Escape to the Chateau D I Y

Series 2

Starring Paul, Karen, Thomas & Katie Horne

Every year we are looking to see how we can add value for our holiday rental guests at the Chateau and this year was no exception. The birth of the cinema room, chickens for our guests, renovation of a family heirloom sofa and Paul repointing a wall to stop the water egress. Every project involves us learning new skills, Paul was taught by an artisan stone mason how to correctly render a wall, an incredibly lengthy process and I mastered the art of upholstery. which required a lot more brut force then I could ever have imagined.

The Cinema Room

Children's delight

One of our favourite rooms

The old washroom, one of my favourite rooms in the stable block, although it started out looking pretty dingy, it had a warmth about it. The little fireplace, stone walls and sink in the corner offered character and charm.

Our guests spend long late evenings enjoying a glass of wine on the terrace and a place for children to chill and settle down after an exciting day was needed. So the cinema was born, straight off the terrace children can relax with a movie, a bowl of popcorn before heading off to bed. Allowing the adults to keep an eye and be left to relax after a day of family activities.

Chickens

Eggs for breakfast

There is nothing better than collecting eggs in the morning

Working as a family we transformed the old chicken building into a Chicken Chateau. Which saw a new keystone being reset, might I say, with the correct colour lime mortar rather than concrete.......much to my husband's disgust! Wow, there were a lot of spiders in there, which aren't my friends and Thomas, bless him, had an ant crawl into his ear, which certainly made him squirm every time it walked over his eardrum.

Originally, the plan was to get just chickens but when we went to purchase them there were the most adorable ducklings too. So yes your correct, we bought two ducklings too. At first, they didn't like going to bed with the chickens, so they'd find the smallest nock and cranny to hide in, but it didn't take long until they were ruling the roost.

Sadly, we have some sad news, after a year of several disasters with foxes and ferrets all our chickens we have decided to have a rest in the hope the foxes will move on to better pastures.