#16 Living on site while renovating in France: how to survive the dust, the chaos and each other
Episode 16, Season 1
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Everything you need to know about living on site while renovating in France
Living on site while renovating is one of the most common - and most romanticised - decisions that people make when they buy a renovation property in France. It sounds practical. Save on rent, keep a close eye on progress, be there when the artisans arrive. What’s not to like?
Quite a lot, as it turns out. In this episode, Rosie, Sue and Micala share their own stories of living through renovations - flannel washes, frozen toilets, hosepipe showers, sleeping by the Rayburn and all - along with some brilliant (and at times heroic) tales sent in by listeners. There’s also some genuinely useful advice for anyone currently in the middle of it, or seriously considering it.
Contents
The reality of living on site versus the Instagram version
Personal stories from Rosie, Sue and Micala - the good, the bad and the flannel wash!
Listener stories: monasteries, straw bales, frozen pipes and wooden pallets
Practical tips for surviving on-site living with your sanity and relationship intact
When it might actually be better not to live on site at all
Renovation burnout - how to spot it and how to manage it
The reality nobody puts on Instagram
When people buy renovation properties in France, the plan is often to live in the house while the work happens. And sometimes it works out beautifully. But the reality can involve months - or, mor often, years - of dust, no proper bathroom, a camping stove for a kitchen, extension leads running everywhere, and that special kind of psychological wear that comes from always being able to see exactly how much you haven’t finished yet.
Rosie moved into a barn conversion mid-renovation with no window in the bedroom, a makeshift kitchen and very limited sanitation. Sue spent years in a house with a tarpaulin for a roof, a lean-to bathroom and a kitchen that doubled as the living room. Micala’s horror story involves a hole where the staircase used to be and a desk chair she had to be very careful about pushing back.
All three of them made it through. All three have opinions on how to do it better.
The non-negotiables: what to sort first
If you’re going to live on site, there are a few things worth prioritising above everything else - including the nice finishes you’ve been dreaming about.
Sanitation first. A working toilet and some form of shower, however temporary, should be the first thing you sort. Everything else can wait. As Sue puts it, once you’ve got sanitation and electricity established, you can manage most other things.
One decent room to escape to. Having even one space that’s finished, clean and comfortable makes an enormous difference psychologically. It doesn’t matter if the rest of the house looks like a building site - having somewhere to shut the door on it all is worth prioritising early. For Sue, that was a clean bedroom with a good bed. For Micala, it was getting a proper office set up. Pick yours.
A functioning kitchen, however basic. A camping stove and a bit of worktop space is enough to get by. What wears people down isn’t the lack of a dream kitchen - it’s having nowhere to make a cup of tea after a long day on site.
Heating. French winters are not to be underestimated, particularly in rural areas. Rosie’s partner, Jon, once spent four months sleeping next to a Rayburn in Burgundy to stop it going out overnight. If you’re moving in during autumn or winter, have a plan for heat before you arrive.
Managing the dust
Dust is the constant companion of any renovation, and if you’re living on site it will find its way into everything. A few things that help:
Use heavy plastic sheeting on doorways between the works area and the living area. It won’t keep everything out, but it makes a significant difference and saves hours of cleaning time afterwards. Sue and Scott use it on client sites as standard practice - the same approach applies at home. Dust sheets over furniture, especially anything you’re sleeping on or using daily. Accept that if you’re in rural France, there’s agricultural dust on top of renovation dust, and some level of it is just going to be part of life for a while - or forever!
Looking after yourselves - and each other
This is the bit that the renovation programmes don’t tend to cover, and it might be the most important section of this blog.
Living in a building site puts relationships under real pressure. Rosie, Sue and Micala have between them seen a lot of people arrive in France with a shared dream and leave - either the property or the relationship - before the project is finished. It’s not inevitable, but it’s common enough to take seriously.
A few things that help: take regular time away from the project together. In the early days, Sue and Scott used to find small local restaurants and go for the three-course lunch. It doesn’t have to be expensive - a picnic somewhere nice can be equally effective. The point is to spend time together that isn’t about the renovation. If you’ve got children, this matters even more.
Try to keep the end goal visible. When everything around you is unfinished, it’s easy to lose sight of why you’re doing it. Revisit the vision regularly. Look at the before photos. Walk through the room you just finished and notice it.
And if you’re also working in the trades - as Rosie, Sue and Micala all are - be especially mindful of renovation burnout. Spending your working week on other people’s projects and then coming home to your own building site is genuinely hard. Sometimes the most practical decision is to bring someone else in to move your own project forward, even if you’re perfectly capable of doing it yourself. Progress at home matters for your wellbeing, not just your to-do list.
Should you live on site at all?
Honestly, not always. If you can afford to rent somewhere nearby while the heaviest work is done, it’s worth seriously considering. The money you save by living on site can be offset by the toll it takes on your health, your relationship, and your ability to work effectively.
If renting isn’t financially possible, a decent static caravan or mobile home on site is worth considering. You keep your costs down, but you have a self-contained space to retreat to at the end of the day. Several listeners mentioned this as something they wished they’d done sooner.
If you do live on site, be realistic about timelines. Coming over for a fortnight twice a year and thinking you’ll have a property renovated in five years is, as Sue notes diplomatically, optimistic - particularly for a house that hasn’t been lived in for sixty or seventy years.
Listener stories
You sent in some brilliant ones for this episode. A few highlights:
John and Mandy (aka OK With a Lick of Paint on Facebook) moved to Brittany in January this year with their two dogs, Eddie and Dougal. The house had been empty for sixty to seventy years, cost under thirty grand, and the roof alone cost more than the purchase price. They’re living in a caravan on site. Mandy’s verdict: cold, cramped, and caravan showers are a form of torture - but opening the caravan door every morning and seeing the house reminds her exactly why they’re doing it.
Russell Matthew arrived near Bordeaux in 2003 with three-year-old triplets, a thirteen-year-old and two dogs - and took on renovating an old monastery. They ran out of money fast. He was a builder but had no work to start with. He lived off porridge, was permanently covered in dust, and says it was the best time of his life. No regrets. Those triplets are twenty-six now.
Tanya Ham spent January 2021 in a mobile home during a sudden cold snap that froze the pipes, knocked out the shower and the toilet, and left her sleeping on wooden pallets surrounded by straw bales and mice. She installed a reversible air conditioning unit, got a kettle and bucket for washing, and brought in two cats to deal with the mice. The pallets now form part of her library - because, as she puts it, they can tell stories.
A note on the dream
Lawrence Fleming, who commented on the French Reno Diaries Facebook post, had this to say: he blames the book, A Year in Provence and the TV series that followed for selling pipe dreams - and notes that renovating a house has put the nails in the coffin of many a marriage.
He’s not entirely wrong. But as Russell’s story shows, it can also be the making of one. The difference, as Rosie, Sue and Micala have found between them, usually comes down to going in with realistic expectations, protecting your relationship as carefully as you protect the project, and remembering that the chaos is temporary even when it really doesn’t feel like it.
As the team conclude, the day you finally sit in the finished house and remember where you started, it makes the whole experience worth it.
Happy renovating!
Glossary
Fosse septique — septic tank; essential in rural France where mains drainage is rarely available
Devis — a formal written quote for works
Artisan — a qualified tradesperson operating in France
Mairie — the local town hall; the body responsible for planning permissions
Rayburn — a range-style solid fuel cooker and heat source, popular in older rural properties
Franglais — the cheerfully improvised mix of French and English that gets most of us through the early years
Connect
Email: frenchrenodiaries@gmail.com
Maison Bretagne (Rosie Ellis) | S.R. Charpenterie (Sue Peake-Russell) | Paul Wilkins Electricien (Micala Wilkins)
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