Our building works have taken until the end if this week to complete. I have finally started decorating for Christmas...
Above: the lounge room with a glass vase of christmas balls and lights
Above: the dining room with glass vases of christmas balls and lights
Above: the kitchen with a pine bough wreath, ribbon and christmas balls
Above: our crib on the ledge in the lounge room
Above: our midget Santa on his way
The more we looked at the beautiful job that the builder has done on the inside of the house, the more worried we became that we wouldn't do justice to it when we laid the flooring. The downstairs rooms have stone walls (no smooth plaster) which posed a challenge in terms of edging the flooring. The builder offered to lay the flooring for us at a reasonable cost so we have taken him up on it. And this has proved to be a good decision. First, he cut a groove all along the stone wall, into which he inserted the flooring, allowing half a centimetre for expansion in summer. This is something we definitely wouldn't have thought of or been able to do. Once the lounge room was finished, he moved on to the dining room. And that's where things got a little difficult. Most of you will know that we have been constantly challenged by our pipes. Pipes carry everything into and out of the house including water, gas, electricity, heating, sewerage. When we purchased the house in 2009 the pipes and cement slab had already been laid and no schematic was available. So we have been "discovering" our pipes ever since. This week the builder discovered another one by jackhammering through it. Suddenly, a fountain of hot steamy water flowed into the dining room. The builder gaped at me silently before thrusting his trowel into the hole to stem the flow. I yelled at Stu to turn the water off. Stu ran around the back of the house and turned everything off, including the well pump, the radiator pumps, the caldaia, etc. There followed a phone call to our long suffering plumber who came quickly to view the problem, then promptly went to lunch (well, this IS Italy after all...). He returned after lunch to fix it but the builder's day had been ruined by the wet floor which put a stop to his flooring activities. He will return this week to finish the job.
Above: the dust created in the lounge by cutting the groove along the base of the stone walls (note: the kitchen bench is reflected in the glass of the door through which this photo was taken!)
Above: the flooring cutting workshop
Above: the beginning of the floor in the lounge room
Above: the floor in the lounge room finished (background) and our plumber fixing the pipe in the dining room
While we have been in Switzerland this week, the builder resumed work on the roof. When we arrived home, we found that he had finished the re-setting of tiles on the first roof completely. Over the next two days he worked on the second roof, installing the corrugated fibro sheeting, re-setting the tiles and building the wooden surround under the eaves. I have been delivering their coffee to them on the roof...
Above: installing the corrugated sheeting before re-setting the tiles
Above: the new wood surround under the eaves
The builder moved onto the roof project a couple of weeks ago. He only stayed on it for a day before the snow arrived. There are two aspects to this project. One roof needs the tiles to be re-set as they have slipped under the weight of snow in recent winters. The other roof needs a corrugated fibro sheeting to be installed under the tiles, the tiles to be re-set and a wooden surround to be built under the eaves. The builders started on the re-setting of tiles first. They installed a steel bar just above the guttering, then tied the guttering to this bar. They also cleaned the guttering of its heavy load of dirt, moss and and leaves. This has been causing waterfalls at particular points around the house when it rains. Then they placed each tile on a z-shaped hook that spaces them properly and ensures that they will never slip again. Our roof will now behave like a northern European roof like those in countries with heavy snowfall such as Germany or Switzerland. It also looks beautifully Italian.
Above: the steel bar, hooks and tiles in place
Yesterday we walked into our local street market to stock up on fruit, veges, cheeses and smallgoods. On the bridge across the river we found this little spiders web covered in frost...a true work of art...
We travelled back from Switzerland via Milano and Torino. Torino is my second favourite city in the world. It is historical, classy, elegant and very regal. The sun was setting as we were walking through the city and we were treated to another spectacular sunset.
We left the builder with keys and free run of the house this week while we took off on a long-planned and all-important trip to Zurich. In order to change registration of the car from Switzerland to Italy, we needed to have ownership papers verified by the Strassenverkehrsamt and the Italian Consulate in Zurich. We left home at 6am on a crisp and clear day that afforded us great views of the alps. We arrived in Zurich at noon (although the trip should take 4 hours, we hadn't counted on the peak hour traffic around Milano!) After parking the car in Zurich city, we checked into our hotel, grabbed our papers and headed straight over to do our business. By 3pm we were finished and free to head down memory lane. We had lived in Zurich for 3 wonderful years and the city is without doubt my favourite city in the world. It is at its most beautiful at Christmas when its streets are filled with markets, music and food. And just when we thought it couldn't get any better, we were treated to a pink sunset reflected off the old town and an evening illuminated by Christmas lights in the Bahnhofstrasse.
Our little driveway has suffered some trauma of late. Between the rain, snow and all the heavy loads of equipment and materials associated with the building projects, it is a little "soupy". This is not a good sign going into winter, when moisture will not evaporate and ice threatens. So, once the building projects are finished, we will take wheelbarrow and trailer loads of our demolition rubble down the driveway to fill the "soupy" parts. This will ensure that the car can make it up any ice on the last little rise to the house and that the area around the house remains stable.
During the last few weeks we have been in a constant state of amazement. We are utterly flabbergasted at the capability and resourcefulness of our Italian builders. I am frequently reminded of comments from my childhood about Italians who emigrated to Australia in the 1950s. They were often tradesmen who had a reputation for being able to do anything and being fazed at nothing, for finding nothing impossible and using great resourcefulness. That is how our experience with these builders has been. Our house is accessed by a 1km one-lane gravel/dirt track that was at first sloshy from rain then iced up by snow. At the house there is a very small turnaround area and I always worry about the size of vehicles coming in and whether or not they will be able to turn without getting bogged. The builder has a small truck which manoeuvres "on a two cent coin" and also has a load tipper. He adapts to whatever he finds on his worksite. We have found him making good use of our temporary lighting, hoses, shovels, brooms, rocks, bricks, etc. Our hose, which didn't have a connector end for attachments, has suddenly got one. The branches of the huge wisteria vine that grows along the front of the house were cut or parted to enable a small lifting mechanism to be installed on the terrazza. This was used to raise wheelbarrows of cement to the first floor. For the staircase voltini job, they moved 500 bricks and rubble from the demolition in the space of 1 hour, then raised sand in countless bucketloads on ropes for the construction of the voltini. We have such massive respect for them and find ourselves constantly asking how an Australian might handle such inconvenience and heavy manual labour...
My rustic kitchen gives me licence to hang things...
Above: salame
Above: rosmarino, timo, salvia
My bread-maker has "given up the ghost" after many years of service. In the last week my loaves had started to shrink and solidify which I couldn't understand. I would put it on, then go outside to clean bricks so I was not aware that it was struggling. However I finally caught it doing a "stop and start" thing. The pathetic specimen below is my final loaf. Since bread making is a critical aspect of our lifestyle here, we replaced the machine immediately with one that has a larger capacity.
Above: the shortest and most solid bread I have ever made (see size compared to coffee cup)
Above: the new machine which does larger loaves
Sandro welded the runners for the new staircase today. As with everything he does, they are fixed into the stone wall and very sturdy. He is welding in the library room upstairs on which he recently floated a smooth cement floor above the new voltini in the loungeroom. The Italian power system means that every time he welds, our lights flicker. He had intended doing a full day today but left before lunch because it had snowed for several hours and he was worried about getting out of the valley and over the hills to return home. Before he left, he re-installed the ladder for us to access the first floor...as well as a bannister to hold onto!
Above: the ladder staircase complete with bannister
Above: me about to demonstrate correct use of the ladder staircase
Above: the wooden tread and steel balustrade for the new stairs
Above: the stairs going, going, gone
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