Last year I went especially to visit a well-known restoration yard. They specialise in old fireplaces, fountains and stone architectural elements.
It’s a 3 hour each-way drive from my town, but I’d seen some fantastic things on their website and considered the long journey well worth the effort. You get an idea of what these things should be like from the pictures, but there’s nothing like actually seeing the article up close and being able to touch it!

The outside area adjacent to the old living room where the fig tree grows used to house a large separate boiler room which I’ve knocked down. There was also a small terrace. There’ll be no use for old boilers and fuel tanks in the new scheme of things, so as the roof was about to fall in, I demolished it. The uses of the rooms are going to change on the ground floor, so the room that used to be the sitting room will now become the kitchen and dining room. As this new space is just beside it, I can knock some nice wide openings in the wall and access this new terrace. It can be lengthened towards the front of the house, and will then give access to the garden areas, which don’t exist at present.

This new ‘fountain’ terrace will be so-called as I want to rebuild a lovely old wall fountain that I found at that reclamation yard.

I don’t really like the Medici stone urn plopped on the top, but that can be removed and put somewhere else in the garden.
The fountain is completely original from the Var region, over 2m wide and 1.6m deep. It’s 1.63m high without the urn. The margins are nice and wide so that the guests can sit at the fountain. I love the shape of the shoulders and the fine sculpted ornamentation around the pilaster. Its proportions are just right for the size of the new terrace too. I just need to add my koi carp……..

I’ve removed the urn in this photo.