Our Adventures
The renovations (read stripping things back to the bare bones!) started in earnest the day we got the keys in March 2021. As we lived and worked in London until October 2022, our efforts were condensed into 7-10 day (fairly intense) stints, with a little (read a lot of) help from amazing friends and family members. Since our permanent move to France in the autumn of 2022, things have been just as full on, not least because we became parents to the wonderful Noah in April 2023, but also because of the sheer size and scale of the project we have taken on. We are currently more than a year away from creating our vision for a luxury bed and breakfast, gite, and leadership and wellbeing retreat business, but we our hoping our ability to get stuck in and do some hard graft will pay off.
While our DIY skills were somewhat limited (read non-existent) when we moved, we are learning news skills all the time and have surprised ourselves at how much we have managed to take on ourselves.
You can follow our adventures, as we take on the project of a lifetime, on our website, on Instagram, on channel 4's Chateau DIY or on our recently launched YouTube channel: The Chateau Adventures! We are currently only sharing our adventures up until the end of 2022, as our 2023 adventrues will be featuring in the next series of Chateau DIY in early 2024.
Ways to follow our adventures
The Renovations | March 2021 - July 2022
March 2021
With keys, a hammer, chisel and sledge hammer in hand, we commenced renovations in earnest. Our first task was to strip the aptly named Pipe room, situated in the north east corner of the first floor, down to the bare stones. Between the three of us we made good (although in hindsight quite slow) progress. Considering the rudimentary tools we were using, it was a great first effort and there was a real sense of achievement from having completed the task together. There was also a painful sense of some very soar knuckles that had accidentally been hammered on a number of times!
March 2021
Removing the plaster from what we had aptly named the 'Pipe' room. We'd initially called it the Bamboo room, as the lower section of wall was covered in bamboo - that was the first thing to go! We were very grateful for the help of Nicole's hard-working sister Josephine, who had travelled with her partner and his son to help us celebrate getting the keys.
March
2021
May 2021
Nicole attacking one of the many partition walls which we needed to take down. Thankfully, this one was fairly light work compared to some of the other walls we have had to take down, as it was constructed of only a thin layer of tiles.
May
2021
June 2021
For our next trip in June 2021 we had arranged a skip, which meant we were able to clear away the significant amounts of rubble and debris as we were working. Nick focused his efforts on taking down the walls in what we currently call the stone room, but which was previously made up of several rooms (including the pipe room). The walls were filled with earth, hay, and corn on the cobs, and covered in thin wood batons, likely dating back several hundred years. Meanwhile Nicole stripped the plaster from the walls in what will become the Petit Salon and Salle d'Entrée). We had yet to invest in any power tools at this point, so were mostly relying on a very manual and tiring process of sledgehammering and chiseling. We combined efforts to demolish the only bathroom in the chateau situated next to where Nicole had been chiseling the plaster off the walls in the petit salon. At this stage we opted to leave the toilet, as we were planning on camping in the chateau later in the summer to save on the cost of renting a nearby gite.
Reunited again. We were really pleased to once again be joined by Nicole's sister Josephine who flew in from Sweden to help us with the renovations. The three of us got through a lot of rubble in the eight days we were together!
August
2021
August 2021
Our very first camping experience at the chateau! We procured some net tents to help protect us from mosquitos, bats and other insects roaming around at night. It was a long first day of travelling and buying the necessary things we needed to camp there, including a fridge, bedding etc. Once we had cleaned the room we were staying in (the future dining rom), it actually felt really cosy. Showers were alfresco - a makeshift set up with the garden hose and a couple of throws hung on a string to protect our modesty. We also invested in our first ever power tool - a jack hammer. We are not entirely sure why we ever thought a hammer and chisel was the way to go initially. We made significant progress, tearing up the floor in the tower (a mixture of tiles, cement, earth, stones and sand), removing the plaster to what will be the garden suite and honeymoon suite, as well as taking down the wall between the two. It was a really great trip with some very fond memories, despite the hard graft.
It was an impressive site to see huge slabs of earth fall with a thud to the floor as we make good progress in demolishing the four metre high partition wall in what will become Le Grand Salon.
November
2021
November 2021
We ventured briefly to the chateau for a few days in October, but made very little progress on the DIY side of things. Our next significant trip was in November. Unfortunately, Nicole was unable to join Nick for this one. Thankfully, Nick had a couple of extra pairs of hands in the form of his parents. The focus of the trip centred on demolishing the dividing wall between the old entrance room and the lounge to create one expansive room which will become Le Grand Salon. Having made good progress tearing down the wall, they also took down a significant amount of plaster from the walls and created an opening between the future kitchen and dining room. Another productive trip with some good progress made.
We had a few trips to the DIY store in Bergerac to pick up some more power tools. Having learned from our early mistakes of attempting to rely on brute strength alone, we are now far quicker to choose the right tool for the job at hand.
January
2022
January 2022
With the new year, we had a renewed sense of purpose and energy to keep up the momentum with the renovations. We still had a lot to achieve before some of the major works could start - although it's worth mentioning that, at this stage, we had struggled to actually find reasonable quotes to engage contractors. We were very grateful for the extra help from Nick's parents and some friends of theirs. While they might have had an average age of over 75 between the four of them, it also meant they were bringing over 300 years' of experience to bear and plenty of DIY know-how. This was the first time our efforts were captured for Chateau DIY (Season 3, episode 2). Plenty of progress made, from unearthing an old ecclesiastical window to breaking through concrete floors with some of our new power tools.
Behind Nick's smile lies his disbelief at how much earth and rubble we had to move in order to get back to the floorboards, in order to access the roof of the wine vat in the room below. In some places there was more than 20cm of earth and rubble to dig up and throw into the skip (one bucket at a time).
April
2022
April 2022
Easter time in St Julien greeted us with a series of spectacular sunsets. Both of us were still a little low on energy having recently got over a nasty cold, but with the amazing help from Nicole's sister Josephine we had another really productive trip. Nick was kept busy demolishing the old reinforced concrete septic tank and making a start on the double reinforced concrete wine vats in what will be a one bedroom gite by the tower, while Nicole and Josephine experimented with the new power hose and shifted a lot of rubble and stones. We even left ourselves with enough time to have a little bit of fun, with a canoe trip down the Dordogne river from Vitrac to Beynac.
June
2022
Great fun to spend some time with Nicole's cousin Alex and her husband Lukasz, who are based in Sweden. Amazing of them to make the trip and for all their hard work and remarkable culinary skills. Those smiles, were from before we set them to work!
June 2022
The final trip before our full-time move to St Julien in the autumn (yes, that is actually happening!). We were so very grateful to Alex and Lukasz for joining us for five days to tackle another skip full of rubble. We also had our second visit from the Chateau DIY crew, which was really good fun (tune into season 3, episode 20 for more details). Nick had a couple of days by himself at the end of the trip, which enabled him to get reacquainted with his old nemesis, the double wine vats. While there is still more work to do, it feels like he has now broken the back of it (without it, thankfully, breaking his back). Hopefully a fairly quick job to tick off when we arrive in the autumn.
Further updates...
Check out the chateau's Instagram @chateauvieillesvignes
You can also catch some of our adventures on
on channel
As well as on our YouTube channel