{"id":1518,"date":"2024-01-07T16:02:20","date_gmt":"2024-01-07T16:02:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brasseursdupont.com\/?page_id=1518"},"modified":"2024-01-08T13:34:03","modified_gmt":"2024-01-08T13:34:03","slug":"our-new-life-in-the-sun","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/brasseursdupont.com\/en\/our-new-life-in-the-sun\/","title":{"rendered":"Our New Life In The Sun"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Before you start deciding which beer to try first \ud83d\ude09 A little more about James, Ben and I. We\u2019re trying something new here in France. With a background in hospitality and marketing, oh and beer (tasting, drinking & brewing!) \ud83c\udf7b, we decided to live life differently. We planned for 5 years, romanticised about different businesses, had many discussions (arguments) \ud83d\ude09 searching across France, until we found this little gem. But, it hasn\u2019t always looked like this! A few days after moving in, we started the demolition. We\u2019ve built a bar, a brewery & rooms. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How quickly a year passes by, this is our renovation story, our journey so far – as we took on the role as guardians to this gorgeous property \ud83d\udd28 \ud83d\ude13 \ud83e\uddf1 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watch the story unfold on @channel4 \u2026 Our New Life In The Sun \ud83d\udcfa <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Our New Bar …<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Very quickly the local DIY shop knew our names. The first of many, many purchases … a crowbar & sledgehammer! \ud83d\ude05 Never done anything like this before \u2026 but oddly quite rewarding \ud83d\udd28 \ud83e\uddf1 this early phase was simple. Strip everything out and back \ud83d\ude05 We started in what was the original bar, taking down the drop ceiling, old bar & basically created lots of mess \ud83d\ude06 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Walls … going, going, gone! <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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The original bar was split into various rooms. We wanted to create a sense of surprise as you walk into the space. We took down a central wall to start to open up & combine spaces into what is currently our bar space. First time with a jackhammer – and – highly recommend (those that know, know!) \ud83d\ude09 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Our Chambre D’Hote …<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Underneath our bar, we have double, triple & family rooms. Mixing up our daily routine of creating mess \ud83e\uddf1 \ud83d\udd28 taking down walls & ceilings we spent much of our first few months renovating and decorating these rooms. We enjoyed this, I think through comfort in truth. Painting and wallpapering felt familiar and relatively simple versus the projects upstairs \ud83d\ude13 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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A Hidden Ceiling…<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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The original plan was to replace the existing ceiling \u2026 not to take them all down! \ud83d\ude05 However, whilst exploring every corner of our new property, including the dreaded \u2018is the roof ok\u2019, we discovered this metal A-frame running through the whole of upstairs. Truly beautiful! And then of course – we couldn\u2019t take it out of our minds to strip all the ceilings down and make this a feature in the main bar area. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our plan was to create half the space with a new flat plastered ceiling and the other main bar space with this huge floor to ceiling reveal. We removed 26 tonnes of materials out \u2026 five various ceilings, so many ceiling tiles, together with the original wooden joists \ud83d\udd28 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Huge amount of extra work, but actually welcomed it as it was freezing through Jan & Feb! DIY is like free central heating \ud83d\ude06<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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The Brewery …<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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\ud83d\udc4b Brewing\u2026hands up, we were quite precious with the brewkit. After lots of research, painstakingly visiting as many microbreweries as possible \u2026 tough right! \ud83d\ude09 We purchased our brewery from Vancouver Island, Canada \ud83c\udde8\ud83c\udde6 Getting it across borders, across rail, sea & road was tricky. Learning as we went, we appointed some help with port transport & French border control. Truly felt out of our depth, genuinely worrying that our tanks would get stuck – but what we\u2019ve now safely got is a flexible set of unitanks. It means we can mash, boil, ferment & store in single tanks \u2026 never held up from fermentation capacity. The real fun started when the crates arrived! All beautifully packed up, but, without wheels, 100\u2019s of parts & packed upside down! We had to get so many extra hands to take this challenge on. After the headaches of getting the tanks into France \u2026 we didn\u2019t realise the real challenge would start once we crowbarred them open! New water, new drainage, waterproofing the floor, we finally wheeled the tanks into their new home \ud83c\udfe1 Our brewery with – we think so at least – one of the most beautiful views in France \ud83c\uddeb\ud83c\uddf7 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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That (!) door …<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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\ud83d\udc4b The door\u2026so this has featured a lot this week on New Life In The Sun. This could have been a huge showstopper for our opening \u2026 we installed on the Friday, we opened on the Tuesday! \ud83d\ude05 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Before you start deciding which beer to try first \ud83d\ude09 A little more about James, Ben and I. We\u2019re trying something new […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1518","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brasseursdupont.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brasseursdupont.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brasseursdupont.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brasseursdupont.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brasseursdupont.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1518"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/brasseursdupont.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1518\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1607,"href":"https:\/\/brasseursdupont.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1518\/revisions\/1607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brasseursdupont.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}