Saturday, January 08, 2005
Les Champs Geraux community spirit
We got presented with our flower garden prize - a bunch of flowers- and a Diplome d'Honneur last night at Les Champs Geraux village hall. There were several hundred people there with the mayor making various speeches recognising the contributions of village people, presenting prizes to other competition winners and noting the achievements of the village and it's future plans.
I thought it was really nice event which helps bring, and keep, the community together with appreciating people work and effort. Apparently every commune in France does the same thing.
| 8:18:55 PM
Les Champs Geraux community spirit
Ceiling batons
Finished off the horizontal ceiling supports yesterday (that's the yellow wood in the photo) in both gites upstairs. While we were on a roll and to clear material off the floor we just carried on into the second gite. Just as we were about to start screwing the metal ceiling batons/hangars to the wood we remembered that it would be necessary to put some walker boards up above the ceiling to enable us to put up the insulation, wiring for lights etc. Above that yellow wood is just a void.
Putting up the ceiling batons was relatively easy once we had a level, the metal hanger brackets clip to the back of the baton and screw to the wooden support above. The metal batons are 2515mm off the floor. A wall plasterboard is 1,2m by 2,5m so we allowed 10mm for the thickness of the ceiling board + 5mm for leaway. The walling plasterboard should just slot straight in :-)
Whilst Ian and I were working upstairs the macons arrived to fit the pre-cast window sills and construct the door sills. The door sills are hand made with shuttering, concrete and smooth cement. They saved this job for the end of the day, so when Ian and I came down from upstairs we found ourselves trapped, hemmed in by wet cement and just to make our escape even more difficult the macons had fixed at knee height across each doorway a wide plank to prevent rain dripping on the sill and spoiling the smooth finish. A quick Bob Beamon secured our escape.
| 8:02:36 PM Ceiling batons
