‘La Fournil’ – The Hayloft , as the name suggests this will be a lovely, beautifully renovated barn with two bedrooms. With exposed beams and stonework, a modern kitchen and bathroom. Photographs will be available from December 2012.

Price Guide for 2013 -

Low Season £325
Mid Season £455
High Season £735

Bordeaux is made up of a series of interlinking neighbourhoods, each unique in character, each with its own beauty. There’s the cosmopolitan St Michel, which plays host to the city’s weekly markets and bric-a-brac stalls and old Bordeaux – or St Pierre – with its medieval narrow, winding streets. Along the quais lies Chartrons, traditional home of the wine trade, which maintains a village-like feel with artists and antique shops occupying the lower levels of its more modest terraces. The Triangle is the place to see and be seen, where elegant townhouses house Bordeaux’s wealthier residents and the luxury boutiques that they patronise, while the intelligentsia congregate to the south of the city, in an area made colourful by its immigrant population. At night, the quais come alive, with renovated hangers housing nightclubs and restaurants, such as the superb Café de Port restaurant, with magnificent views over the river and city beyond. These neighbourhoods are, however, bought together as one by the city’s overriding architectural harmony.

Tourism is Bordeaux’s second most important source of income, with a turnover of one billion euros per year. The newly pedestrianised centre, with its many parks and gardens is a relaxing place for a stroll and, thanks to the restoration of its prized architecture, Bordeaux was recently awarded UNESCO status. Meanwhile, Bordeaux has gained a TGV connection, to add to its already bustling airport, attracting Parisians who have either tired of, or been priced out of their traditional playgrounds, Deauville et al, and bringing a stream of tourist dollars into the city’s coffers. This year will be the real test of Bordeaux’s pull, however, as the city’s tourist trade has been given an unfair advantage in the last two years; first by the rugby and then by the weather, which has driven people from the beaches towards the city. The city’s 230,000 inhabitants share 4,455 hectares, with 20m2 of parkland per inhabitant, while the Bordeaux area houses 750,000 residents in 55,188 hectares. Bordeaux can always rely on the draw of its world-famous wine. Surrounding the city are swathes of vineyards, divided into 57 appellations and spread over 12,000 estates, making Bordeaux the largest fine winegrowing area in the world. Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc grapes are blended together to produce Bordeaux’s great red wines, while both dry and sweet white wines are made from Sauvignon, Sémillon and Muscadelle varieties. So vast and complex is Bordeaux’s wine trade, that a visit to the city’s école du vin for a crash course on Bordeaux’s wines is a must for any Bordeaux virgin – though that’s not to say that those already in the know would be wasting their time

You may be lucky enough to inherit a readymade garden, in which case you can tweak the layout to suit your needs. However, the gardens of most renovation and new-build projects are likely to be a blank canvas and this is an ideal moment to create the garden you have always longed for.

As ever, careful planning is key and the best place to start is by making a wish list of all the elements that would feature in your ‘ideal’ garden. At this stage, do think ‘money no object’. You may not be able to afford everything on the list now, but if you plan the garden carefully, you will be able to add more expensive features later on. For example, you may love the idea of a pool but it might not be feasible at the moment. However, if you decide you are going to install a pool at some point, work out where it is going to go now so that you don’t use the area for something else that could be costly to remove.

Spend time observing the garden at different times of day and in different weather. This will give you a good feel for where to create seating areas. Creating multiple focal areas is something that does not have to be expensive and can hugely increase the enjoyment of the garden. Try too, to think of the garden as an extension of the house and create outside ‘rooms’ – you could have a ‘kitchen’ area with a BBQ and a place to prepare food, a ‘dining room’ with space for a table and chairs as well as multiple ‘sitting rooms’, dotted around to catch the sun at particular times of day.

Using different materials underfoot will help define these areas. You can also build raised beds and use them to separate parts of the garden. Raised beds can be built cheaply in block and then rendered or faced in stone. They are very practical and make weeding far easier! They also enable the soil to be tailored to the needs of specific plants and provide a fantastic growing space. Again, once you have drawn up a plan of how you would eventually like the garden to look, individual areas can be tackled one at a time as the budget allows. Drawing a plan to see how it will work is a great idea and will allow you to ensure that the garden works on a practical basis too.

Free range

If you are planning to keep chickens or grow vegetables, remember to leave space for a chicken run and potager. Even if you would like your chickens to be free range, you will probably want to prevent them from accessing places such as terraces and seating areas, so incorporate suitable barriers into the plan. You should also consider having a utility area where you can install compost bins, store tools, grow seedlings and so forth. You can easily screen this from the rest of the garden using panels. These are now widely available in France; ask for les panneaux en bois.

The installation of structural elements like these is better done sooner rather than later and one aspect which it is definitely sensible to tackle at the outset is fencing. Even if a property has some type of fencing, it is likely to need repairing or replacing and with a new property you will need to start from scratch. Until recently, fencing options in France were fairly limited. Railings were traditional for older town-house-type properties, rural properties were generally unfenced and concrete posts with wire panels seemed to be the fencing of choice for those who did wish to enclose their properties. Happily, things have changed and there is now a huge range of fencing on the market.

Before choosing fencing, you need to think about what you need to keep in as well as out! This is going to vary according to the location of the property and the composition of your household. For example, if your property is in the middle of nowhere, keeping dogs in may not be an issue. However, if you live on a lotissement (plot with multiple properties) and your dogs jump out every time a cat goes past, you may start to become unpopular with the neighbours. Small children will also require fencing that they cannot climb over or get under. Any animals you plan to keep such as sheep or hens will require secure stock fencing, and in some areas you may need to think about keeping other animals (such as foxes) out!

If you require privacy, then fence panels may be the ideal solution. The usual height is 180cm, which provides a good level of screening; they are easy to install, flexible, can be stained to match a decorative theme and are reasonably priced. Budget models start at around €20 (£18) each with contemporary styled panels costing nearer to €150 (£134). Some stores also offer a range of modular elements which can be combined to form a customised panel. This is a more expensive option – expect to pay around €200 (£179) per panel – but can provide truly unique fencing. A cheaper solution would be to use budget panels for the bulk of the fencing run and add a few strategically placed customised panels in high impact areas. Another more economical option would be to make your own timber panel fencing. This could be especially sensible if you spot some suitable timber on special offer. You can also make solid timber panels more interesting by adding features to them; why not attach some vintage enamel signs or exterior lighting?

Stronger fence

Wooden fencing in sections is now increasingly available. This is generally between 80cm and 100cm high, so perhaps not ideal for restraining children or dogs. However, the traditional picket-type designs do work well for rural properties and matching gates are usually available. Expect to pay between €16 and €50 (£14 and £45) per section. Again, making up the sections yourself may well be a more economical option.

Another budget option is to install a picket and wire fence. Although not everyone’s choice, barbed wire is used throughout France and is useful in some situations. It is also a good choice for properties which need fencing (perhaps there are cattle grazing on adjacent land) but where there is a stunning view, as it has minimal visual impact from a distance.

Other types of wire are also common. Growing plants or shrubs alongside them will mean that eventually the wire will be hidden; in the meantime, the property is securely and economically fenced. Many French properties are fenced using le grillage. This is a hugely popular system and can be seen on almost every French lotissement. An upright known as le poteau is installed at various distances along the fencing run and a roll of grillage à simple tension or wire is stretched between the posts and then attached. Those requiring a stronger fence opt for grillage soude which gives a more rigid result. Prices range from between €1 and €7 (£0.90 and £6) per linear metre with posts extra. Le grillage is also available in panel form although this is a more expensive option with entry level prices being around €14 (£13) per linear metre.

Traditional post and rail timber fencing is always a popular choice. It is one type of fencing that is guaranteed to add value to your property as it has a timeless appeal. It is often considered an expensive choice and indeed, can be.

However, if the timber is sourced for a reasonable price and it can be installed by the owner, then post and rail is a reasonable option. Solid walls are another lovely way to fence a property. The initial outlay may be higher than some types of fencing but they will give you years of pleasure, add to the value of the property and may even provide a sunny corner for a trained fruit tree or two!

One measure I use of the increased acceptance of straw as a building material is the welcome reduction in three-little-pigs gags.
Now, nearly four years after the miraculous appearance of a house on a lotois hill built from a cereal by-product, locals and people who have seen the Grand Designs programme are more likely to ask, ‘How’s the house?’ I tell them that it’s still standing, that we’re very happy within our bale walls.

And why shouldn’t it still be standing? The oldest straw bale houses still standing in the USA date back to the turn of the last century. The raw material may be light enough to lift with one hand, but once covered inside and out with 4 or 5 cm of render, straw walls appear every bit as solid as traditional stone. Tap them, though, and they seem curiously hollow and yielding. Rather like a loaf of home-baked bread ‘fresh from t’oven’.

Moreover, we used a wooden framework to carry the weight of the roof. The bales, blocked up in a conventional running bond, were used merely as infill between all the uprights. In fact, any subsequent problems that we have experienced have been largely due to the wooden element – expanding and contracting, twisting and splitting.

There are many splendid things about building with straw. For a start, as is increasingly common knowledge, all those bundled hollow stems of cellulose provide a form of insulation that is second to none. And then there is the obvious environmental advantage of constructing a house with a natural waste product (which might otherwise be burnt).

A further advantage, not generally appreciated unless you try it for yourself, is that building with bales encourages experimentation. Apart from the likes of Barbara Jones and her intrepid band of UK bale builders, Amazon Nails, there are not many professional bale builders. You have to do it yourself. In the process, you discover just how adaptable straw bales can be. Once you learn to cut and re-tie them, you can just about bend them, shape them, any way you want them.

Practical skills

Though I sometimes shudder to think of the potential mess had the theory I imbibed from countless books not been blended with the creativity and nous of a friend and cohort (a Canadian computer technician), the message I try to give visitors is one of ‘possibility’. After all, if I – a cack-handed cerebral writer with few practical skills – can do it, then so can anyone.

It just takes plenty of belief – and a rather bizarre collection of tools for the job: scores of sharpened bamboo stakes for impaling and securing successive rows of bales; a chainsaw or, as we favoured, a disc cutter and a few lethal knives for cutting and shaping the bales; a large spool or two of blue twine for re-tying them; a ‘Great Persuader’ (a hefty home-made mace) for beating recalcitrant bales into place; a pair of cheap hedge clippers (from Lidl) for trimming the walls; a few rolls of glass-fibre netting to prepare reveals and lintels for rendering; and some green fencing wire for fashioning the giant staples with which to pin said netting to the straw.

Then you need to observe some fundamental principles, which have evolved (and continue to evolve) over time. Building with torchis or cob (clay and chopped straw) has a long and honourable tradition in both France and the UK. But the ‘build it with bales’ movement goes back only as far as the nineteenth century and theory is based largely on trial and error. Significantly, the body of knowledge derives mainly from Australia and from the western states of the USA: dry climates ideal for a material vulnerable not so much, as one might fear, to fire but to damp.

The generally temperate and wetter European climate should not be a deterrent – provided that you take certain precautions. Stock the bales somewhere dry. Sweep up diligently at the end of each day’s construction (as the chaff, unlike the dense bales themselves, can be highly flammable). Raise the bottom row of bales off the ground and build protective eaves. Ensure that the walls can breathe by using a lime or clay render (with no or limited cement, which ‘wicks’ moisture). Apply successive coats of lime wash or some other suitable breathable ‘skin’ over time.

Of course, you also have to source your bales. We were lucky. A friend of a friend had the arable fields and his boss had an old baling machine to fashion them into the traditional bales of, roughly, 80cm wide by 50cm thick by 35cm high. Harvested in mid heatwave, they were almost too dry – which sometimes hampered the cutting and re-tying. Our friendly young farmer sold me 460 bales at a euro apiece and agreed to stock them under a hangar till D-Day.

Modern farmers

However, as agricultural technology advances, so the old methods die out. Nowadays, the mini bales are as rare as the veteran baling machines. So it was with considerable interest that I went to see an embryonic straw bale house a few kilometres from home built with the big-format four-string bales favoured by modern farmers.

A decade ago, Jean-Claude and Nathalie Vergnes might have served as the stereotypical ‘alternative’ bale builders. A homespun couple in their middle age with a gaggle of sparky children and an assorted band of dogs and mogs, they live in a stone cottage and work the land. Across the field, under a huge sheltering metal hangar, their new house is nearing completion. They’ve built it entirely themselves. Their king-size bales each weigh around 100 kilos and provide massive 80cm-thick walls, which they’ve rendered (beautifully) with clay.

Moreover, they have opted for a load-bearing system. In other words, there is no wooden framework (other than the frames for doors and windows) and the bales bear the weight of the roof. This means that you have to compress the bales before constructing the roof – with a network of plastic belts, tightened progressively by hand. This took around six weeks and resulted in a consistent compression of roughly 6cm. I laboured under the misleading notion that it was harder to obtain a permis de construire using the load-bearing system, but Jean-Claude and Nathalie confirmed that, like me, they had experienced no problems in this respect. The authorities here are more concerned with the final aspect of the house rather than the materials with which it is built.

As I wandered around the empty house, touched the voluptuous walls and experienced again that palpable sense of wellbeing that comes from being enclosed by such a natural building product, I felt alarmingly broody. Having been through the pain of project-managing a construction, I never thought I’d wish to do it again. But maybe next time… using the big bales and a load-bearing system. Fewer problems with the rendering… without all those liaisons between wood and straw that can cause fissuring…

I envied the Vergnes, too, their time factor. They have somewhere to live and they can afford to do it in a manner that’s unhurried and thorough. Having come through la canicule (heatwave) in a caravan, we were haunted by the need for a permanent family home and the demanding deadline of Grand Designs: roughly ten months, from the digger’s first bite into virgin land to our first night under a pristine roof.

As a worrier prone to stress, I can honestly say that the race against time was the most stressful period of my life. The demands of coordinating a multi-national team of workers, ensuring timely delivery of materials, making daily and potentially critical decisions, swotting up on the theory the night before to keep one small step ahead of the game and dealing with the largely unknown quantity of straw bales often under the relentless gaze of a TV camera would sometimes coalesce into a kind of giant Monty Python foot just above my fragile cranium.

Local interest

That said, the programme’s deadline certainly galvanised us for the task. At times, the director’s demands could be irksome – since time, of course, equals money – but the regular presence of a film crew helped to create both an esprit de corps (or ‘corpses’ by the end) and considerable local interest in the project.

Inevitably we went over budget. One always does. Unless you do it all yourself, building with bales is not necessarily the cheap option. While the walls go up remarkably quickly, all that time-consuming (preparation for) rendering costs money. Discovering how frequently – and universally – the programme has been broadcast makes me pine for a royalty deal rather than the nominal one-off fee we received. But who am I to complain? We have a home that we love and a view that offers some new delight with every play of light. And our cosy walls have already saved us hundreds of euros in heating bills.

There are times when I huff and I puff about certain slight defects, convinced that I would do a better job next time round, but I’m still proud to show visitors around and still a big fan of bales. Straw makes a great building material. It’s heartening to think that our contribution to the ‘library’ of available expertise has helped to swell the number of pioneers out there – French, British and others – who want to have a go themselves.