Wednesday, April 07, 2010

A Long Story

So, I have this 200 year old stone barn. It came with the house and it's been in state of falling down for the last 45 years or more...ever since grandpa modernized it back in 1960. In 2000, there was a huge storm and it did a lot of damage to the property. It really tore up the roof of the barn. I had been planning repairs but things sort of got out of hand a year ago last Febuary, when another storm, Klaus further damaged the roof.
Luckily, I have a good insurance policy and a friend who worked for many years as head of the agency here. We were able to get a good settlement...but, then things went a little further...

The rear wall of the barn began to slump and within a few weeks, partially collapsed. Then it really collapsed. So back to the drawing board and system D....
My phone line was attached to the wall and somehow, it didn't get destroyed, but my service was never the same. A few weeks ago, my internet service really deteriorated and I was off line quite a bit. I won't go into my trials and tribulations with France Telecom and my internet server, Orange, but though the agents on the phone were polite, nothing seemed to really get done.

Meanwhile, we were able to work with the roofer and a mason to get the repairs done with the money from the settlement. The picture above is when work on the wall commenced.
The masons demolished what was left of over 1/2 of the wall. I had moved much of the stone myself over the course of a few weeks. With the machines, they did the rest in a few hours. Then they made a new foundation and in a few days, there was a new wall and the stone work from the road is nicer than the original.

The roof starts next week, I have the tiles on the lawn. Finally, today, I think, I hope, I truly believe my internet problems are solved. Techs came by and tested the lines and I got a new livebox and programmed it and it works....
Hurrah!

3 comments:

Engineer of Knowledge said...

Hello Microdot,
It is good to have you back my friend. We really have missed you.

mud_rake said...

Indeed, it is good to have you back. i hope that your set of troubles has at last abated.

You sound 'loud and clear' to me.

microdot said...

It was bizarre, I knew it was more than the lines, every time I had the ADSL on and turned on an AM Radio, I got loud static jamming the entire bandwidth.
But FranceTelecom and Orange are separate entities and now that Telecom is privatized, it is very dysfunctional.

I will publish more pictures of the barn. We have a duty to preserve this building. I wanted to replace the roof with new slate tiles, but after the wall collapse, I saved money by switching to very nice black clay tiles that have the black slate look, but at a fraction of the price. That is what payed for the new rear wall.
Now the barn should stay put for another 100 years...