Thursday, November 1, 2012

French Property News, November

In this issue I have returned to the theme of sensible house buying, basing much of my article on material from the Slow Home Movement, and the excellent book by the two founders John Brown and Matthew North. In their book 'What's Wrong with this House?' they analyse a number of properties and rate them with a points scoring system out of twenty, for their efficiency, layout, suitability and so on. I have been able to reproduce plans of two similarly priced and sized apartments, with their comments.

See: www.french-property-news.com

While on the subject of smaller home buying, I would recommend the latest book in the French ArchiPasChère series called 'Bâtiments modestes réinventés' which has illusrated case studies, complete with plans and detailed costings, of fifteen property conversions, costing around 100 000 euros or less, where redundant buildings have been turned into attractive small homes. Full contact details of all the architects concerned are listed, including their websites, which can be consulted for examples of their recent projects.

See: 'Bâtiments Modestes Réinventés' by Olivier Darmon, Editions Ouest-France, price 15.90 euros.