UNLESS you get into the far more expensive architect-designed houses, modern French houses are mainly built to a format. You can have this design or that design and if you have it, then it is rendered and painted a yellowish-tan.

We didn’t fancy building a new house on The Folly so we have been investigating the possibility of a wooden or log house. Wooden houses seem to be more expensive. We actually looked on one site which featured a number of wooden constructions. What amused me is that under each option you a basket icon and a “proceed to check-out” option, as if you were buying a dvd.

We called in to see a maison en rondins – a house made of big logs. We saw one being erected at the factory. Once it is built, the logs are numbered and then it is taken down, transported to your property and erected. And the price? Well for one similar in size to the wooden chalet we saw the previous week, the cost was around 10,000 euros cheaper and you get transport and construction thrown in. But the price does not include the roof, plumbing, electricity etc.

Although most of Eastern Europe and Scandinavia is made up of wooden dwellings, we were still at a loss to know what exactly one feels like to live in.

Happily, last week we were pointed in the direction of an English couple who live in a two-year-old log house on the other side of our department, The Creuse (Department 23). We found it one afternoon and after dropping a note in their letterbox we received a call and an invitation to view. The owner is a former builder in England and we came across him building an impressive outhouse-cum-garage. He had extended the log house with a stone addition at one end and the quality of the work was also very impressive. So too was the warmth and ambience of a two-storey log-house.

He has invested in geo-thermal heating – in which they drill down some 80 metres and tap into the heat of the earth. So although the initial cost was high, all he pays for with regard to electricity is for the power to work the pump. His under-floor heating and lighting is provided by nature.

We had a score of questions to be answered but he was able to tick every box for us. ”If I won the Euro Lottery tomorrow, I would never live in a stone or brick house again. Wood for me every time,” he said.

They say it takes up to five years for a log house to settle. You have a couple of nuts you have to turn to adjust the roof as the walls settle down, but after the first year or so, the occasional creaking as the timbers make themselves comfortable becomes a rarity.

We were converted and we armed ourselves with graph paper on the way home. In France, as long as the size of your proposed living accommodation is less than 170 square metres, a detailed, neat drawing/plan will suffice. Applying for planning permission is free but if you are over 170 metres with regard to floor area, you need architect’s plans.

However, with a log house 10 metres by 10 metres, the total floor area over two floors is around 165 metres because they only take into account areas where the ceiling is 1.8metres high or more.

This looked like the way to go.