Déclaration Préalable (plans submitted to the Mairie)

We asked at the Mairie what we needed to do to get permission for the work we want to do, they said we don't need a Permis de Construire (planning permission) just a Déclaration Préalable (declaration of works). This is good as less documentation is required and the time taken to recieve an answer (hopefully permisson) is less.
We have (finally FINALLY finally) finalised the plans with the architect and submitted them to the Mairie. Apparently they should respond in a month. Hopefully with permission. It seems it is likely to be accepted, partially because we are so far from the village and cannot be seen from it, but mainly because we are not asking for anything extreme.

Downstairs

Upstairs

Before going to the Mairie we went to the architect's office (ie his kitchen) to sign and initial all the plans. We had an interesting chat with him and his girl friend (and his 2 month old baby) about work they doing on their house in Bagenere de Bigorre. There is some information here. They live in a flat while the work is being done, the walls there were plastered with earthern plaster - it looked really nice, rustic and appropriate for an old house. They had it painted ('chalk paint', I guess that is limewash in english) white in places and just the natural colour of the earth in others. We have volunteered to go and be part of a work party doing some 'cob' work on their house. We think it will be a good way to meet some french people who are doing interesting rennovations as well as meaning we won't feel guilty about asking the architect stupid questions about various things. The earthern plaster is an interesting idea. It is important apparently for the walls on an old stone house to breath, lime plaster would also allow this but we are interested in the idea of being able to use something really local. It is harder of course to get the right mix as all mud is different so you can't just have a recipe for it. There seem to be some experts around locally though. Tricky in French though!

There is still much more detailed planning to be done. We need to get estimates for work we want others to do (we have ballpark figures from the architect), we need to work out how we might schedule the work to continue living here while we are doing it, we need to work out details of the heating system and we need to make more detailed plans for the electrics and plumbing to allow the quotes to be done. Plus a lot of other stuff I am sure.