Preau Construction.. Enfin

Preau:
Partie couverte d'une cour d'école.  
The covered part of a school courtyard.

A time lapse of the construction and roofing of our timber framed workshop.



A large part of the attraction in purchasing l'école was the covered play area, or preau,
that we could convert into a workshop to complement the actual schoolhouse.

  As is so often the case with these projects, as you get stuck in, things quickly become more complicated as they are not always as they seemed at first glance...

... as always, click on the pictures to enlarge ...

Of course, the initial plan to simply install a wall along the front of the preau to enclose the building, went out the window when a closer inspection of the structure the revealed the amount of rot and woodworm in the timber beams. So down she came (last year), to be rebuilt.. someday.

Apart from the extra work now required to rebuild the preau, pulling the structure down was a great shame due to the great timber and joinery work we were losing. Fortunately, our local roofer is also a carpenter specialising in timber frame construction, and could replicate the style and woodwork.

With the destruction complete, a new plan was hatched that included increasing the size of the preau to make the interior more useful, including the addition of guest bedrooms and bathroom. This, however, required planning permission....

With expectations of a fast turnaround, the concrete slab for the new build was laid, ready for construction to commence. All that was required now was approval on our planning permission...

Passing the winter at l'école Dylan came to pre-empt the question when skyping Michael:
Has the planning permission arrived yet?
The answer didn't change but at least it was a good storage area.

Michael returns with perfect timing, the permission arrives in the mail
 and the construction is underway!!
... after a celebratory bike ride!

 The frames were pre-fabricated, by Dylan's football team mate
 and driven the 10 km from the neighbouring village.

The first frame being craned and caressed into position.

Schoolhouse, crane, preau and mountains!

Solid timber structure!

Angles, angles. Angles everywhere.

The roof panels are foam-sandwich with plasterboard one side
and ply the other, with 15 cm of foam between. 
They are load-bearing at over five metres long,  pre–made and hoisted into place.

Tiles from the old preau roof are reused for the new roof.  
We are so glad we used the old tiles as they are much nicer
(greater variety of colour and many covered in lichen).

Even as the guttering was still being installed, work commenced on the exterior walls of the preau..

Check in next time to see how it turned out!!

Also, Deborah arrives (for summer of course) and the house is habitable!