Original subtitles

Every year, 10,000 Brits cross the Channel

to start a new life in France.

D'accord, yes, yes, yes(!)

Dick Strawbridge and his partner Angel are planning to join them.

Look, they've made their own bread over there.

But while some might dream of a place by the Med...

a Parisian apartment...

or perhaps a small country cottage,

Dick and Angel are dreaming bigger.

Much bigger.

This is truly beautiful.

This is the story of one family's extraordinary adventure.

Turning an abandoned French chateau into a dream home...

..in time for the ultimate fairytale wedding.

Over the next year, designer Angel

and engineer Dick will discover the chateau's secrets.

I've never been in here.

These are old Victorian clothes, there's tons of them.

And work day and night...

..to restore its rooms to their 19th-century glory.

This place is amazing.

It's so incredibly important to bring it back to life.

The size of the task is enormous.

Can I help?!

This is DIY,

craft

AND construction...

That's the singing Frenchman, and he's whistling.

..on the grandest of scales.

For the past four years, Dick Strawbridge

and his partner Angel have been on the hunt for a property in France.

What do you think of this?

We're actually in search of living the dream.

They yearn for a simple existence

in the French countryside.

We've got the loo.

It's in working order, yeah?

It just allows you to have all the things you dream of -

decent wine, decent food, a really nice place to live.

But they haven't yet found the perfect home.

I'm not sure about these palm trees.

I think it might be a bit overpriced.

Dick and Angel had assumed their £300,000 budget

would buy a small country cottage.

But with French property prices much cheaper than England,

they discovered they could afford something a little grander.

We're just thinking, hold on, for the price of a one-bedroom flat

in the East End of London,

we can actually have a chateau with ten acres.

We can't believe our luck.

There are over 40,000 chateaux in France.

Tower-topped, fairytale mansions,

dating from the ninth to the 19th century.

These icons of French architecture are synonymous with

the country's noble past.

AND its bloody revolution.

And although many cost millions, if you're prepared to put

the work in, some can be picked up for as little as £150,000.

The hunt for the perfect chateau is on

and they have plenty on their shortlist.

There we go. Whoa!

That is pretty special, isn't it?

It looks good, doesn't it?

Good afternoon, sir.

While former army colonel Dick is searching for a fix-up job

at a bargain price...

There's a lot of work here,

there's the heating, the electrics,

the plumbing, the en-suite...

Angel is looking for vintage glamour.

I like old things - that's why I'm with Dick!

This is the stuff that just gets me going. Yeah?

And they're struggling to find a place that they can both

fall in love with.

We sort of like have this fantasy, don't we, of this perfect kitchen

and this doesn't do it...

No, but if you think about it, it doesn't start off being perfect.

Dick's incredibly alpha male, um,

and, um, I'm bossing him around!

She's a very successful businesswoman,

she likes getting her own way.

I'm a retired Army Colonel...

It's a little bit of this, you know!

BELL TOLLS

So far, they've been back and forth to France six times.

And they're still searching.

Today, they're driving to the town

of Martigne-sur-Mayenne -

about 180 miles southwest of Paris.

With them are their children, two-year-old Arthur

and six-month-old Dorothy.

As well as Angel's mum Jenny and dad Steve.

This is a family adventure.

Fromagerie's to the left... JENNY: Right.

STEVE: What's a fromagerie? Cheese.

The chateau they're about to see is new to the market.

At £250,000, it's within their budget.

This could be the entrance way here...

Yes! Oh, wow! Look at that.

Well, I think we should put an offer in now!

First impressions are ridiculously positive!

Angela wants to make an offer and we haven't even seen anything yet.

This is truly beautiful.

Darling, darling, darling.

The Chateau-de-la-motte Husson was built in the 1860s

as a grand gesture of love from a Lord to his Lady.

It's built on the foundations of a 15th-century fort.

And comes complete with its own moat.

I love it. I love it. I love it more.

But, having said that, we haven't looked inside yet.

Common-sense, let's just think for a little bit here.

We have to look first. That's a walled garden.

That's a walled garden!

The chateau has 12 acres of land,

hundreds of trees,

seven outbuildings...

and a space for farming animals and growing crops.

You see all the wires going up the side?

That's where there's been plants in the past grown against the walls.

It's years and years of work to turn it into something phenomenal.

Oh, my God! Oh, my God!

This is the orangery.

It's bigger than my house!

Outside is impressive,

but they've yet to see what's behind the front door.

The man with the key is estate agent Francois.

Come on, come on, Grandma, Grandad.

This is nice. Yeah.

This is not too shabby(!)

It's nice.

The chateau is on five floors

and has an astonishing 45 rooms.

Each floor is 160 square metres.

Within its four walls,

you could fit nine new British homes.

It's been owned by the same family since it was built 150 years ago.

Wow.

We've only just put it on the market

and we see that we have many visits that are going to happen, so...

I would be surprised if it stayed long on the market.

The grand entrance hall would once have welcomed guests to

lavish banquets and parties.

Hold on. No way!

The dumb waiter! Yes. Darling!

We're in business!

The servants would have prepared the food downstairs in the sous-sol -

the basement.

With the bell. Ah-ha!

"Service!"

This was once a kitchen with six rooms for different

types of food preparation.

Next door is the wine cellar, with space for 5,000 bottles.

Obviously, we love it. We live in the kitchen.

That's for the servants to actually tell us what's happening, look.

"I need you in the dining room!"

The chateau's faded interiors boast a mix of styles from

across the ages, telling the story

of each generation that's lived here.

Obviously, it's tired. There's water coming in,

but this is, um...

It's pretty incredible.

The 45-room chateau and its extensive grounds

are listed at £250,000.

That's 345,000 Euros.

It's the top end of their budget.

But after less than an hour...

..they're falling under its spell.

I'm trying to be sensible.

This is a huge house, it's got the orangery,

it's got the walled garden, it's got all these things going for it,

but we're talking a lot of money to get it back to where it should be.

It is so doable and it is so beautiful, it's almost too good.

This is including the walled garden and these buildings?

Part of it, I'll show you. Part of it? OK.

A developer has already put an offer in for the walled garden.

He wants to build two new homes right in the middle of the grounds.

He has a potential purchaser for half...

For one of these houses for 50,000 Euros.

What do you think? We need to have the walled garden in it.

What is the best they will take for that if we put an offer in now

and push through quickly? We're cash buyers.

We're only just cash buyers for that amount... I know!

Not having the walled garden is just a no-go for us,

we need the stables... We need the whole place.

Yeah, I think for it to work for us, we do.

Keeping in mind that we want to buy it and we're cash buyers...

..what will he take for the entirety?

If you say I offer...

390 today for the whole lot...

Yeah? ..then I stop the visits.

We give you an option and we sign a compromise in the next...

two weeks.

Dick!

I missed the conversation, what did you say, darling?

Have you bought the place? If we offer 390...

he'll stop the visits and we'll get going.

Thank you very much indeed. Congratulations.

After years of searching,

their dream chateau is finally within their grasp.

She's found the one she wants, we're in trouble!

But, to secure the house and walled garden,

they'll have to spend 280

of their £300,000 budget...

..leaving next to nothing for renovation.

Look at the sewage, look at the electrics in here,

if you look at the lead paint, it basically says, "Don't buy me".

For 40 years, the Chateau de la Motte has stood empty.

Its 45 rooms and 12 acres of land in the heart of the French countryside

abandoned and neglected.

But all that is about to change.

Do you want me to wrap this?

Do we want it in the kitchen or is that going to go somewhere else?

That's what I'm saying.

In their two-bedroom flat in Southend,

Dick and Angel are getting ready to leave England for good.

Do you know what that is? It's to... Erm...

It's a tongue press.

They've made the monumental decision to buy the chateau.

Every hour is spent trying to work out details of the move,

and we're going into January in a chateau without water,

electricity, or sewage, or heating.

The purchase price is £280,000.

Which leaves them just 20 grand for repairs.

And they're going to need every penny.

Right, OK. Rooms?

Toilets?

They've got an ambitious plan -

get enough work done to move their family in

just three weeks after they get the keys.

My head is spinning.

We've got so much to organise, and I've got a family to look after.

So, Mum and Dad are going to be living in the grand salon

to start with. We have to have the heating in place

before they can move into that. Yeah.

Is it going to be warm enough?

The kids are going to have a bath at night.

We have to have so many things sorted out.

It's starting to get a little bit scary.

We've got all these things going on.

If you try and carry them all in your head...

it'll explode.

With their vital possessions crammed into a van and the rest

of their belongings following soon, Dick and Angel are moving to France.

In a few hours, they will finally complete

the purchase of a property that lists 450 faults.

The whole of this document says, "Do not buy this chateau."

It says it's all our risk.

Anything that happens...

I know. So... BABY CRIES

Dorothy, it's enough to scare me, sweetheart, never mind you.

It is, it's really quite worrying. But...

He's going to say, "Sold as seen." Are you all right with that? Yeah.

Even though we've got 200 pages of reasons not to buy it. I know.

They're meeting with the vendors at a local notaire to sign

the Acte de Vente.

Now, for Dick and Angel, there's no going back.

Turn, turn, turn. It's a bit stiff.

I'll oil it.

Wow. Well done. Jump over.

We're in!

Come into life.

Look how beautiful that is.

Everything is gorgeous.

Finally, the chateau is theirs.

Right. Let's get to work. Let's get to work.

Owning a fairytale chateau sounds like a dream.

But the French are turning their backs on them

because they can cost more to renovate than to buy.

There's been an electrical fire here.

Dick and Angel's chateau is crumbling, freezing cold...

and has no working plumbing or electricity.

But they can't say they weren't warned.

200+ pages of reasons not to buy a house.

Look at the sewage, look at the electrics in here.

Look at the lead paint. Asbestos...

It basically says, "Don't buy me."

Engineer Dick is convinced he's got what it takes

to take on a project of this size.

But Angel has other priorities.

When I walk into a room, I know that Dick's thinking, "OK, well,

"the radiators are going to go there, the plumbing's going there."

And I'm thinking, "Oh, there's going to be a giraffe there."

I'm thinking that everything is... around shelves.

And we just sit here with our books. But how high? Up to the ceiling.

And we have a ladder.

Right, OK. This may not happen in phase one.

You say that to everything.

We're going to need a plug here for Christmas tree lights.

I'm so not worried about Christmas trees at this stage.

Right, um...

I understand Angela's vision

and she's the one that's going to make this place beautiful,

but we've got to get the dog work done first.

I'm going to just stand by the door

and visualise which way it should be. OK.

And I'm just going to do as I'm told.

The castle was rebuilt in 1864 on the site of an ancient fort.

It took ten years to construct, requiring hundreds of workers.

To install central heating, new electrics and plumbing,

Dick will have to hire experts. But, being an engineer,

he plans to do much of the renovation work himself.

The first problem is right on his doorstep.

HE LAUGHS

There's a nine-foot drop...

to nothing.

Beneath the doorstep, Dick's discovering

building techniques that go back to the ancient Egyptians.

Under here, it's the most amazing construction because...

you've got insulation, which is mud and straw.

The organic insulation is found between every floor

in the chateau.

Packed together between the solid oak beams,

they dampen noise and keep the heat in.

But beneath the doorstep, at least,

the beams and the cobs are crumbling away.

All of the support for this is rotten.

So, what I have to do is put something solid onto this beam,

push up, and then support this whole area

cos that means you can step on the front doorstep coming in.

It's a lot easier with power tools.

No electricity...

To make a base,

Dick is screwing this plywood into the only solid part of the beam.

But to pack this gap...

he's going foraging.

The chateau's seven outbuildings once would have provided

the seigneur du manoir - the lord of the manor - everything he needed.

From stables for his horses...

to store rooms for his grain.

Dick's starting his search in the old laundry.

I've never been in here.

That's a big thing for washing in.

Oh, yes!

Wow!

See this dingly-dangly bit? Whenever the wheelbarrow is full...

it takes the weight.

I love it!

This...

this is the piggery.

It's all fallen down, all the slate's been trashed here,

but I can use this...

for packing out under the tiles of the front door.

Renovating the chateau isn't just about making it habitable.

Angel has a passion for vintage

and is desperate to restore its faded glamour.

What comes first?

What do you do first?

I really want to have it all pretty, just, like, straightaway.

From its oak and chestnut parquet flooring...

..to its wallpaper...

hand-painted by Parisian artists...

..everything is a spectacle of opulence.

This place is amazing, like, full of so much detail.

One of the first things is the little lions' heads.

Cast in iron, 86 handcrafted lion heads adorn

the double revolution staircase.

The lion motif is also at the heart of the family crest.

But in the attic are more personal reminders

of the chateau's 150-year history.

Where do you start, eh?

Oh!

Hello!

These are all Victorian clothes, there's tonnes of them!

They have somebody's initial on.

How lovely.

This room...

is like something your grandad would have.

He doesn't want to chuck anything away.

Do you know what, I've bought magazines like this -

cost me a fortune!

Oh, my God, is it a whole collection of 1950s Marie Claires?

It's so incredibly important

to pull as much out of the chateau that we can

cos it brings it back to life.

We're going to clean all these up and get them in use.

Until the next time.

After three hours, Dick has nearly finished fixing the doorstep.

I know the wood underneath it is sound,

so all I want to do is get these on top of it now,

in a way that will last.

These handmade cement and marble tiles originate from Catalonia,

and were the height of fashion in the 19th century.

A grand way to welcome your guests.

HE CHUCKLES

Done.

The two towers that flank the chateau

are known as pepper shakers.

In the one next to the dining room, they make a useful discovery.

This is good! It's practically a bathroom!

It's going to need a good, good scrub.

Then we can actually... Oh... Oh!

DICK LAUGHS

That's very, very unpleasant.

ANGEL COUGHS Right.

The only water here comes from a tap in the basement.

I'm doing this very slowly cos I don't want the water

to fill up all the pipes in the house,

in case there's leaking up on the first floor.

Lovely little loo.

According to the survey, the toilet empties somewhere into the moat.

(Where's it gone to?)

(It's gone from here.)

I half expect to look out and see fish jumping up.

The moat is almost the same size as six Olympic swimming pools.

Finding a small waste pipe won't be easy.

Drain-tracing dye.

It traces where the drain goes.

It's quite heavy.

Oh, Dick, what are you doing?

I've no idea how deep this goes.

Angela, just keep flushing it!

Oh, oh, oh, that gets deep very quickly.

Note to self, don't step backwards.

Nothing's happening? Nothing at all, darling.

I should be seeing a red bloom where our flushing water

has come out here somewhere.

There is no red dye there.

Hello, gorgeous.

No, nothing at all. Um...

I'm sure if it was my chateau, and I built it,

I'd probably have the pipe going quite a long way out.

In the summer, when it's warm, I'll be in there

in my swimming cossie, searching for the pipe where the poop goes.

With a handful of tasks ticked off the list...

..soon the major work will begin -

installing a heating system on a grand scale...

..just as winter really starts to bite.

Dick Strawbridge and his family

have brought a derelict 19th-century French chateau...

in the depths of winter.

It's so cold, even their moat has frozen over.

It's -4 outside.

It's not very warm inside.

Towering over the chateau are its six chimneys.

For a 19th-century French aristocrat,

tall chimneys were a sign of wealth.

These bear the signature of the family that built them.

They've been dormant for decades.

There's no heating or hot water.

But at least something's working.

I have now got one socket

in the whole chateau.

But, whoa, whoa...

We have electricity!

To install heat and hot water into a five-storey chateau,

an off-the-peg system is not an option.

Got hot water coming out here...

So, Dick has designed his own.

Using two fireplaces and a stove in the basement,

water will be heated and sent up to a thermal store in the attic.

It all comes down from the thermal store, for baths, for showers,

for sinks, for the kitchens.

And as well as that, the heat in the thermal store provides

the hot water to run around our radiators.

Costing £18,000,

this is the most expensive part of the project so far.

The difficult thing here is the scale of the job.

The chateau is huge.

For his system to work efficiently, and safely,

Dick's chimneys need an upgrade.

THEY LAUGH

Bonjour, Pascal. Ca va? Ca va.

Engineer Pascal has come to line them with this steel tubing.

Er... Trois cheminees.

Les cuisines...

He is the first French worker Dick has hired.

Je vais y aller tout doucement.

OK, merci, monsieur.

The last time I studied French was 39 years ago.

Dans, erm... La salon,

et dans...

Erm...

Dans, er...

'I remember some of the French words,

'but there's a lot of them I just can't remember anything at all.'

So, I tend to do a bit of Franglais speaking,

which is French with English in it.

Nous avons un grand, erm...

Store, "thermal store" en anglais.

Mais c'est...

C'est chaud...eau...

Un chauffe-eau. Un chauffe-eau.

OK, allons! We're going to have a chauffe-eau.

Pascal must feed this steel tubing up three of Dick's chimneys.

Each one is 85 feet high and up to six feet wide.

No problem. No problem.

No problem. Vous parlez anglais?

Ah, merde.

THEY LAUGH

Duh! Duh, English! Stupid!

I just assumed there's going to be some sort of a cherry picker

or a lift going up there, or lots of scaffolding.

Je sors mon echelle sur le toit.

Oui? Et je monte. Oui?!

HE LAUGHS Oui!

Pascal's going on the roof.

It is a bit scary, because I don't think anybody's been up on that roof

for a very long time.

He's gone out the window.

He's got his special harness on.

He's going to attach himself and if he falls,

it stops him hitting the ground.

He says he knows what he's doing.

I think that's what he said!

He is French.

He just stands on a roof quite happily!

Has he got a ha...

He's harnessed on, see that rope?

There's a rope there he's holding on to. That's him tied on.

He's actually dropping a rope down and his friend, Sylvain,

he's down there and he's feeding it up the chimney.

That's why he's lifting it up. Right.

PASCAL WHISTLES

That's a singing Frenchman on my roof. He's whistling.

He looks great.

He's the Roger Whittaker of the French world.

Making the chateau safe for his young family

is Dick's ultimate priority.

The chateau's windows and its ten-foot high front door

are made of oak from its own forest.

But they're covered in toxic lead paint,

which must now be removed...

by hand.

It's a big old door.

Dick begins by covering the door with paint stripper.

This is not some sort of mad cookery experiment or anything like that.

I'm going to cover it with clingfilm so it stays on,

just doesn't dry out, because dry lead paint is a problem.

Whilst the chateau is too cold and dangerous to move in to,

Dick's family are staying in a cottage a few miles down the road.

BABY CRIES

Excuse me, that's your sister.

In just eight days, all their possessions arrive from England

and, ready or not, the family will be moving in.

Bye! Bye!

I don't think I can really afford to start scrubbing that off

for another two hours.

I'm going to enjoy the sunset.

There's a rule when you do DIY.

It always takes longer than you think.

What's coming off here is all the lead,

and it's all wet, going into my bucket.

I've got to say, it's a bit chilly.

This is what happens when you buy a chateau in January.

It's gone midnight.

Dick decides to spend his first night alone in the chateau.

This is really quite deluxe camping.

You know, camping in a chateau.

Somewhere here I've got a pair of slippers.

The dining room windows have no glass.

And tonight is forecast to be especially cold.

Wow!

Wow.

This is beautiful.

Lee and Kyle are driving down through the snow

to get here to work.

Let's hope they get here.

Father and son Lee and Kyle are here to install

Dick's bespoke heating system.

Back in the UK, they've plumbed thousands of houses.

But they've never done one on this scale.

You need mates, and mates who are plumbers and electricians

understand what's going on.

With only seven days till the family are due to move in,

they've got their work cut out.

Effectively, you're repiping this house from top to bottom.

I think they're crazy, because it's very rare that deadlines are met.

600 metres of pipe will carry hot and cold water around the chateau.

You need another two or three metres.

Running from the attic to the wood burners on the first floor,

and a stove in the basement.

This is an A-rated gas boiler.

It generates hot water.

So, if the thermal store gets cold,

this will kick in and the gas will actually give us a boiler working

to heat our water.

And this is the start. We're getting closer to heat.

Six days later, and they're still racing to finish the heating system

before the family moves in, in 24 hours' time.

Whoa.

All right.

The radiators have arrived.

What colour did you think they were?

OK, white. I thought they were black. But they're white.

OK, just making sure we've got the right ones.

For now, Dick's system will heat five of the chateau's 45 rooms.

That will be just enough

for the family to leave their rented cottage.

But installing Dick's new radiators is no simple task.

These walls are thick.

Going through the walls, they're going to be a major nightmare.

The chateau walls are built from solid stone,

some from the fort that once stood here.

In places, they're over three feet thick.

See, that's what we need, isn't it? Come on.

So, to get through them, Dick has shelled out on a serious bit of kit.

I came to France and I bought

the biggest drill they had in the equipment store.

Nobody can hold this drill, it's far too powerful.

If this works, it will make our life easy.

If it doesn't work...

Kyle will be working very hard making holes in these walls.

What do you think?

The cavity is filled with rubble.

Loose rocks and stone tightly packed together.

On every attempt, they jam the drill.

I'm going to call it a stop on this.

Basically, the wall won.

Dick's 1,500 pound state-of-the-art drill

has bitten the dust.

HE SIGHS

The clock's ticking.

The removals are coming. There's no heat.

So, all in all, um... Yeah.

Meanwhile, Angel has returned to the chateau.

She wants the place to be spotless

for when the furniture arrives tomorrow.

I love a bit of cleaning, I really do.

It's like the only job that gives you instant satisfaction.

But she's having to work around Lee and Kyle,

who are now trying to chisel through the walls by hand.

We're trying to just use the old way of chiselling it out.

We're going through walls that are a real challenge.

We're probably taking twice as long, in reality.

But, from what Dick tells me, he is moving in come what may.

We'll get there, but it'll just take a lot longer.

You want to tidy up ready for things to come in.

They're trying to go through a hole in the wall upstairs

because we have to... We've got about three holes to make in walls.

That's nearly impossible.

So...

Yeah.

I know. It's just...

I just was going to do some cleaning.

Yeah, but what are you going to clean, that's the question?

That's why I'm asking you.

Look, I've just...

I haven't been here loads, obviously, looking after the kids.

I'm just here helping to do some cleaning ready for us.

Dick Strawbridge and his partner, Angel,

have spent their life savings on a fairytale castle in France.

But, tomorrow morning, they will move in...

CLATTERING to a building site.

CLATTERING AND HAMMERING

There are easier ways of moving and going somewhere new to live.

Changing country, changing culture. That's difficult.

We're actually doing that into a ruin.

CLATTERING

They've spent virtually all of their savings

turning this dilapidated chateau into a safe place to live.

And they must now work through the night to get the job done.

This is the hardest time of year to work.

Short daylight hours, that's really killing us,

because, when you are working in the dark, it slows you down.

It's just... You've got to stay positive.

I think he's an absolute nutjob. I think he's crazy.

I think he should hold back a little bit more,

but I understand they are under time constraints, so needs must.

But moving in? I wouldn't be doing it.

It's morning and, although the heating system still isn't finished,

it's moving in day.

Honey!

I'm home! ECHOING

To celebrate their new life abroad,

Dick and Angel are due to get married here in November

on the anniversary of when they first met.

That's only nine months away

and there's an extraordinary amount to do to get the chateau habitable,

let alone ready for a wedding with 200 guests.

It's just about graft.

We know what we want, and, because we know what we want,

we're prepared to work for it.

The final leg of their removal van's journey

is across the chateau's huge moat.

The only way to cross it is by a stone bridge...

designed for a horse and carriage.

HORN BEEPS

It doesn't bode well for the delivery of all our kit, does it?

Unloading everything at the gate is likely to bring on a revolt.

Imagine carrying all of our stuff up to the first and second floor

from back there. Don't want to do that.

It's all happening now.

HE WHISTLES

Five centimetres either side is all that lies between delivery...

and disaster.

That way a little bit.

That way a little bit.

The lorry has made it through OK.

But, at some point, their pillar has been twisted.

When I talk to the guys, I'm like, is it really going to fit through?

I've got to say, absolutely amazing.

Yeah, it's a bit rudimentary inside, but it's good, it is good. Yeah.

Umbrellas, they stay just over there.

There's an umbrella stand.

Oh, no. So...the back room.

Just put it in the upstairs middle, yeah. Yeah?

We don't know whose it is.

Darling, do you want this full size?

Yep, lovely.

This will be the public toilet...

After their wedding, Angel has ambitions to hold

vintage-themed events in the chateau.

We are going to try and make this place our home and our business.

The birdcage is going in the petit salon, please.

If we get that balance right, we've cracked it, haven't we?

We've got our dream.

That's much better. LAUGHTER

Sacre bleu!

Meanwhile, Dick has a plan to make the chateau totally self-sufficient.

Just finally getting organised now,

which means I can start doing some big projects.

I've got several hundred boxes.

Lots of furniture, spread in different rooms.

Do you know where everything is? Yeah.

Do you, really? Yep.

All our stuff is here now.

We live...in France.

BIRDS CHEEP

But, for anything to work, there has to be heat.

After three weeks of back-breaking labour...

Here we go!

TAP SQUEAKS

I can hear it coming.

..it's finally time to fire up Dick's heating system.

OK.

Brilliant.

FIRE WHOOSHES

The first fire done.

Wow. Heat!

After £18,000 of investment,

the system is still only powerful enough to heat five rooms

and run one tap at a time.

Look at that! Wow!

That is warm water. Hey!

40 years after being abandoned...

Bring your flowers for Mummy. Come on, sonny Jim.

..the chateau has a new lease of life.

In more ways than one.

We've got a problem with flies and the problem is,

this place has been empty, it's been cold.

The flies have come and they've hibernated.

They've overwintered in little holes, like this,

in behind the panelling, they've just gone to sleep.

We're bringing warmth back in to the chateau,

which means the flies are coming out in their thousands.

And this has been vacuumed up half a dozen times.

But it's not just the flies.

We've had birds through the broken windows

and they've been roosting here.

A wildlife haven.

On closer inspection, it turns out that

there are even more gatecrashers lurking above stairs.

BATS SCREECH

Dick just...

..found a bat's nest. SHE SQUEALS

One just landed on my head.

Just like the UK, endangered bats are protected by law in France.

We're going to leave them in peace now.

Yeah, we'll have to leave them in peace.

So, while they can evict the birds and the flies,

they'll just have to close the doors on the bats.

Dick and Angel's dream of life in a French castle has only just begun.

But, with a whole chateau to renovate,

a wedding with 200 guests to organise,

and only a few pounds left in their budget,

it's hard to see how their dream will become a reality.

Time's ticking.

I really didn't appreciate the enormity of the job.

It's not just a slap of paint and a taxidermy head.

We have a massive task ahead of us.

I'm looking around every single room and I think,

OK, there's about a month in each room.

Multiply that by the number of rooms

and November is actually very close.

We're BLEEP.

LAUGHTER

Next time... CHICKEN CLUCKS

Do you think a chicken knows that it can't swim?

Yes, course it does! Really?

..Dick and Angel go construction crazy.

SHE GASPS Oh, no!

But time is running out.

They've got the grand salon, the petit salon, the dining room.

The upstairs kitchen, the downstairs kitchen, the utility room.

DRILL WHIRS

Sometimes, things don't quite go according to plan.

What a monumental pain in the arse.

Subtitles by Ericsson