Learn through restoring a stone house help with English in Saint-Dizant du Gua, France

Details

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  Description

  👋 Welcome
  
  We are a young couple with 2 cats – living our best life on the North Coast of Europe's largest estuary (Gironde), close to the Atlantic Ocean. We are both in our thirties.
  
  Agathe has been working in several fields, as an art teacher, a professional photographer, a projectionnist & a movie theater director of operation, while I have been working as a graphic designer / co-founder of a 4-persons design & development studio for the last 10 years.
  
  We absolutely love to learn new skills so we are currently improving and restoring our house mostly by ourselves, sometimes with the help from some knowledgeable friends. As a workawayer, we would love to get you involved in this process, while hosting you as a dear friend.
  
  
  🏡 Share this beautiful house with us
  
  Our stone house used to be the horse stables of the neighbour castle in the 16-17 century. It was also used as a forge, and then, in the mid 20th century, as a traditional tapestry exhibition space. Finally, the second floor was changed into a beautifull living space, leaving the first floor as cellars and storage spaces.
  
  
  ⚒️ Help us making it even more nice to stay
  
  Goal 1 --- Our current goal is to enhance the aesthetics of the second floor living space by laying some tiles, fixing some furniture and a little bit of painting.
  
  Goal 2 --- More long-term, our next goal is to renovate the first floor, building another living space and 2 art work spaces. The first work space will be used for sculpting, wood-working and diy projects. The 2nd will be used for photography, film-development, and will be convertible as a micro movie theater.
  
  Goal 3 --- We would like to improve the garden, growing a vegetable garden and just making it more beautiful.
  
  
  🇬🇧 Help us speak a better english
  
  Agathe --- Agathe would love to improve her mid-level english skills by talking and sharing with you.
  Val --- I am near fluent but you will have to bear with my french accent, for at least a few days (weeks?)
  
  We would be happy to teach you French in return, if you want to.
  
  
  ☀️ A typical week day with us
  
  I wake up around 7:30 AM.
  I drink coffee and eat nuts for breakfast while browsing quietly on my computer for ~ one hour before I take a shower.
  Some days, I might wake up a bit earlier and drive to the beach to surf for about 1 or 2 hours. You could come with me if you want to surf as well (we can lend you a board + gear).
  
  Then, I write a list of things I'd like to do during the day.
  I usually start off with householding tasks, then I go back to my computer where I work remotely for my job as a graphic designer from 10:00 AM to 12:00 AM.
  
  Agathe wakes up around 12:00 AM.
  She drinks a coffee, she usually skips breakfast. We talk together about quite anything that come to our mind, easing ourselves into the day. My lunch break is 12:00 AM to 2:00 PM, so after having lunch we usually start doing a bit of restoring stuff together during that time.
  
  Then, as Agathe continues to work on the house renovating or in the garden, I go back to work on my computer.
  Some days, she also takes some time in the afternoon to write, as she is currently pursuing a Master Degree as a Movie Theater Director of operations remotely, at La Fémis (Paris).
  
  At 6:00 PM, my day job is over, so I might work one hour on the house before we prepare dinner.
  Sometimes we have a beer in the sunny garden before dinner, or we drive to one of the 2 nearby little port town to have a drink and relax in a beautiful setting.
  
  After dinner, or during dinner, we often watch movies. Thrillers, Comedy, classics, whatever, we are movie enthusiasts. Then we go to bed. I get to sleep at around 10:30 PM, Agathe keeps on watching movies (she IS a real movie enthusiasts, and a night owl) until her sleeping time hits.
  
  
  🙌 Your typical week day with us
  
  We know everyone is different. We expect to discuss your planning with you so that we can match your own rythm with ours in the best way possible. We will also maintain this an open discussion so that your stay, your well-being and the work you do with us go for the best.
  Since we will actually be sharing the house with you, we will learn to know each other quickly and how to interact while respecting each other's preferences.
  
  
  ❤️ What we love in life
  
  We love art, music, building and creating stuff. We love surfing, reading, playing basketball and a ton of other things! We generally are curious and open-minded people.
  
  We also just enjoy simple things such as having coffee, a good dinner with friends, playing with our cats and talking and learning about just anything.
  
  While the two of us are tobacco smokers, we do not do any drugs besides having beers and red wine from time to time.
  
  We are agnostics/atheists with an open mind towards religion. About politics, our left-wing minds are both inclined towards social justice, education, and wealth redistribution.
  
  LGBTQ+ are welcome.

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  Types of help and learning opportunities

  Language practice

  Gardening

  DIY and building projects

  Help around the house

  General Maintenance
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  Cultural exchange and learning opportunities

  As avid learners, mostly self-taught, we would love to bring you a sense of confidence in your abilities to learn and do whatever you want to do in life. We love to teach what we know and are patient people.
  
  We do not expect you to be skilled in house renovating, but simply to be open to learn by working with us.
  The different tasks we will take on together will vary greatly from interior design, to construction work, to planning, to gardening, offering a wide range of new skills to learn.
  
  Also, the place is very rich in history, archeology and architecture (roman churches, Royan's unique 20th century Cathedral), geology (limestone caves) and wildlife (storks migration spot)... And the gastronomy is also pretty special (wine, Cognac, pineau de Charente, oysters, fishes...)

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  Projects involving children

  This project could involve children. For more information see our guidelines and tips here.

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  Help

  Help us to improve and to restore parts of the house and garden together.
  Our common tasks will be fixing furniture, painting walls, laying tiles, doying some little wood-working or gardening for example.
  
  Please note that we will probably learn to complete some of these tasks together, so we do not expect you to be skilled at restoring houses at all. We just expect you to be curious and avid to learn things.
  
  In the process, we would love you to help us improve our english language skills.

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  Languages

  Languages spoken
  English: Fluent
  French: Fluent
  German: Beginner
  Portuguese: Beginner

  This host offers a language exchange
  This host has indicated that they are interested in sharing their own language or learning a new language.
  You can contact them directly for more information.
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  Accommodation

  - Your own bedroom in the house
  - laundry
  - Wifi access
  - Access at the whole house and garden
  
  Food
  - We provide food and respect your preferences.
  - We would be pleased to share our meals with you everyday, but you could also cook for yourself if you prefer.
  - While both of us are flexitarians, vegans and vegetarians are more than welcome.
  
  If wish:
  - Surfboard + equipment
  - you could borrow our car from time to time
  - We can find you a bicycle
  
  We will provide all the tools and security equipment for the tasks we take on together.

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  What else ...

  ⚠️ OUR PLACE IS NOT FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE:
  - allergic to cats
  - indisposed by tobacco smokers
  - racist
  - xenophobic
  - conspirationnist
  - mysoginist
  - homophobic
  
  🦠 Covid-19:
  - We both are fully vaccinated
  
  🏡 Town:
  We live in a very small town, with a cafe the other side of the street in front of our house. Just next to our house is a castle with a huge park. There is a grocery store at the end of our street.
  
  🏄 Beach:
  Royan and the ocean beaches are about ~35min by car.
  
  🏛️ Points of interest:
  There is a lot of natural / historic / archeologic points of interests within a 20km range around our place that could be visited by just riding a bicycle.

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  A little more information

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    Internet access

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    Limited internet access

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    We have pets

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    We are smokers

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    Can host families

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  Can host digital nomads

  We have a decent internet connection (I work from home). As long as you spare some time to work with us on the house, we have no problem with you doing your own stuff on your spare time.

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  How many Workawayers can stay?

  One

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  Hours expected

  Maximum 4-5 hours a day, 5 days a week