On the small island of Saint-Cado in South Brittany, a former fisherman’s home has been reworked as a pair of pared-back vacation leases. The venture, named Sardineta, is the work of Charly Derouet, a photographer from Normandy, and Ceris Harris, initially from Wales, who left Paris searching for a extra rural life and located themselves, by probability, in a village of historic stone homes with ties to each France and Wales.
The home itself predates fashionable information, showing on the Napoleonic cadastre and believed thus far to ate least the mid-Nineteenth century. It beforehand served as dwelling and a carpenter’s workshop; like a lot of the island, it carries traces of Saint-Cado’s sardine fishing business. When the couple bought it, the construction was intact however compromised by damp—a standard situation within the area’s older buildings. Their method to the renovation was self-directed, knowledgeable by earlier work restoring a cabin in Normandy, and targeted on addressing present points whereas preserving its character.
To that finish, they reworked the partitions utilizing a breathable insulation system: a 5-6 cm layer of hemp and hydraulic lime, left to dry over a number of months earlier than being completed with aerial lime. The result’s a set of interiors with improved thermal efficiency, balanced humidity, and higher acoustics. Throughout the 2 43-square meter residences—every designed for 2 company—the house owners construct a lot of the furnishings themselves, supplementing it with sourced items from flea markets and Leboncoin. Supplies are easy and sturdy: waxed concrete flooring, oak cabinetry, uncooked chrome steel, and a mix of utilitarian and one-off parts that mirror the constructing’s working previous.
Images by Charly Derouet.
Whereas exploring Saint-Cado, Ceri started to note traces of her Welsh dwelling: Place Glamorgan, a Welsh flag within the chapel. Additional investigation revealed that Saint Cado—also called Cadoc or Catwg in Welsh—was born in Glamorgan and is identical determine who gave Ceri’s hometown of Cadoxton its identify.
The house owners needed to seek the advice of Les Architectes des Bâtiments de France on the colour of shutters—in addition to redoing the joints and altering the doorways and home windows—who oversee renovations in areas surrounding historic monuments. Sardineta is inside the perimeter of the Saint-Cado chapel courting again to the eleventh century. “In some locations, the colour palette allowed is kind of restricted, however we had been fortunate. The colour right here is combined by a neighborhood paint store.”
“The home was not unlivable—but it surely was removed from comfy,” recounts Charly. “Like most elderly homes right here, damp was the principle problem. The earlier house owners had solely used it as a summer season dwelling, and there have been pots of clay powder dotted round the home to soak up moisture.”
He goes on: “The problems had been probably attributable to renovations completed within the Nineteen Seventies and once more within the 90s. As was widespread on the time, the joins within the stone partitions had been redone with concrete. This was seen as a contemporary answer again then, but it surely really traps moisture contained in the partitions. We knew that if we didn’t deal with the foundation drawback, we’d be managing slightly than resolving the dampness. So we tore all the pieces right down to its naked partitions and roof and redid the electrics and plumbing. The benefit to all this was that we may rebuild it nonetheless we needed.”
