Old stones and wooden beams

I want to point out a curious fact about our house--as you can see from the two photos it is twice the size at the front than at the back! This apparent mystery perfectly illustrates the development and slow alteration these old houses have lived during their long lives
  The building is said locally to have started life as a cognac or eau-de-vie distillery well before the Revolution and must be over 300 years old. It was then probably a single storey building alongside the next-door barn. At some time long ago it was extended and altered by someone relatively wealthy as it has, as you can see, an upstairs with large windows. Most older houses here are single- storey with a `grenier` or grainstore above with tiny windows, which was used to store grain in sacks  secure from mice and moisture.  The mice then must have been a feeble race as the mice of today don`t seem to have much difficulty in ascending stairs, I can tell you!

The house thus consisted of an entree and single room downstairs and two bedrooms above divided by a flimsy partition. That is the part you can see at the back and the lefthand half of the front elevation.
  Possibly at this time the Madame insisted on a separate kitchen,but where to find space? The problem was solved by knocking a door through to the next door barn which must have been in their possession at the time A large oblong kitchen was then walled off from the barn area leaving an L shaped barn , and a grenier with a small window constructed above the kitchen. That is the section you can see on the left of the top photo and the mystery is solved!
  The barn has passed to our neighbor whose house is the grey one to the left of our house, his barn being the grey door on the right in the same pic ( confused?  I`m not surprised.) Our house is thus squeezed in between Adrian`s house and barn and judging what is his roof and which is ours is not easy!  Lucky we get on well.  I`ll tell you some more of our odd house in my next