Gites connected to main house

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Le roi de Prusse
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Gites connected to main house

Post by Le roi de Prusse »

Hi. We're considering buying a property and turning part of it into a gite. From your experience does having a gite that is connected to the owner's property put visitors off? In this case a couple of the bedrooms would be over our kitchen & living room. We're wondering if we might be better buying somewhere where the gites are/would be in separate buildings. Thanks, Gideon.
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newtimber
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Re: Gites connected to main house

Post by newtimber »

Le roi de Prusse wrote:Hi. We're considering buying a property and turning part of it into a gite. From your experience does having a gite that is connected to the owner's property put visitors off? In this case a couple of the bedrooms would be over our kitchen & living room. We're wondering if we might be better buying somewhere where the gites are/would be in separate buildings. Thanks, Gideon.
I'd look elsewhere. There is a fire-risk and you'd end up spending a lot of doing the conversion to ensure fire safety and noise insulation.
LotBoy47
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Location: SW France

Post by LotBoy47 »

Personally, I’d not enjoy having guests walking around above the living area in my home.
Ecosse
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Post by Ecosse »

Out of necessity, we lived in our building for the first few years - to give you an idea of size, we were in 45m2 out of the total 300m2, or 3 rooms ('pieces', i.e. not bedrooms) at the back of the house, out of a total of 15. Most of the year we're a b&b, during the winter, we rent the whole chalet out to large groups. As a b&b, it was okay as the guests expected us to be visible, as a chalet, it was a turn-off to guests. Either way round, it wasn't fun for us at all: lots of guest noise, smells from the guests' kitchen and us having to creep around wasn't a great way to live. We still officially live 'in' the building, but in an annex right at the back and the difference to our quality of life is enormous. Guests also enjoy it much more and we have far more repeat (winter) custom since moving out.

So, I would say, it'd be better to look for a place either with separate gite(s) or, where your living quarters are very obviously an annex to the main gite. Good luck with your search!
LotBoy47
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Joined: Thu Jan 31, 2019 12:40 pm
Location: SW France

Post by LotBoy47 »

I wouldn’t share a structure with guests after years of living in a semi where I occasionally heard our neighbours and it drove me nuts.
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