Renovation Plans

While the 1st Floor is currently in reasonable condition, it will need a fair bit of renovation to make it suitable for its intended use as a B&B. The main change will be the need for each bedroom to have its own ensuite facilities (bath and/or shower, basin and toilet). While two of the bedrooms already have the required space, it took a lot of design and layout experimentation to find a workable solution for the other two bedrooms. Eventually, the floorplan for the renovation of the 1st Floor appears something like this. The main changes are the conversion of the storage room (and part of the foyer) to provide ensuites for bedrooms 3 and 4. Because of the loss of space in the foyer, the double-doors separating the foyer from the stairwell have been removed to provide a large open space at the top of the stairs (useful for guests carrying suitcases etc). New entrance doors are required for bedrooms 1, 3 and 4, while a new door from bedroom 3 to ensuite 3 is required. Since all bedrooms now have their own toilets, the communal toilet room is no longer required, and this will be converted to a walk-in closet, which will also house some of the "domotique" instrumentation. The layout of beds, and associated power points etc, are based on not having beds in adjacent bedrooms backing onto the same wall. Not shown in the plan below are short "privacy walls" just inside the doors to bedrooms 2 and 3, to prevent direct lines of sight from other rooms into these bedrooms.

The layout and furnishings in each bedroom will be similar, although Bedrooms 1 & 2 will be larger that Bedrooms 3 & 4, and will have a larger ensuite. This will allow for some differentiation in the pricing of the B&B rooms. The general layout of Bedroom 1 below will give a general indication of the style for each bedroom (the furnishings will not be exactly as shown, and will be selected at a later date). Each bedroom will have a double bed with side tables and lamps, a wardrobe, desk & chair, and table & chairs. Each room (except Bedroom 4) will have a marble fireplace and large mirror (the fireplaces will deliberately not be functional). Bedroom 4 will have a custom-built wooden fireplace, in the same style as the marble fireplaces. All floors will be the original distressed timber floors, with strategically placed carpets. Each room will have a centred ceiling light, controlled from the entry door and the side tables. It is uncertain at this stage as to whether flat-screen TVs will be installed in the bedrooms. The likelihood is that the bedrooms will not have TVs for several reasons; most visitors will be from Australia and would not need or understand French TV; no TVs in the bedrooms means less noise annoyance in adjacent bedrooms; a large flat-screen TV will be in the ground floor Living Room (for when TV is really needed); the entire house will be WIFI-enabled, meaning that guests can logon wirelessly with their mobile devices if they need to follow the news, check their emails and Facebook, watch YouTube etc (a supply of iPads will be available for the use of guests without their own mobile devices).

The ensuites for Bedroom 1 & 2 will be in the large rooms adjoining the existing rooms. These rooms, however, will be stripped and totally refurnished with a bath/shower, toilet, heater and twin-basin wall cabinets, as shown below at left. Bedrooms 3 & 4 will have the smaller new ensuites, with shower, toilet and single-basin wall cabinet, as shown below at right.

Because some of the existing foyer will be used for the new ensuites, the double-doors separating the foyer from the stairwell will be removed to provide a large open space at the top of the stairs, with all the lockable bedroom doors opening off this foyer.