Back from Italy

I am back from Italy.

And I am starring at my blog and don't know what to write.

At least I want to write something interesting with some pictures.
But this is the problem.
The pictures.
I took hundreds of pictures, hundreds of landscape pictures, hundreds of family pictures and of course some pictures of the house.
My husband downloaded them to an external hard drive. And that's now not accessible. Not readable. Broken, or whatever.

I can't believe that all is gone. I still have hope that some magic IT guy will do some magic moves and *magic* all the pictures are back.

So in the meantime, I can give you a 'black & white' update:

I survived a month holiday with my Italian MIL. Actually, it was really nice. We have been a big Italian family - nine family members in peak times. And even more when friends were invited for dinner.

But you will ask, what about the palazzo?!
The house, the house... August is a holiday month, and so the workers left for holiday shortly after my arrival. They should be back today.

There was not that much progress in the past months. Two of the four workers had been working on another project (an Irish couple became new pizzitani, citizen of Pizzo, at least for the summer time).

However we met the architetto and met with the hydraulico and the electicista. The marmorista was also seen on site one day. The guy who is supposed to deliver the windows was on holiday as well, but we heard that the windows are ready. The doors are not finalized. Meaning that the wooden doors are not designed or decided. However the internal metal bodies of the doors were already mounted.

We made some decisions on the lighting of the seminterrato (basement). And I was measuring the six bathrooms to be able to make decisions on sinks and shower plates.

In the last days I was a regular visitor at Duravit & co (see my bath links on the blog roll). And I found out with my sister - while observing our kids playing in the sand box - that we have common interests in supergliss and softclose that can be ordered for Starck 3 toilets.

And some very pleasant news from Pizzo.
We met new neighbours!
They have been living in the same street for a year now and we met thanks to my blog. They bought a former furniture warehouse that was located in the seminterrato of a plazzo with same sea views from the same rock as ours. They used to work with another architect. And I was really impressed how they changed the dark warehouse space into a modern but cosy Mediterranean open space loft style apartment.

It was great and helpful to get some hints for our renovation. E.g. instead of terracotta tiles as flooring they use oak panels, everywhere, including the entrance, kitchen and bathrooms. And they painted walls with bold colours, in the kitchen and the bathrooms instead of using tiles.

That's enough for today. I will be back with more 'black&white' posts, or I will have to use some flickr pics for a change.

The Renovation of the Facade goes on and on and on


Some might wonder about the progress of the renovation work.
Is the house livable yet?
No!
We have not continued with the interior.
They are still working on the front facade - since a couple of months... on hourly rate... (please don't comment on this).

Here, part of the photo documentation sent via mail from Italy over the last couple of weeks:

Repair of the 'stones look'.

Renovation of the window frames including new window sills.

Balcony beam reconstruction (first, they were too short like shown here in the pic).

Water access (forgot why here)

New stone plates will be added.

* * *
I will be visiting the site tomorrow.
However, I will not have Internet access for a couple of days.
Happy holidays!
Until soon.

Update

Hello Everyone,

this blog is a bit on hold because of Chinese internet censorship. As most of you know, we are temporarly living in China. And although blogger and blogspot is blocked and unblocked here all the time, I never faced difficulties to find a way around the Firewall. This time, it was a bit different.

When you read this here, it is because I found free proxy servers like blogspotproxy.com or websurf.cn - that not only allow me to access blogs that are hosted by blogger, blogspot or typepad, but also to sign in my blog and publish a post. I am online, I am writing, but I cannot upload images.

But there are no attractive images to share at the moment anyway. The restauration of the main facade has started and continues. Angelo, my father-in-law and chief rennovation inspector has got a more attractive assignment and has left the site for now. However, he is still supervising the work via photo-report by emails sent by the architect.

I hope to be back soon with some colourful pictures.
Thanks for not giving up on this blog!
** I will be back!! **

Update from the Project

Hello again.
Me too, I have been waiting for a new post.
But I was not in the mood.
The last 10 days were about payments and money transfers and increasing workmen prices that need to be discussed. The financial things really bring me down, back to reality. The project is so romantic and fascinating - until it comes to the payday. Yes, we run out of money - and in order to continue and to pay open invoices, I needed to transfer some of my 'pension fund' (what reminded me of my blogger friend's situation last year in Marrakesh). Of course, nobody gets a free renovation. Even if you do it yourself, you need to buy material and equipment.
I am not going to lament any further. But I wanted to mention it because some people apparently tend to think that we are a cash cow or crazy rich people.
We are not.

Now, it is time to post some nice impressions from the project.
This morning I got another beautiful picture via email from Angelo. It is 'our' wild fig bush growing near the fence over the abyss. We will have some figs to harvest this year.



This is our garden (above) with the growing lemon tree on the right. We got some new plants. Not in the garden but on the 3 square meters behind the fence. It is still our property but too close and too dangerously hanging over the abyss to be part of the garden.

There is the long awaited Bougainvillea plant with beautiful fuchsia blossoms. There are one or two Bird of Paradise plants. One jasmine plant. Several types of agave and cacti. Also some herbs, thyme and rosemary are planted near the fence to be reached easily when needed for cooking. So far I have not figured out all the new plants.

And now, please guess who was planting all these plants behind the fence over the abyss - it was raining before, and it goes down 54 meters - guess who ??!!

My mother-in-law!

I want to state here that I did not knew about her plan before and that I kind of disapproved it afterwards. What if she would have slip? Although sitting here in China, I would have felt responsible. Thank god she is doing fine. Look at her, our stylish gardener: jacket, jewellery, lipstick...

Before and After: Seaside Facade

The patient before in 2006 - a little cleansing and colour is necessary:


And voila, after the treatment in 2008:


Well ... it's a new face ... I have to get used to it ... it might take a while. Not sure if I like the blue over the windows. Maybe a bit too much colour for an old lady? Hmm, the pinkish rouge before was suiting her very well... also the grey balustrade had charm. I guess, this is how you feel after a beauty surgery: is it still me?

While restoring they found blue colour over the windows and the architetto thought to use it again. If we don't like it, we could overpaint it. We agreed. Only now, I see the result, but the scaffolding is gone... How funny!


Update photo 2009:

 
 
--------------------------------
More Facade Before & After posts:
 
 
See all renovation posts BEFORE and AFTER.