Aaaargh what have we DONE

Scared Rhoda - Oh no what have we done we now have a giant hole in the living room wall and another in the ceiling so all the rain and wind can get in and freeze us to death over the winter.

Positive Rhoda - Don't worry. It is a good thing we had it done, now we know what is behind the wall and we know we need to put a new beam in to hold up some of the cross beams plus we can start some work on the walls to stop them crumbling away. Sure it is a temporary setback that there are 2 giant holes through the wall and that the room is rather less sealed from the elements than it was, but it is all going to be fiiiiiiiinnne. Swigs cheap rum energetically (the cheapest very strong booze available in the supermarket) and passes out.

I mentioned a while ago that the chimney breast in the kitchen is falling down and either needed to be taken down and rebuilt or just taken down. We decided just to have it taken down as we don't need it as we don't have an open fire (but keeping the chimney stack for the tube from the fire and any ventilation to go out).
The builder decided on Sunday that he could come and do it on Monday (I think the endless rain meant he had a break in a job he was doing), so we spent Sunday clearing things out of the kitchen/living room and putting up plastic sheeting to try to control the dust.

He rocked up Monday morning

Put up some more polythene

and some scaffold

A lot of stone was removed - not sure how many trailer fulls but quite a few (and dumped of the corner of the drive for when we try to extend the size of the turn)

We went for a little walk nearby to pass the time while our house was destroyed

View from near Col de Palomières towards Labassère 

Autumn crocus 

Doug and donkeys

When we got back the destruction was complete (although cleaning up was not)

Downstairs

Upstairs

Where the mantle piece had touched the wall there was now a big hole... right through... the builder has promised to come back on Friday and fill it in.

Outside looking in

Inside looking out

The builders then did do a good job of cleaning up after themselves, but that still left the whole of the room and most of the upstairs thick with dust.

We have been wiping and moping continuously for 24 hours now and it is starting to get a bit better.
The area round the fire is now even less attractive than it was before

There is rather a large hole in the ceiling (the chimney was huge) which we have roughly blocked for now, and as you can see there are also a number of beams that now end in midair.

On a slightly different subject - but related - seeing the insulation from the side where the holes are we started contemplating whether insulation would be better than the exposed stone we had been planning. The chimney destroying man also does insulation so he is going to do us a quote. He also helpfully told us there is someone in the social security office on Wednesday's who advises on tax benefits and grants available to people making their houses more energy efficient - we are planning on going along this week to try to find him.

The arguments for exposed stone are 1.) It allows the stones to breathe so you don't have damp trapped anywhere 2.) It looks nice 3.) The stone is a big heat sink which heats up as you have the heating on and radiates it back later 4.) You don't have the expense of insulation
The arguments against it are 1.) It isn't a good insulator so rooms are cold 2.) It is a lot of work to finish it nicely 3.) It is hard to keep rooms clean as debris comes off the wall 4.) The walls can breathe well because there is a gap between the insulation and the wall 5.) There is somewhere for wires and pipes to be hidden behind the insulation

If we decide to go with insulation we will roughly clean and patch up the wall behind the fire, otherwise we will need to do more to make it look nicer.