prefer when it comes to housing. Most people have to live/want to live in cities or the banlieue. whether that is Paris, Lyon, Bordeaux or wherever.

A common trend where we have our house is for people to buy a cheap old ugly 1950’s-1960’s pavillon houses and then get an architect to transform them. It is a better alternative to a new build because the invariably come with land. Most of the houses for sale are older houses largely because they are expensive and like I said earlier, difficult to live as a family.

Our ‘short’ street in the banlieue has a mix of social ‘cube’ type housing, some very large maison de maîtres, couple of longeres. In between all these houses where small parcels of land has become available two very large architect type houses which must of cost at least 1.5 million to build. You have to ask yourself why with that budget would they build there ?? One is retired. The house opposite us is a magnificent longere that is worth a fortune and guy cannot stop spending money on it. It has PVC windows. You can’t tell.

Going back to the PVC debate…here is a typical beautiful square in Paris. Spot the windows made in wood. Look closely there are violet roulets there as well.

Also, next time the Elysee is on telly, check out their windows !!! They look PVC to me.

You are just confirming your narrow perspective.

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Just saying, everyone in our circles of friends and family tend to want the same things. They just happen to be the same things that you see on French ‘house’ type programmes on French telly and what you read in french magazines. If you get out about across France it seems pretty much the same trend to me.

If you remember the type of stuff Leroy Merlin were selling 20 years ago to what they sell today I think that proves my point also.

Of course it is a slight generalisation, but there is undoubtedly a mis match between the expectations/needs/desires of expat buyers and French buyers.

If you read people’s replies you would see that they are talking about French people in their localities and their tastes. You have made your mind up based on your very narrow experience. Not a good thing.

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Are intentionally trying to be rude ?? That is three times you have passed a rude comment.

4 people have admitted on this ‘one’ thread that it is wrong to install PVC windows on old houses. I have never met anyone in France who says the same.

To be fair, you would be stupid not to install PVC windows. Especially in rural areas. In the country (which tends to be colder !!!) houses tend to be heated by oil or electricity. Good quality PVC will out perform wooden windows in terms of isolation and acoustics which will save you money. When we replaced all our wooden windows our gas bill was literally cut in half.

Also, a house with wooden windows will be rated lower in terms of efficiency (and priced lower accordingly) than those with PVC windows.

There is no logic to install wooden windows unless they are really the top of the game ones. But you still have to paint them. LOL.

No one in France is going to shoot you (as someone said earlier) for installing PVC windows.

Rude comments? I am just questioning your data when you claim that you speak on behalf of the French. I know your claims are personal and not true for the population in general but still you insist.

Makes perfect sense, and explains the polar opposite points of view being expressed on here - we all prefer to associate with like-minded people and we all tend to take our cues and adopt the same priorities as those we associate with. You’re talking about the people you know, others are talking about the people they know. The important thing as David says is to realise that your perspective is limited. For instance, with respect, I don’t think that my social circle and yours would have much in common, either regarding internal décor or anything else.
“Most people have to live/want to live in cities or the banlieue. whether that is Paris, Lyon, Bordeaux or wherever” - do you really believe that all the people who are running successful businesses or have good jobs in small towns throughout the country and are very happy and content, are not living ‘normal’ lives and are stifling a repressed desire to rush off to live in a Big City? Of course they’re not, they simply see no attraction whatsoever in living in a big city. It’s a totally different mentality, that you and your entourage obviously have, but not everyone does. Bring your metropolitan views to small-town Normandy and see what reaction you get :smile: again, no disrespect Parisians who come along just bursting to share the benefit of their wisdom tend not to be too popular round here. Or rather, they’re popular in some quarters because the artisans have special rates for Parisians who have second homes here.

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I have lived in Paris three times. I have lived in Lyon for two years. I have lived 8 years in a rural house in the Loire. Our main house is in the suburb of a large Loire city. We have an inherited house in very rural Southern Bourgogne (village founded by family) which we go to many times a year. Family in Nantes and Besançon and Orleans. Family home in the Vosges plus other family dotted all over the place. A family ski flat in the Alpes and a beach flat on the coast just south of Montpellier. Blah Blah Blah

What I say is just my experience of life in France. Maybe I am wrong.

I would argue that most people of my age want to live on the edge of a city. I remember once when we said that we were going to move to the house in Bourgogne. Everyone, said it it would be a completely stupid thing to do and we would commit economic suicide…even though we could sell our house, be mortgage free and have lots of dosh in the bank. Looking back they were right, it would have been.

Can we keep this civil please people?
Thanks.

(Unless of course anyone wants to start on about people who install ‘statement’ front doors, in which case it’s open season… :slight_smile: )

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I know I shouldn’t rise to the bait but… it seems to need pointing out that the average French family probably doesn’t own a ski flat, a beach flat and blah blah blah. How the other half live - but the other half also have shutters and windows so you can’t ignore them altogether as if they don’t exist.

Front doors, now there’s a question. Does anyone have any advice on non-standard-sized front doors? Mine is smaller than standard and the door frame can’t be enlarged.

What size do you need?

You would be amazed of what people own but don’t want to own. People get gifted family houses or whatever but they don’t want them/afford them. That is actually what partly caused the housing crash in rural areas some years ago when people put them all up for sale at the same time. Ski flats and beach flats are half the priced than what they used to be 10 years ago. I know two people who are struggling to get on the housing ladder where they need to live and work but own an inherited house in the middle of nowhere that is of no use to them.

France is hard work.

I’ll post the dimensions up later when I get a chance to measure - can’t remember off the top of my head.

The problem is that ground floor level inside is below street level. Once over the threshold you immediately go down 3 steps. However the door, obviously, opens at street level, so the bottom of the door frame is above floor level inside, and it being a very low cottage that means the top of the door frame is flush with the ceiling (if that makes sense). Tall people have to watch their heads.

Any ideas welcome. The cottage is 16th century so I don’t want to do anything too traumatic to it - but the door is an absolute pain at present.

When you say it is flush with the ceiling, what is the ceiling exactly ? Placo ??

Are the beams exposed in the room that you enter into or they covered by the ‘ceiling’ ?

I guess the door in not original.

Could we see a couple of photos please?

I suspect the door may well be original!!! but I don’t know for sure.

The inside beams are exposed. A previous owner has obviously re-placo’d the ceiling in that section of the room. It needs redoing because on a hot day when the door expands it catches the ceiling when it opens and it’s wearing a groove in the placo, but obviously there’s no point doing that until the door problem is sorted. Externally you can see the horizontal beam between the two storeys (it’s a maison à colombages) and you can see that the door frame goes practically right up to that, so removing the placo (what is above a placo ceiling?) wouldn’t make a lot of difference to the ceiling height as far as I can see. However I know naff all about construction of any kind so if that doesn’t make any sense or I’m making assumptions that cannot be correct, tell me.

I’ll put some photos up when I get chance. Thanks for the interest chaps, would be so good to find a solution to this!

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Take a hammer to the placo. Well, find someone to take a hammer to the placo. The placo has to go before making any further decisions.

Do you need to replace the door ? Once the placo has gone it elevates the height problem. Replacing the door is a 2k euro job and to measure for a new door, the placo has to go anyway.

Trouble is, what is the placo hiding ? Pipes ? electrics ? I guess they did it for a reason. If it does not hide anything then you just re-placo properly so it is not flush with the door and leaves more head height.

Without seeing pictures, I am not inclined to replace the door.

Hi Lily.
No I don’t advertise anywhere else & I don’t consider myself to be here.
I offered advice regarding painting materials and my credentials are too let you no that I’m qualified too do so.

I need to do something because it’s not flush with the frame and there are draughts. I would feel quite sad about replacing it because it is a piece of history - and it’s an impressive slab of wood, very very very thick, like a fortress door!

My thoughts exactly. I’m a great believer in “never take a fence down until you understand precisely why it was put up”.
I strongly suspect pipes because I know from the deeds that 100 years ago there was no water upstairs, all the sinks and sanitary facilities were downstairs. The water meter is just inside the door and the “new” bathroom is directly above that, so that would be the obvious route for the pipework.