What: A restored barn for parties, a playhouse in the trees, a converted loft to maximise sleeping capacity, a tepee for the more outdoorsy and a spacious kitchen for serving up meals for all these people.

Where: Les Cirettes, near the village of Larroque, near Toulouse, France.

Materials:   Stone cobbles (barn), salvaged oak beams (loft conversion), woven rattan (tree-house).

Budget:  Euro 50,000 (barn), Euro 60,000 (kitchen), Euro 50, 000 (loft conversion), Euro 1,500 tree-house.

People: A mixture of local professional builders, family and friends between the ages of 2 and 60.

How the children helped: Dry-stone walling, shuttering for arch, laid cobbles, dragging tepee poles from the woods, raising the poles, hammering floor boards in their playhouse, weaving the walls.

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