My cottage was built in 2007 by local craftsmen in Provence. If you wish to know what it is like to have something built in Provence, I recommend you read Peter Mayle's A year in Provence. His book quite realistically describes the situation, the reliability of timetables, the need of good contacts with the locals, the understanding of the local mentality concerning hurry but also the reality of the hardness of working outdoors when the sun is shining brightly and the temperature is during several months makes working a real hard effort.

The idea of a cottage developed little by little ever since my husband and I took over the parent's former summer house in the picturesque village of Velleron in 2002. At that time the place where the cottage is now standing used to be a garage where we kept the big Peugeot car my husband inherited from his step father. We used the car rarely and it therefore it was good to have it in a shady place for where the batteries could also be plugged for regular charging hence keeping the car always available for a shorter or longer trip.  But during years before the garage had been mainly unused and therefore bid and small spiders had created there nets on and between the walls. Visiting the garage was for me mostly an unpleasant experience with spider webs sliding around my face and arms. I even thought of having seen a small scorpion running on the floor once when going in for some tool.

So one can say that the cottage got its start from my disgust towards the spider webs. But the project had also another sense.  After having moved to the house I wanted to start working as a consultant and wished to have a work room for my professional activities. The garage and the small terrace in front of it seemed to be an ideal place. If I remember right, it was first only the small terrace I wished to convert into a work room. Little by little the idea developed in my mind, we transformed a spare bedroom in our house into an office room and the idea of building something at the place of the garage developed into a separate house with its entrance and maybe even garden.

Several persons where meanwhile participating in developing the idea. Our dear friend Peter who was then building a new house for himself in his olive garden near Rome in Italy shared his ideas. He drew several interesting proposals. He thought we should build a real big house and have room at least for a family with two kids. That is to say, at least four beds.  His solutions where either to lift the roof and have a house in two floors or to move to outside walls and in that way get a bigger surface.

My neighbour, who gets his living by building swimming pools, was absolutely sure that building a house was not interesting as long as we had no swimming pool. So we should first have a swimming pool built and then maybe convert the garage into a pool house and summer kitchen.

But I was thinking about ageing and continuing to live independently in my house in Provence. Therefore I planned to have the garage built into a separate house which would enable to attract later on a friendly woman or younger couple to move next door and help us when needed in shopping, cleaning and everyday care. I had just had my 50th birthday and started to think about how to stay independent and live in my home during the years of old age. Through my work with senior homes, I had become convinced that moving into a senior home was no solution for neither my dear husband nor me. We had to plan in advance how to arrange our lives later on when physical and mental problems might hinder us from getting along completely on our own.