Original subtitles

I'm Dick Strawbridge and with my wife, Angel, and our two children,

we're nearly five years into our French adventure...

This is heavy.

..restoring this once-abandoned chateau.

We have another capability at the chateau.

It's brought plenty of challenges.

Phew!

But also some amazing rewards.

I love you.

And across France,

there are dozens of other Brits who've bought their own chateaux.

Oh, wow!

Now Angel and I are once again lending a hand to other expat

chateau owners.

Sometimes, simplicity is the way forward. Yes.

We'll meet some old friends...

We don't need instructions, only when it goes wrong.

..and new faces.

Oooh, look at that!

They'll be plenty of ups...

Oh!

..and downs.

You can't ruin the wedding meal by eating outside in the rain.

But no matter what, these plucky Brits...

Ohh.

..will stop at nothing.

No.

Oh! Steve, whoa! Steven!

..to ensure these once unloved buildings...

I think I've made a hole.

..become the homes of their dreams.

That is amazing.

Today...

How are you? So good. I'm so happy to be here.

..one chateau owner takes tips on distressing mirrors from Angel...

You have to put a bit of wellie in it.

Elbow grease is my least favourite form of power.

..and finds some time for reflection...

That's looking great.

..as this couple race to renovate their ground floor...

We've got a bit of a problem here,

because every time people go in and out, they'll take

some of the stones with them, cos they're very loose, you can see.

..they end up coming unstuck.

There's an air bubble here, look.

Oh, God.

And at one chateau, a DIY roof fix...

Oh, my God.

The things I'm doing to save a few bob.

..has this owner wishing he had a head for heights.

Oh, my God, oh!

Over 8,000 properties have been bought by Brits in France last year.

A fair few of us have been lucky enough to end up as owners

of one of these glorious places.

Take the magnificent 16th-century Chateau de Lalande.

It's run for events and as a B&B by British owner, Stephanie.

I think we started doing bed and breakfast here

about six years ago, and it's just word-of-mouth,

it's spread bit by bit and now, we are very busy, so it's fantastic.

Located in rolling countryside in the heart of France, Stephanie

bought the chateau 13 years ago.

During the off-season, while there are fewer guests,

she's planning to renovate her final B&B room.

Bed and breakfast is our main source of income,

so it's really idiotic of me not to have got that room ready before.

If money comes in from the B&B room, that will give us

the money to do the next phase, and then eventually, the entire

stable yard can be renovated into apartments and life will be perfect.

Show me where this room is.

Finally, it's happening.

She's on a tight budget,

so has cajoled friend Michael into giving her a hand with renovations.

So, what do you reckon, a couple of hours of work?

A couple of hours? Yeah, it always starts that way.

Three weeks later... Yeah.

With the peak holiday season starting in just a few months,

there's no time to waste.

Right.

This is the famous chambre de la tour.

Yes, it is.

Well, what do you want done in here, then?

Quite a lot!

I think it needs it.

It's just not working.

I have two panels of matching fabric from the wallpaper.

They were the old curtains, and they've faded a lot,

but I still think it's incredible to have the matching fabric.

That's why I want to try and save this wallpaper.

And I'm going to use this old fabric, because it's not big enough

to make into a curtain itself, I'm going to use the individual panels

and line all of the new curtains, I'll edge them with this fabric.

Wow!

Problem is, I don't really like the finished look at the moment.

I think it's making the room look really tall and thin. Yeah.

I thought we could maybe fix that by putting a dado.

What do you want to do below the dado?

I really wanted panelling, but I can't afford panelling.

Have you ever seen where they used to paint panelling?

Just paint it on the wall like a mural.

Oh, like trompe-l'oeil? Yeah.

So it kind of looks 3D, but it's actually just painted on.

What did you say, trompe? Trompe-l'oeil.

Does it mean to deceive the eye? Yeah.

Yeah, so it will kind of, from a distance,

it will look like panelling. I love it. Yeah?

So that's the ideas for the main room. OK.

But I'm stumped with the bathrooms.

Bathrooms, I say, cos the cupboards on either side of the alcove,

I've turned one into a loo. Oh, wow.

And the other one is a shower.

It's a bit prison toilet.

It does look a bit prison toilet.

I think that we're going to have to think about this a little bit

longer, we need to keep brainstorming.

All right, I'm going to get on with the curtains.

While they ponder the loo,

Michael can crack on with fitting the dado rail.

While Stephanie gets busy with needle and thread.

It's really lovely to be able to use the old fabric

and see it coming together in a new way.

I did not know that buying a chateau would mean

I'd have to become an expert curtain maker,

but I've made easily over 100 drops and goodness knows how many pelmets.

I had to do it out of necessity, I couldn't possibly have employed

somebody to make all these curtains, it would have cost a fortune.

Half an hour later, the curtains are taking shape.

I'll be pleased when they're completely even,

but I think it's definitely getting there.

Looking good.

But there's a lot more work ahead to get the B&B suite refurb sewn up.

This is 15th-century Chateau Mareuil,

which South Londoners Belinda and Lee bought four years ago.

My family thought I was crazy when I told them what we were going to do.

I think they thought we were just having a bit of a game

or a laugh or something.

Lying 40 miles from Limoges, after years of renovation, they launched

the chateau as an events and holiday let business last summer.

This was something I have worked out only very recently.

I don't want to hear.

But we have spent at least £150,000.

I'm not listening.

Euros? 150,000.

I heard that.

I'm sorry you heard that. And it may be more than that,

on the work that we've done to date here at Chateau Mareuil.

Did you just say, to date?

Belinda and Lee have now staged their first event

in the chateau's salon.

Anyone who would like some lunch, I hope you all do want lunch,

it's a lovely lunch.

Hooray, it's ready.

But their main event space is the medieval castle keep, or donjon.

It's currently in need of urgent repair, thanks to a recent storm.

We've had a bit of a hole in the roof,

where some tiles have come loose and I've been trying to get

a roofer to come and fix it, but the quotes we've had have been

exorbitantly high, so I decided to have a go myself.

So I've hired Steve and his machine for the day,

and I've gone and bought some tiles and I'm going to just go up

and have a go and see it I can fix it.

By hiring a cherry picker with a licensed operator for just

over £300, Lee may save himself thousands on the roof

and could get the donjon back up and running more quickly.

It's really important to get the donjon roof fixed,

because we've used it for events and we want to carry on doing that,

so it's got to look its best.

Lee is going to be really brave and get up on the cherry picker.

I think he will try not to show his fear, very hard,

but I know him really well, and I think he's really quite scared.

So I'll get these two in there.

Stick four in there and we'll see how we go.

We've got four tiles there. Yeah, yeah.

If getting your leg over was always this easy!

Even up.

I'm only up about a metre off the ground,

and you can feel this thing wobbling around quite a bit.

I'm looking at the wind in the trees now, and the wind's picking up.

Right.

That's the sandwich alarm.

Somebody's had too many sandwiches. Yeah.

We've gotta throw some ballast off here.

The cherry picker can carry a maximum of 200kg,

so something's got to go.

Take those two off.

We're obviously overloaded.

Close to the limit, yeah.

Middle aged man.

With only two tiles on board, that's not much of a payload,

you'll be going up and down all day.

I reckon you secretly like this, Lee.

Oh, my God.

The things I'm doing to save a few bob.

Oh!

Oh, God.

Eurgh.

We're going down now.

It's a descending feeling.

Oh, my God.

You'll just have to get used to it,

or you'll never get that roof mended.

Coming up:

One couple get their ground floor revamp off to a cracking start.

Even if they do get carried away.

Steve, I think I've made a hole.

Lee touches down...

Oh!

This feels so good.

..but not for long.

I'm getting very nervous because it's getting very,

very windy up there.

This is scary, Steve.

This is Hairy McLairy, Scary from the Dairy.

And at Chateau de Lalande...

How's it going in here?

..Stephanie's renovations aren't going smoothly.

The finish is not very nice.

What's happened is all the old paper has started to bubble off.

OK.

So, what are our options?

This is stunning Chateau Thuries.

Dating from 1885 and sitting in four acres of woodland, its owners,

British couple Jayne and Steve, moved in nine months ago.

We walked in and even though this house had been shut

up for over four years, it just had this most wonderful feeling to it.

The thing that really hooked me,

the land that it came with was wonderful.

I was blown away by that.

Located under an hour from Toulouse,

Jayne and Steve plan to open as a B&B in four months' time

and are currently renovating their ground floor.

You've missed a bit, Steve.

Right on the edge.

Oh, there?

Right on the edge.

Oh, I can see. Yeah, yeah.

They made some progress with their dining room,

in time for a festive visit from their daughters...

Group hug, group hug.

..and are now moving onto the rest of the downstairs.

With their savings rapidly running out, the stakes couldn't be higher.

This is our home, but it's also our business,

and we've got to earn a living.

If we're not earning any money, then we're in big trouble.

Steve and Jayne have a huge task ahead of them

to have the chateau ready in time.

Today, they're focusing on the salon,

which will be their guests' main relaxing space.

This is the original wallpaper that was put in

when the house was built - hand blocked, beautiful old wallpaper.

But it's a little bit dark and dingy,

and I want to lighten up the whole of this floor, really,

so it's all going to be white and lovely and bright.

Rather than stripping and filling the walls,

the plan is to cover the existing wallpaper with lining paper.

It could save them valuable time and money, which is essential,

because they've a lot on their plate.

Shall we just have a quick look at this panelling, then? Because...

Oh, it's completely rotten, isn't it?

All this is fine, it's only this central bit.

Look, all you're talking about is replacing that central...

That bit, and that bit and that bit.

I know. Piece of wood goes in there, four screws.

Loving your optimism, Steve.

But it looks like a fairly big job to me.

Luckily, mate Dave is here to lend a hand.

First things first, get the old batons off the walls.

What we don't want is to be pulling out huge lumps of plaster.

But it's all a question of...

Rather slowly than...

Doesn't matter if it breaks, like that. OK.

Oop.

Steve, I think I've made a hole.

There's going to be a little bit of filling.

It's just trying to keep it as flat as possible

and to do as less work as possible before I put the lining paper on.

As Dave removes the last batons, Steve starts on the papering.

Ta-dah. Hey. Nice pinny.

Lovely pinny, isn't it?

It's gone a bit watery.

I'm just hoping it's going to be adhesive enough.

It's the moment of truth - if the lining paper lies

smooth on the wall, it'll save Steve weeks of prep.

Now is that pretty much going straight down, David?

It is, bang-on. Good.

Overall, this is really smooth compared with all the other

rooms, even the master bedroom, which I...

It's going to save a lot of time, isn't it?

You won't be filling and sanding. Oh, this is wunderbar.

It's great.

This is absolutely what we wanted.

Well, the main thing about this is, there's no filling

and rubbing down and filling in and rubbing down and dust everywhere.

I reckon that's two weeks saved.

I think overall, that was successful. Great.

Good day's work. Time for a beer?

Beer time. OK. Good stuff.

Beer time.

Excellent!

But you'll need to get back onto it tomorrow.

At Chateau Mareuil, despite his fear of heights,

Lee's battling on with fixing the donjon roof.

As their main event space, it's a crucial job.

I don't know what I'm doing here.

A storm has left a hole in the roof, so Lee needs to hang new tiles,

all the while suspended 50 feet above the ground.

That's one's definitely hooked on there now. OK? Right.

Oh. No, it's not.

Lee hates heights.

Even doesn't like going up ladders.

If it's just he and I on our own, I always have to be

standing at the bottom of the ladder if he's going up, so...

No, he really doesn't like them.

Jesus, this is scary, Steve. This is Hairy McLairy, Scary from the Dairy.

You took the words right out of my mouth, Lee.

Steve, what does that look like?

If that feels solid, I'd leave that at that.

It is solid, yes, it is.

And put the next one on. We'll get some more tiles.

More tiles, yep.

Yeah, that actually looks a lot better.

Yeah.

I'm feeling happier that we're going down.

But only carrying two tiles at a time means plenty of up

and down trips.

Oh.

Not going to kiss the ground, are you?

Oh, this is... This feels so good.

Sorry, Lee, you need get back in there and up again.

Just over an hour later, the hole's fixed.

Now for the other side of the roof.

Unfortunately, there's trouble blowing in.

Oh, Christ.

No, let's go down. Yeah.

That's too dangerous.

Yeah, let's take it down.

OK? OK, I'm clear.

The wind's picked up, so Lee's coming down.

Oh.

Firm land.

I'm happy I'm standing on proper earth.

When we were right on the extremity,

with both of us in that bucket, the thing was rocking all over

the place, and I have to say, I felt really dead scared.

And even Steve was saying,

"I don't really want to be doing this any more, let's get down."

Cos it was just too dangerous.

It's always better being safe than sorry,

but with winter weather so unpredictable,

it could be some time before Lee can get back up and finish the job.

Back at Chateau de Lalande, work has continued apace in Stephanie's fifth

and final B&B guest room.

So, how's it going in here?

Michael's been painting below the new dado rail, but there's an issue.

The finish is not very nice.

What's happened is all the old paper has started to bubble off... Yep.

..the walls, and where it's been patched up over the years,

you can see all of the joins.

It just doesn't look very nice.

So, what are our options?

Well, the only thing that I can think of is to use a Stanley

blade and just score underneath here and use a wallpaper steamer

and just take off the paper from there to there.

OK, well, doing the job, let's do it properly.

Let's get that wallpaper off. Have you got a wallpaper stripper?

Yes. We have everything in this house.

We just have no idea where any of it is.

Well, if it's going to be anywhere, it'll be in here.

I can't see anything obvious right now.

What about the storage room at the end?

Is there a wallpaper stripper in there, do you think?

I thought I had two, weirdly.

Ah. Wallpaper stripper.

It says it on the outside, but do you suppose there's one in there?

That looks like... It's a miracle.

The key to doing any job is having the right tools,

that are in good working order.

Well, the wallpaper stripper's meant to have a lid just here.

The lid is missing.

The steam's just going to escape.

So...

It's a shambles, the whole thing.

That may be, but this is a job that needs doing.

So the only option left is to take an old-fashioned approach.

We have hot water and sponges.

Excellent.

OK, I can be starting to wet the paper, if you want?

Yeah, there's sponges there.

All right.

By soaking the wallpaper, it should come away more easily.

This is what we used to do before steamers.

It is never, ever as simple as you think it's going to be.

When we start any project here, it takes longer than we think,

and becomes unnecessarily complicated.

But it'll be worth it when it's done.

It's lined with newspaper.

So that means we can date the wallpaper.

This is so exciting,

it's like a journey back in time with everything that we peel off.

The date of this newspaper is 9 April, 1964.

1960s.

Now, if we can just find a little hidey hole with the treasure,

we'll be sorted.

They're getting there slowly. It's a painstaking process.

At least Stephanie knows the drill by now.

It's very common for us

to start a project thinking it's going to take a couple of days

and then find that it takes weeks longer because of things like this.

Pray for no more setbacks.

Coming up...

So where would you start with this, then, Jean?

The emergency is about taking down the trunk.

At Jayne and Steve's, a fallen tree threatens to stump progress.

Stephanie takes a trip to our place for angelic inspiration.

So I just thought maybe you could do a whole mirrored wall at the back?

I love... I really love that idea.

I love it.

And Lee is a man on a mission.

This is what I wanted you to see.

But is it enough to get into Belinda's good books?

Oooh. Oh. Look at that!

At Chateau Thuries, Jayne and Steve are busy renovating

the ground floor to open officially as a B&B in four months' time.

This is wunderbar. Yeah, it's great, isn't it?

This is absolutely what we wanted.

Now a more pressing problem has forced them to down tools.

We've got to trim all these bushes down and stuff as well.

A cedar that fell in a recent storm needs dealing with.

Fortunately, chateau helper Jean is a trained tree surgeon.

This is a necessity because of, really, health and safety

and danger to the public.

I think that Jean will save us hundreds of euros, possibly even...

Oh, Steve... Thousands?

You know, there's a lot of work to do here, I think

it's going to save us thousands. OK. He's a godsend.

So where would you start with this, then, Jean?

I think now the emergency is about taking down the trunk.

It's supported only by this small branch here, you know?

So I need to put it to the ground,

then I guess we're going to split it...

For firewood. ..for firewood, yeah. Yeah.

Great.

As Jean sets to work...

..back in the chateau, Jayne's turning her attention

to the entrance hall's 130-year-old mosaic floor.

We've got a bit of a problem here,

because every time people go in and out,

they'll take some of the stones with them, cos they're very loose.

You can see...

So what I've done, I've cleaned this area up,

and I've hoovered out all the debris,

and what I need to do is do a little patch test

with some terra-cotta-coloured grout

in there, just to see if I can, um,

mend and set the areas that have been damaged.

Here's hoping.

Original features like this are key to a chateau's magic.

So this floor's very special.

When we first came to see the chateau,

I absolutely fell in love with it.

But it does need a little bit of TLC.

And what I want to do is actually just do a little test,

put some in there.

The problem is when it's wet, is that you can't kind of see

what it's going to look like when it's dried.

At the moment it's looking a little bit bright.

But I think that if it dries to look anything like

the actual dried powder,

it should work really well.

So I think overall, looking at it,

I think that's going to work, which is very exciting.

In the salon, Steve is busy replacing the rotten boards

with cheaper MDF panels.

Mm, that's great.

What we have now...

..is all we have to do is to

do a little bit of caulking around the edge,

and then glue that on there.

So we need some glue.

Finally attached is a central panel of plywood.

Steve's sure no-one will ever know the difference.

If it's screwed on straight, that is.

What I just want to make sure is that this line

is lined up with that.

Well, it's also... Th-that looks... Yeah.

That looks slightly over to the right to me.

It needs to come a little bit further... Yeah, you're right, it does.

..over to the left.

A bit more?

No, I think that's about right, actually.

That's slightly out, Jayne. It's going to be...

You know, once it's painted in... No, I know. ..I think,

you know, really, nobody's going to examine it that closely.

Job done, and you've managed to keep the cost down.

Now to get on with decorating the room.

Back at Stephanie's, B&B season is coming up fast.

Her curtains for the alcove in her fifth and final

guest room are finished.

This is a very unusual curtain job.

Usually I'm hanging, normally, onto a curtain rail,

and these don't need to open and close,

they're going to be purely decorative.

So, they're going to be a fixed curtain.

But I haven't done anything quite like this before,

so I'm working it out as I go along.

Stephanie's first job

is to put up the three swags that'll make up the pelmet.

With a few tacks, the pelmet quickly starts to take shape.

That one's fixed.

And then finally, the curtains themselves.

It's great.

And actually makes it feel like a little room in here, or on a stage.

To be or not to be, that is the question.

It's perfect.

I love it. I love it.

Stephanie's home-made curtains,

complete with her trim to match the wallpaper, are impressive.

The curtains have been quite complex in here,

and I'm making huge curtains for the window.

So they're even more work than the alcove ones.

Every spare second that I have now at Lalande will be in this room.

Until I've got it finished.

But it's all starting to come together.

Next, Stephanie needs to work out how to give her

toilet in a cupboard a touch of je ne sais quoi.

This place is amazing. I love it so much.

So she made the four-hour drive to our place for some inspiration.

Hi! I'll come to the side, otherwise I'll knock you over!

Oh, come into the hall. It's good to be back.

Oh, it's good to have you back.

Do you want a cup of tea or coffee? I'd love some tea. Tea. Yeah.

Always.

Oh, what a beautiful sight. Wow.

Cheers. Cheers, gosh. Ooh, cheers.

Mmm.

So, I have had a little look at your project,

but tell me a bit about the room and

what it's going to be used for and...

It's a 16th-century room but that was redone in the 18th,

so you know they put those alcove beds with a little

cupboard on either side of the alcove. Yup.

So I put a shower in one. Right. And a loo in the other. Brilliant.

Then they're tiny, they're really tiny. Yeah, OK, that's fine.

But I want to make them special because of that... OK, yeah.

..so that it's a surprise as you walk in.

OK, I have, and I've not done it before,

but I did start a similar project about three years ago

but ran out of time,

and just before me and Dick were getting married,

when we were doing up our honeymoon suite,

I was going to do a whole wall of mirrors.

So I bought, at the time, just these kind of like mirrored tiles. Right.

They're square, they're nothing fancy,

and my idea then was to distress them,

and just to make a wall.

Now, a mirrored wall just gives an illusion of extra space, doesn't it?

Yeah. As soon as you walk in.

I just thought maybe you can do a whole mirrored wall at the back.

I love... I really love that idea.

I love it.

I mean, I've got enough tiles to give you for both rooms. Are you serious?

Yeah, yeah, I think so.

That's unbelievably generous of you.

Honestly, I'm really excited about doing a project

and seeing you finish it.

Right, shall we go and have a little look around? Ooh, yes.

And start getting these mirrors out. Yeah, fantastic.

OK, I don't get it,

but I'm looking forward to seeing what these two rustle up

in Angel's treasury.

Back at Belinda and Lee's, the weather has relented,

and the donjon roof is finally fixed,

much to Lee's relief.

So, because we've managed to successfully repair the roof

and patch the hole up properly, and secure the tiles,

the building is completely watertight now.

The roof may be sorted, but before they can start holding

events in the donjon, and bringing in income, work needs doing.

The donjon has once again turned into a sort of bit of a

rubbish tip, basically.

And, you know, it needs to be tidier than it is, it needs to look

like a place where you could have a party, and at the moment,

it looks like a rubbish dump.

So I'm a bit disappointed, to be honest, in how it's ended up.

Belinda couldn't bring herself to come in here,

cos she said, "Every time I go in that room of yours..."

It's become my room now.

"..every time I go in that room of yours, it's in a complete state."

So what my plan is today,

is to clear bits and pieces out and tidy the place up a little bit.

Right, and then when it's clear, I'm going to bring her in and say,

"Ta-da, we've got our donjon back, now you can start planning events."

That's my plan.

Right...

So, I'm going to get these trestles out,

put those over by the door.

Fair bit to do, Lee. It's all wreck.

Oh, look at this stuff.

I like the juxtaposition of having something really, really rough

and something really elegant together.

Just a few last touches to woo Belinda.

Bubbly.

Flowers.

And last of all...

..a ribbon.

Need to get a pair of scissors

without her seeing me.

Right, it's all set, I've now tidied the donjon up,

I've laid a table for two, and basically it's now ready

to open again for the summer season,

which is something Belinda's wanted for ages.

So I'm just going to go and find her.

Right. Ooh, it's a ribbon.

Yes. What does that mean?

It's under new management. Oh, yeah, whose is that, then?

It's not my donjon any more, it's returning back to you. Oh.

And there's the scissors. Thank you.

You've got to cut the ribbon and go inside.

I hereby reopen this donjon. Oops.

Yup, right.

This is not very good, I haven't done this before.

There you go. Now we push this open.

This is what I wanted you to see.

Ooh, oh, look at that!

Oh, that looks lovely.

It's all been cleaned. Aw. Everything's been tidied.

And it's ready to rock and roll. Ready for a party.

Come on, sit down and I'll pour you a drink. Ooh, I say!

Didn't expect this.

Ready? I'll point it at the wall. There.

Oh, thank you.

This is what I've been doing while you've been over there pruning. What, drinking?

No!

SHE LAUGHS

To the success of the donjon. Cheers to the donjon.

And to the next event. And its rejuvenation. Its rejuvenation.

Cheers. Good work, you two. You certainly earned that glass of fizz.

Lovely. Oh, that's good.

The donjon's looking great,

looking much better than it was this morning. Well done, Lee.

Are you pleased with it? I'm pleased with it. I think you've done a great job.

So you'll be able to walk in here and not feel bad any more.

No, and, I mean, it looked terrible, didn't it? It really looked a mess.

And I've got to say, you know,

one of the things I'm really pleased about...

Is the fact that you did it yourself? I did it myself.

Up on a cherry picker, doing the thing, and it saved us thousands.

Thousands.

You've also learned some new skills along the way, Lee.

That's one of the great joys about owning these magnificent buildings.

Now you need to get that donjon paying its way.

I think now this space has a future.

We've probably extended the possible life use of this

beyond the four, five summer months into

sort of eight months now. Yeah.

So what we really need now is some events booked in here.

We need some income coming in, and that's going to help us

pay for the rest of the work that we need to do in this place.

Good. So you're pleased, then? Yeah, definitely. Thank you. Excellent.

Lovely.

Coming up... Ah!

..Angel and Stephanie get busy in the treasury.

Oh, this is it. This is the one. That looks gorgeous!

This is what I want to do.

Jayne's patience is running low.

Can you help, please? Give me that, then.

Oh...

Couldn't you get...?

And so are the coffers.

We've got to start making some money, otherwise we're stuffed.

In southern France, it's now less than two months

until Jane and Steve welcome their first guests of the season.

They've been busy lining the walls

and decorating throughout the ground floor.

But the job isn't done yet.

It's all very... It's at that very exciting stage now.

The finishing stage.

We've been working flat out to get all

the decoration work done.

And we've got six weeks till we actually open,

so we've got to finish all the other rooms in that time.

So we've really got our work cut out for us.

Well, I went through the piggy bank the other day, and I was

thinking, Jane, the piggy bank is getting to be a bit empty now.

I know.

Really, you know, we've got to start making some money to live on.

Otherwise, we're stuffed.

Their next task,

inspired by the chinoiserie screen Jane made

for their Oriental bedroom,

is to create a panelled wallpaper mural in the salon.

So what we've got, we've got four

of these pieces of screen-printed mural... Hm-mm.

..that all line up together. Yeah.

And you've pre-made these things

that we can then paste the mural paper

and then mount it onto those and mount it onto the wall.

First, they need to lay the panels flat

so they can figure out which roll goes where.

It's a two-man job this, Steve, can you help, please?

Give me that, then.

Can't you get...? Gordon Bennett.

Right.

And that's the easy part.

See, that's quite... See, that says panel four on it.

Is it? So that's the last one.

That will be at the end. Shall we put that...?

Shall we move it over? Cos we know that that's panel four.

Oh, that's good. Where does it say four, Jane?

Here. OK.

Yeah, that's the correct order.

Now you can see it in all its grandeur.

There's a major tree in the middle.

So we've decided where this is going to go on here.

So we need to paste this first.

Pasting wallpaper like this is a high-stakes business.

The paper is in the hundreds.

And all the other materials are about 100.

So it's all added up to quite a lot, really.

Because they're quite rare, all this is really collectible

and it's quite difficult to get hold of these.

And it's the main sitting room, so you've got to...

You've got to make a statement.

So you've got to spend a bit of money.

He doesn't like it, but you've got to spend a bit of money.

So are you ready, then?

Yeah. Oh, God.

Here we go. I'll do it like wallpaper.

If it's too wet, it won't stick properly.

OK, so I've rolled it so that we can start at the bottom.

And that is the edge where you can see where it's...

If you get the straightness first.

Well, the only way I can do that is by laying that down and seeing...

If it's out slightly, it'll go out.

By the time it gets to the other end, it will be out.

I know, I know.

We'll have to do it quite quickly, I think.

Is that going out?

Is it going out, Jane?

Yes, it is, it's going out.

It needs to move over here towards here, the door.

OK.

Just lift the whole thing up.

Well, this isn't going to expand, we've never done this before.

That's spot-on now. And that's spot-on here.

That's absolutely spot-on now.

The paper is finally on. Now there is another fly in the paste.

There is an air bubble here, look.

I can see one here. See, you're going to get it.

No, but look, that's quite a big one.

That's why I think we should wait till it dries

before we do any more.

Oh, God.

I think that we need to know

that this is successful before we do any more.

Well, the point is, if it's not successful,

there's not a lot we can do about it, is there?

I didn't expect it to bubble in the way that it bubbled,

and I've got my heart in my mouth now.

We've done what we think is the best thing.

And we'll just have to keep our fingers crossed

and hope that it dries flat when it's dried.

We want to get it all right,

because we haven't got long before we open,

and, yeah, the stress is mounting.

Vesuvius is going to erupt soon.

Hang in there.

After months of graft, you are so close to having

the whole place ready for your first official guests.

You just need to keep going.

In the Pays de la Loire,

Stephanie has come to our place for inspiration for the bijou WC

in her last guest suite.

She is determined to make it unique, and that's where Angel comes in.

Have you been in here before? I saw it once last time.

Oh, you did? Yeah.

Angel has a cunning plan involving distressed mirrors.

This is it. This is what... That looks gorgeous.

This is what I want to do. Wow.

Do you like it? Love it. Love it.

Great. We can do this with a bit of paint stripper and some bleach.

So that is quite an economic way to do it, isn't it?

I would love to learn to do that so much.

Right, let's get busy.

They are using mirrored tiles and stripping them

with some pretty potent chemicals, so protection is a must.

Right, so what we're going to do,

I'm not going to put oodles on, yeah, but I'm going to put enough...

Angel starts with paint stripper to remove the backing.

Do you want to do one and I do one? There you go, babe.

How thick does it need to be?

Well, so, not too thin and not too gloopy. Cos the...

Where it's, you know these little bits that are a bit thicker?

It will work a tiny little bit quicker.

I'm going to just set my clock.

Three minutes. Great.

Three minutes later, and armed with wire wool,

they can start the next step.

Oh, yeah, great, you see? So it's started to come off. So you start.

Come on, Steph, put a bit of welly in it.

Elbow grease is my least favourite form of power.

Keep holding it up and you can start to see... OK.

Oh, yes, starting to look nice.

With the backing off, Angel can get to work with the bleach

to remove the reflective silver layer.

And it's only going to work on the areas... On these areas. OK?

It's not going to work on... It you won't do that, OK.

It won't do that, so, OK.

I've got to leave that for five minutes now, so... Three, five.

OK. Three for the stripper, five for the bleach.

Yeah. OK.

Five minutes later, and they can wipe off the bleach

and admire their handiwork.

That is looking great. It's really eating its way at it.

With a little time, and a whole lot more elbow grease later,

Angel and Stephanie have the beginnings

of a pretty impressive mirrored wall.

They're going to look great.

They start to look amazing when you put them all together.

They do. They do. And I think it's going to be right for your room.

Yeah.

Especially if you have something really beautiful

that is reflecting into it.

Thank you. Really, thank you.

You are so welcome, darling. Love it.

I love doing stuff with you, sweetheart,

so it's always a lot of fun.

Today has been amazing.

I love seeing Angel and she has such great ideas.

And so now this tiny little space that I was stumped on,

I've got vision for it, I know where I'm going,

so I'm going to go home

and I'm going to get distressing mirrors,

I'm going to finish that bedroom. It's going to be done.

Good luck, Stephanie. I can't wait to see the finished article!

Bon collage!

But you've still got an awful lot to do

before that last suite welcomes its first guests.

Next time... Give me a dimension for your water feature.

I offer some engineering advice to Belinda and Lee.

It will probably be about 12 square metres. That is not small.

So things don't go exactly to plan. Whoops.

Oh, Belinda is going to go mad.

Get rid of the evidence.

Steve and Jane's friends answered the call for help...

Can you put the knob on? On the staircase?

..and have a smashing time of it.

CRASH!

Uh-oh! And as Stephanie also calls in the troops...

I think it might need to go up a wee dod. A wee dod?

..it seems it was all well worth the effort.

Oh, this is wonderful!

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