The Guest Residence is coming along

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The guest residence - as we do call our seminterrato with the high vaulted stone ceilings - is coming along. It is a very charming apartment with private garden terrace and stunning sea views. And it is ready to be tested:
Palazzo Pizzo Guest Residence
Who will do the test sleep on the new mattress ?
And who will test the rain shower under the vaulted ceiling with sea view?

For sure, we will test the gas stove and brew a coffee ... 
 ... and test the morning sun in the garden – and there we might notice, that a garden chair or stone bench is still missing.

We came a long, long way!

vaulted cellar before renovation, August 2006

Before and After, compare these photographs! - Stunning!
This is mainly Angelo's work, my father-in-law, who was working here hundreds of hours. How he preserved the stone walls and ceilings, how he elevated and insulated the floor, what special techniques and material he used, needs to be posted in another story.
But now, since everything is so pretty (and after another repaint of the walls), CC and I would love to welcome guests. We would like to host not only friends and family but also travelers who are looking for some peaceful days in a small sea side village to rest from their travels.
So this is my new project, to find out how to implement accommodation availability checks on my blog and credit card payments. In the meantime, if you are interested to become a test sleeper between July 7 and July 28, please contact me via email at writing(dot)suzie(at)yahoo(dot)com and check what can be arranged.
For further information go to Guest Residence Page or read the about the renovation.
more pics:


























How to rent out a holiday home

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"How to rent out a holiday home?", I asked myself just recently.

Although we bought the "palazzo" already five years ago, I never really thought about "HOW" to rent it out. When I re-organized my blog a little bit by putting up "pages" (the taps below the headline), I called one page as "Guest Residence". Aha! Yes, I would love to share our little gem with visitors! But how to find the interested traveler? Online?

A friend recommended me to look at a cottage in Southern France. They rent out via VRBO. Aha!

A few google keywords and a bit of surfing later, I found the following:
  1. VRBO.com - Vacation Rental By Owner - aims mainly towards the US market, 7 rentals were available in Calabria, 2 of them in Pizzo.
  2. Ownersdirect.co.uk - aims more to UK and Canadian customers with half of the rentals in Canada and only 818 in Europe, mainly in Italy (470), thereof 152 in Southern Italy, thereof only 3 in Calabria, however none in Pizzo.
  3. HomeAway holiday-rentals.co.uk - is mainly focusing on UK costumers with 16,724 self-catering holiday homes in Italy, in Calabria there are 116 rentals registered, thereof 8 rentals in Pizzo.

After that analysis, I know less than before.

I have more readers from the US than from the UK, but would more traveler from the US come to visit Calabria than from the UK? - From several UK airports and even from Toronto, Canada there are direct flights to Lamezia, which is only 20 minutes drive from our holiday home. Pizzo gets lots of visitors from the UK.

I have not yet inquired the fees of the different sites, which will not make a big difference, I guess. But the VRBO site looks most appealing to me, I have to admit.

Have you ever rented a holiday home? How did you find it? What was your experience? Which rental portal would you consider? Your comments are very much appreciated! Grazie mille!

Thanks for reading until here! I will share this French cottage finds. I downloaded these photos just to show my family, how beautiful a rental can (or should?!) look:

What a beautiful guest bedroom!
I can't believe that someone makes a rental sooo nice!
But I think this is what we need to do!

Another bathroom with a natural stone wall - and the cast iron bathtub looks just like ours!

Angelo, CC, please note, a simple clothes rack can do! I like that!

Last but not least, the kitchen:
Simple country style BUT with stunning stainless steel appliances!
And a wrought iron gate that leads to a garden - we have that too!

Love that cottage!!! Great renovation work, complimenti ! It's located in South of France and renovated by a family based in Seattle. The cottage and its village are featured in a blog called Stephmodo by Stephanie. She not only writes about practical and pretty things, but also has filed the renovation project of "La Maisonette", which can be rented via VRBO here or via the link on her blog.

photo source: Stephmodo
 
 
Remark:
All three platforms mentioned above are owned by homeaway.com and were acquisted in 2006 and 2007)
Update May 2013:
Our Guest Residence is ready for rent! If you plan to visit Calabria in the South of Italy, you should include our lovely village Pizzo! The best time to visit is May-September. But April and October can be very pleasant too. If you like to spent here a few more days, maybe you want to stay with us? Please contact me directly for availability and price at writing.Suzie(at)yahoo.com.
 
Update October 2013:
After more research and my own first experiences with holiday lettings, I wrote these posts:
HOW to rent out your house or vacation property - or should I open a B&B?
WHY renting out your holiday home - Six good reasons!

Before and After: Basement with Balcony

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Our house has a basement, that we call our seminterrato, which means "half under earth" or souterrain. Our seminterrato, however, is very special: On one part it is really underground, carved into the rock, on the other side it has fantastic 180 degree see view 54 meter above sea level! And it has access to a small garden with a lemon tree, a fig tree, a bougainvilleas and some cacti. It did not have a balcony though. But this has changed. Angelo is always good for surprises. Now we have a balcony in our basement. It is a balcony for two people with shoe size 40 or so.... but look the transformation from before with no balcony and rusty wrought iron balustrade to after with small balkony and restored balustrade in blue (!) :

BEFORE in August 2006

in between in 2009
(...) 


iron rail painted blue

balcony railing moved further out to obtain a small balcony above the new haven

Angelo demonstrating the use of the new balcony

I am saving this post to a new label "guest residence". Our basement is beautiful, it is my favorite part of the house (actually, I cannot decide which floor I like best, they are all amazing). But since the house is too big for us alone it makes sense to rent our part of it. The only part that can perfectly be separated from the rest of the house is the seminterrato. It has its own entrance. It will have two bedrooms, a bathroom with sea view, a pantry kitchen with balcony and a garden. I already envy my guest... ha ha! Of course we also have one guestroom upstairs, but this can only be used for family and friends while the guest apartment can be rented out to vacationer spending some time in Pizzo.

At the moment we are working on the insulation of the floor and walls and will post new pictures soon. 
Meanwhile you can find more about the progress of the guest residence or seminterrato here.