Herve Even puts down a mortar-spattered trowel and steps out into the warm Breton sunshine for a well-earned break. All morning he has patiently been teaching a group of dedicated amateurs the right way to flick lime-based plaster onto the inside walls of a 150-year-old granite-built Breton farmhouse nestled among the wheat fields in the hills overlooking the picturesque seaside town of Saint Lunaire.

It is a time consuming process that requires just the right gestures to ensure the lime-plaster sticks to the walls and can then be smoothed over to give the desired finish. But time is something Even, a qualified builder who works as a trainer with a not-for profit group called Tiez-Breiz, does not seem particularly worried about. « I’ve been running these kinds of workshops for over 25 years, » he explained, « and what I always tell people at the beginning of a session is that it’s urgent to do nothing. »

Brittany, with its hundreds of kilometers of wild coastline, in recent years has emerged as a favorite area for overseas buyers to snap up a second home or take the plunge and move to France permanently. Britons top the list of overseas investors and old granite buildings like the Saint Lunaire farmhouse Even is helping to renovate are a favorite purchase. In 2005, the last year for which it has figures, the regional economic studies center, the Cellule Economique de Bretagne, said 2,186 Breton buildings were sold to British buyers out of a total of just under 3,000 bought by overseas house hunters. German investors proved the next biggest market, with 115 houses bought.
 
Unlike some local groups, Tiez Breiz says it welcomes this influx of overseas buyers. « The Brits are renovating houses that would have fallen into ruin otherwise, we have quite a few British members and we have published leaflets in both English and German, » said group coordinator Mickael Delagree.

Tiez Briez is open to private individuals and professional builders interested in learning old construction techniques. Aside from the lime plastering that Even is demonstrating today, the group also runs weekend courses that, among other things, teach people how to make beaten earth walls, lay terra cotta floors without using cement-based mortars, or even how to build a traditional bread oven.

But for all of the workshops he runs, Even has one never-changing message: don’t rush into things. « You need to understand the building you want to work on, » he explained, adding that all old buildings are different and that construction techniques ideal for some will only cause headaches with others. « These renovations can take a long time, it is a real choice to want to work in this way. I know people who have taken two years just to undo bad building jobs done by previous owners, » he said.

Tiez Breiz was set up over 30 years ago and in that time has seen its membership swell from around 30 to today’s figure of around 900. Even says the group’s popularity is clear evidence that more and more people are interested in discovering building techniques that eschew modern obsessions with cement and plasterboard.

« When we first started out we were considered quite unconventional, but today I’ve been to trade fairs where more people are interested in finding out about the sorts of techniques we teach than the modern methods, » he said. Even argues that a rising awareness of the ecological advantages of using local materials where possible has fed interest in old building techniques.

« Our ancestors were eco-builders because they had to be. They could only use local materials. But now people are actively asking for these kinds of techniques. I know builders around here who do about 90 percent of their business using traditional methods, » he says.

One of the characteristics of Tiez Breiz workshops is that they are always held on real building sites owned by members of the group. The house in Saint Lunaire, for example, belongs to Dominique Cutuli and his wife, who are hoping to convert part of their farmhouse into a rural hostel known as a gite.

« It has certainly helped me to progress with the work, » Cutuli says during a copious communal lunch he and his wife have laid on for the dozen or so hungry trainee builders who have each paid around 70 euros ($95) to take part in the two-day session. Most of the people taking part in the Saint Lunaire session have an old house they are trying to renovate.

« I have an old wall at home that I want to re-plaster using lime-plaster and I can’t find a builder to do it, so I thought why not learn how to do it myself? » explained Brigitte Plassard, who lives two-and-a-half hours drive away, near the western Brittany city of Brest.

Plassard said the techniques had seemed hard at first but that she had now got the hang of things. « But this is something you had to learn on a building site. It would never have worked in a classroom, » she added. Forty-year-old Stephane Coat, who recently retired as a submariner in the French navy, has come along as he wants to renovate an old building he has bought, also in western Brittany. « I keep bees so I need more space and I have the time now so I thought, why not? » he explained.

Marie-Pierre Hollacou, who is at the training weekend with her husband Hubert, is a Tiez Breiz old hand. « This is my third training session. We have a house we have been renovating for seven years and the group has really taught us some important lessons, » she said. « We have learnt that with old buildings you can’t always do what you want, you have to take the time to understand your building, » she explained.

With interest in the group growing all the time, Even seems confident he will be running weekends like the Saint Lunaire course for many years yet. « When I started out we used to have to cancel one session out of two, because not enough people signed up. Now more often than not we are running extra courses. I’m very optimistic, » he said, picking up his trowel and heading back indoors.  Damp lime-plaster waits for no man. – AFP