Construction

In living color

After months of back and forth with the Comune, we finally have a color approved! We originally wanted a nice golden yellow that’s prevalent here in Italy. The Comune decreed it must be red, since that was apparently the historical color. After some time thinking about it, we got excited…

No steps forward, no steps back.

We’ve love to give a detailed update on the Palazzo, with great photos, lots of fun stories, and exciting progress. But sadly, there’s not much new to say. Work has been stalled for over a month. The way the project was planned was that we’d front some money that would…

Lots of rubble, no Barney.

Yes, I just made a Flintstones joke. But at least the work on the palazzo is no joke! Just take a look at the inside. The crew has been hard at work stripping the walls down to bare stone. I can only imagine the buckets and buckets of debris they’ve…

Going back and forth about up and down.

We’ve always known we wanted to add an elevator to our palazzo. As we get older, going up and down all those steps could become difficult, not to mention having to drag groceries/etc. up multiple flights. The original plan was to add it to the light well that sits in…

One roof down. Zero to go.

The last time she was in town, Nikko installed a webcam on the outside of our current place, facing the palazzo job site. Every morning, we wake up and check in on whatever exterior progress is happening. Last week, we were told that on Monday the construction company would be…

April showers bring May…scaffolding?

So a bit of catch up. When I was last in Pieve in April, I had to leave without anything more being done than erecting a fence out front. I debated staying longer but really had to get back home. However on my last day, I did run down to…

Is this really happening?

I landed two weeks ago to witness the start of our renovation and was planning to stay a week and a half. The beginning of our renovation is mostly demolition and doesn’t involve that much input from us, so I figured on a short trip to watch the scaffolding go…

It’s all about relationships.

I am an introvert by nature even though I try very hard not to be. I have also been told I am very matter of fact and at times too direct and “all about business”. But I also realize that getting somewhere in life, or in this case getting something…

What can we save?

We’ve barely begun and our remodel has become a huge project. It turns out we have way more seismic work than we anticipated, and that sadly means we’re not able to keep many of the original details that drew us to the palazzo in the first place. The good news…

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