Milestones

Today, Angelo sent those pictures you can say they show milestones in our renovation work:

The flooring of the entrance is done !

I am glad, we found enough original tiles and could avoid a mix with another pattern. However, it was just the right amount of tiles to lay a kind of floral carpet. For the "gap" we added travertine that now looks like a border made on purpose. - When you now enter the main door and go straigth upstairs, you do not pass any dusty renovation area anymore!

The ceiling of the large living space is done!

This ceiling was hell of a work over several weeks that Angelo managed all alone. I only grated off a  few cm2 of old layers of paint with a small special knife to uncover the former fresci. Not much was left to lay bare, but it gives this space the appropriate old palazzo atmosphere. More about the ceiling and its construction in another post.

More milestones: Please have a look at my ABOUT page that I have newly added to the blog. Also I am happy to see that my blog hits this month an all time high visitor record. Thank you!

flooring progress at primo piano and other plans

primo piano corridorio
with entrance to the red bathroom (front left), further kids room and tiny bathroom (far end)

sunshine from the piazza comes in via a small balcony

barrier-free flooring thanks to perfect pavement

the stair rail painted white with refurbished wooden hand grip
stairs are leading down to main entrance (with apricot coloured walls)

Before Angelo left Pizzo to meet us for a skiing holiday in the Swiss Alps he sent me these pics that I just found after our return. He is driving down to Pizzo these days to continue the flooring and painting.

We, husband, son and I, have scheduled our next visit to the South of Italy for April in order to decide on kitchens and other items. Maybe we even have to include a trip to Sicily for the nearest and newest Ikea outlet, opening March 9 in Catania. It's a 3 hours drive "only". (So far the next Ikea is located in Bari, a 4 1/2 hours drive). However, we probably could find everything we need in the region between Vibo Valentia, Filadelfia, Maida and Lamezia. But still, Ikea is known for fair quality and good prices and if they deliver to our door step, we consider buying mattresses, kitchen parts and other items there.

every floor with different flooring - and where flooring is needed

Flooring, another subject to talk about. We have some areas finished, not sure how many % of the house (Angelo?, I guess less than 50%). To get an overview, I invite you to follow me through the house from the attic to the basement, since this is the chronological order of the renovation. Everything that needs decision is in red:

Attic:
attic living and kitchen area: white large oak wood panels 

the new stairways of the attic (new layout!): travertine steps


Primo Piano:
Remember the layout inquiry? We have decided to lay the large wooden panels (natural oak) in the above way (changing directions in the corridor between the two bedrooms)

natural oak panels for the corridor and two bedrooms in the second floor

restored and polished old original tiles in our master bedroom

restored old original tiles in the soggiorno

the stairways going down towards the piano terra (ground or first floor)
we use same material as before: travertine

Piano Terra:

small entrance, floor is prepared, but tiles are not chosen yet

creative idea for the flooring of the entrance by Angelo:
using up some old original tiles, leftovers from the now master bath and son's room

DRAFT: it is supposed to look a bit like a "carpet"

Unfortunately we only have a few of the first geometric pattern and would fill the behind area with the floral pattern. We might need a border of terra cotta tiles or wooden panels framing this "carpet".

small entrance from above -  new pattern by Angelo forming big white and red crosses
 
same old tiles used in different room differently

Sorry for the bad picture (above), it's the only I have from the former room where these tiles were used before. Here they are tiled in a different pattern. However, we were told that it is not the right way, it should tiled like in the previous picture in the entrance, a pattern that shows large crosses. Not sure who is right or if there are any rules at all. I prefer the above flooring, although I only see that it is a more calm and small pattern. - Any suggestion, experience from my readers ??

For a better understanding of the piano terra see the floor plan below. We have the small entrance in the middle and an "entrance room" on the left that leads to the living area.

old floor plan of ground floor (kitchen is bigger and bath has been moved)

I think to decide on the flooring, we need to think about our "routing" through the house.

We will not only pass this entrance when coming or leaving home through the main door. We will need to pass this entrance when coming down from the upper sleeping area to the living and dining area and kitchen on the ground floor - and back again. So, my thinking was, that the flooring of the entrance should "connect" the different areas. It is not a common entrance that leads to different apartments. It is a small entrance that belongs to an entire unit. That's why I am hesitating about Angelo's  idea of using the old tiles here. How about using terra cotta tiles on these few square meters and the same in the next room, that is our so called "entrance room", the room that leads to the living room ? In other words: Should above purple area gets same flooring? If yes, what to do with the old beautiful left over tiles? - Or two separate flooring?

The living and dining area will get a wooden floor. We just love the warmer touch of wood. The floor screed (Estrich) is ready:

view from living room over dining area to kitchen at the end

The next open point is: do we continue the parquet into the kitchen? If not, where do we stop? Or is a border of tiles around the working area enough?

Corridor between kitchen and bathroom: we have different possibilities: wood like in dining area, tiles like in the entrance (or tiles like maybe in the kitchen).

Semiinterrato:


stairways towards the guest apartment

This is an almost five year old picture, the stairs look still the same, but the walls are already done. The stairs might get the same travertine steps like all the other stairs. Not sure, if Angelo already ordered material here.

in the basement walls are done, but not the floors

the guest appartment with garden access and sea view - it will look so much better soon!

For the guest apartment in the semiinterrato, souterrain or basement, we plan a wooden parquet of large natural oak panels (from the same source like our neighbour?). Although we have to fight humidity, we thought that there are enough stones already on the wall that tiles are not an option. Also, terra cotta tiles would have the same problem with the humidity from below. Anyway, Angelo has a special construction in mind, a ventilation system, that he can better explain than me. When we come to this floor, I will post drawings and photos with more details. 

In this post I skipped the five bathroom floors, they are all tiled differently, but I wrote about this before. In case you would like to see more, follow the labels: bathroom, flooring, tiles and Before & After.

Please send me your suggestion, solution, experience, inspiration via comment below or via email to writing.suzie AT yahoo.com THANK YOU !

The Welcoming Entrance

After having written a lot about visitors - real visitors, virtual visitors, booked visitors, future visitors - just-in-time, the entrance starts to look welcoming :

view from inside

view from outside

BEFORE stairways

NOW stairways (wooden railway still missing)

BEFORE ceiling

AFTER ceiling

Actually, the first pinkish paint became somehow an apricot, peachy Bellini colour - not sure if this is due to a second coat of paint, on purpose by Angelo, or that it has to do with light / photo flashes. - BTW, the lamp will remain the same, remember?


BEFORE entrance

NOW entrance (during renovation)

man at work - Tonino preparing the last new marble step

progress in the stairway: stucco repair and new lamp

The BEFORE situation

Angelo had set up a scaffold and decided to repair the stucco of the ceiling in the stairway of the first floor (primo piano) by himslef, paint the ceiling and walls and hang the lamp he and his wife have found on a flea market near Venice.


during repair

after Angelo's artistic job !

during repair
(here he bought a similar piece of stucco and adjusted it)

and after Angelo's artistic job !
(actually, I cannot see that something is not original)

the beautiful ceiling after repair and paint - wow !
(who's father or father-in-law is able to do that ?!?!)

and here comes the above mentioned lamp - an antique flea market find 

the only thing, that I have to do with this luster, is that I have chosen the location for it
(not sure if you remember my posts about the small 'original' lamp that I wanted to keep in the main entrance, here and here)

this is the picture I have received today:
the scaffolding is gone and a second lamp is mounted on a wall in the background.
I cannot wait to see the walls and rail painted and the wooden rail handle mounted !
It looks now much more liveable!

This is the other lamp - again not my choice, but a good choice - it's a simple round Murano glass wall lamp. It hangs in the stairway that leads to the attic. The wooden panels above the lamp is from the flooring. It will be used as a small path. More about the attic coming soon.