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a "still lifes" photo by Angelo

This is Angelo's bike in front of our main entrance door. Apparently he drive his bike every morning from Vibo Marina to Pizzo, about 4 km along the coast (is the coastal road open again?). The above photo he sent to me with the message that the door is almost finished. The only thing that is missing are the borchie ("deco nails") for the lower part.

What we did today

Pizzo weather today:
20 degrees Celsius (in the shadow), calm sea, Stromboli view

This was a beautiful moment:

Seeing our son playing with his friend from the neighbourhood - on our terrace for the first time - it felt like we finally live here ! Although it is not the case yet. So, while kids were playing, others were working...

Inside CC was grinding the beams (travi) to prepare them for the paint job

I was making sure to order the right quantity - and the right size of tiles (6,5 cm x 25 cm) by drawing the pattern with crayons on the wall (I opted against 12,5 cm x 25 cm, which looked too much like bricks).

And : I decided on the hight: 1,20 on the wall with the sink and max. 1,30 on the wall with the toilet flush push botton. (for internal use: 6,45 m2, Ricordi, bianco Capri, finitura lucida, d'Agostino)

Outside, others tried to clean the facade from some spots with a high-pressure cleaner.

Some minor kids scribbles were scratched away and Angelo wanted to repair it with colored plaster

Angelo at work.

I discovered that this time a I have a wide angle camera to shot the entire house in one picture ! And while making more pictures I scented some lovely fresh and sweet fragrance in the air....

 

... I looked up and saw this orange in neighbours garden right above me. The flower of the orange tree does not only look like Jasmine it also scented similar to Jasmine. What a lovely surprise this morning !

More oranges in neighbour's garden

See, while others were working I was taking pictures.

In the afternoon, we drove to Vibo to place the orders for the first bathroom - finally. And when arriving in the shop, CC stumbled over a Bisazza mosaic sample - that we added to our order spontanously (just to have some colour over the sink) - and CC almost ordered a tourquis colour because he liked the first picture in my flickr set (see last post) that much ! (I sent him the link last night) I am pretty lucky with CC's taste !

Stairway : luster

Remember the discussion in my last post about where to hang the old and the new luster ? The old small lamp that we got with the house should hang again - like shown in the photo below - in our small entrance.

For the new luster I got a new idea ... please follow me upstairs :

 

Yes, just some more steps and we arrive at the primo piano, the 1st floor (BE) or 2nd floor (AE), where the space opens up a bit :

Here (above) you see some people happily together discovering the house (in August 2006), me on the left with our son.

And here we could hang the new luster.

The actual lighting would be replaced and the new luster could have a better effect here than downstairs at the piano terra, ground floor (BE) or 1st floor (AE). 

But how does this new lamp look like that my parents-in-law got from a fleamarket in the Veneto region ? I have only very poor photos, sorry, my mistake, did not set the right modus for the camera. So two blur pics :

It does look a bit better in reality.

To show from the outside of the house the two different areas of the stairways where we could hang the old and the new luster, I have prepared this photo :

Although the main door seems impressive, the main entrance really is a small area. The stairs starts almost right away. But upstairs the stairway widens up and leads to three spacious rooms and to small stairs that leads to the mansard and roof terrace.

As you are here to see the progress of our Italian renovation project, (me too BTW !) I will post before and after pics of the balcony of the stairways and the facade of the primo piano :

BEFORE

AFTER

Italian way of how to use Bamboo shades on balconies

I do love that balcony with that shade ! I posted it before when I was musing about how to handle the sun with inside window shutters and difficult curtain situation. In Italy do like the Italians do. So I looked around and found all these bamboo shades on balconies. You have shade and air at the same time. You can look out but no one can look in. It is a pretty and very affordable solution.



Even the inhabitants of the nicest palazzi in town use this solution. The lower floor (above pic) with the white shutters show exactly my situation.



You can roll the shades up and down easily - like interior blinds.


And even the more shabby houses are having them ...



And the charming houses ...


In this palazzo one inhabitant is using a bamboo shade and his above neighbour is using a fabric shade. I definately prefer the bamboo shade.


For those who want to see another fabric alternative. Not bad either.


As you can guess, I am a fan of bamboo shades. How could I not, after having lived 8 years in Asia ?!

All above pictures were taken in Pizzo (VV).
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Long awaited latest photos

I am excited and proud to present these actual long awaited photos of the facade : (see also previous before & after pictures)

Our house is too big or the piazza in front is too small, that I cannot take a single picture of the entire palazzo ! - (I have the wrong camera / objective).
We restored the whole facade starting with colored plaster.
The two fake windows were restored (originally only one was elaborated).
All windows and window frames were replaced (we have painted white wooden frames on the inside and aluminium with brown wooden finish on the outside for the sea climate).

All window grids of the ground floor are newly made after our input. The balcony rails of the first floor were just repainted in black (before they were white).

Did you know that we are so close to the church, chiesa del Carmine ? Don't worry, the bells will not ring at 7 am.

The blue details below the balcony were an idea of our architetto, who said that the original facade had these blue elements.

The doors, we have three of them, were delivered last Monday and just finalised yesterday with all accessories including the original mail box cover. I do remember collecting all these pictures of doors to choose the right design. Then we decided one, but I cannot remember which one. - Here is the drawing from this blog's archive - oh, the nails are missing ! - Who cares, the result is great ! We like them all.

However, we have not been asked about the door knobs. But luckily we have been on site to choose the position for the knobs.

- original mail box -

For friendly mail only !

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