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"LA GRANGE" (the barn)

This apartment of a little over than 120m2 was set up for winter 2006.

IT was constructed within the original barn. When we opened the doors of this barn in January 2005, we found a cereal threshing area made up of a floor. The flails were still hanging up on the wall.

Next to the threshing area was a beaten earth floor where some old gears and various wood pieces were laid. A big stock of hay was still stored in this barn.

Just above us, we found a frame in good condition, covered by a flagstone roof through which one could see the sky in many spots.

Our first work was to clear the barn of everything that was stored inside, then to remove the beaten earth in order to asses if the vaults were in perfect shape and could stand the weight of a concrete slab.

We decided to keep the vaults by filling the hollows with small balls of light clay prior to casting the concrete slab together with a ground heating system.

Once the slab was set up, we built a floor in order to construct a story, dismantled the entire roof to repair the frame before assembling a “mountain roof”, perfectly watertight and insulated. We could replace all the rafters and remove, clean and put the original flagstones back.

All these labors were completed strictly according to the traditional building techniques and resources of the valley.
  

 

 

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