Restoration Diary

[Di]

Hi all,
Well, our trip to Santa Domenica was wonderful. A big part of the wonderful was the great work done on our casa. Although it's not yet done, we still had a magical time staying at the Cohens, meeting people, and getting to know Santa Domenica. We ended our 10 day stay in the lower apartment (which is, as they say, livable). The restoration is taking place in the upper apartment, the lower will be DIY. We also picked out lighting and I did some color tests on the walls.

Doug has sent many of you these pictures but I shall fulfill my promise and post them here. Check out the latest--(I notice I'm in almost all of these pictures--you can tell I'm not the photographer):

[Doug]

Continuing,
What Di meant was Stuart bet us the place would not be complete when we arrived! But it was a great opportunity for us to interact directly with the contractor Angelo. They were at a point where some very specific decisions about tile in all rooms were needed, and translations back and forth across 7000 miles would have been tough. We can only dump so much responsibility on Tony's back

They are working now on two more exterior walls. We expanded the amount of outside wall repair after purchasing the lower apartment. The kitchen and bath installations will likely not occur until after the August holiday when the suppliers at Sarrubi Casa Si and others are closed. Angelo's crew does not take the holiday, so the wall painting and exterior walls should be completed and ready for the final installs in September. Maybe the windows and doors will show in August too as they come from a woodshop in Papasidero...not clear if this is owned by Angelo, or if it's his brother.

Bottom line, we are very pleased with the looks and quality of work we are getting from the Santa Domenica crew. I confess that the homemade salami that Angelo gave us got seized by customs agents in Newark after a contraband beagle sniffed-out the baggage and trapped us smugglers.

[Di]

Hi all you Restoration Fans,

Sure wish I knew what our casa looks like right now, but pictures have been few and far between since our July visit. If there are any of you out there wanting a little trip to Santa Domenica, any photos of 12 Via Capella would be appreciated. Just 54 steps down from the Piazza. Ok, I'm going a bit crazy not being there, but I guess that's how I dream...

[Niamh]

Hi Di,
Know how you feel.......we saw some photos of our Casa about a month ago and are expecting some more any day now. The tiling was to start the end of August so we are very excited looking forward to seeing how that is looking. It is fairly torturous not being able to be there......can only dream. Wouldn't it be so nice to be able to pop in for a look now and again. Worse for you I know as you are so much further away. We will be back in SDT at the end of October. Counting the days........If we get the opportunity we might be able to take some photos for you. When do you plan on being back next?
We were having some thoughts on making a trip at Christmas. Looks like we could get fairly cheap flights into Rome. It would seem a shame not to make use of the time off work. Will have to decide soon before the prices go up.
Anyway Ciao for now
Dream on..............
Niamh

[Di]

Thanks Niamh,

We have our tickets for Christmas but Doug may have to make the "sacrifice" to come either earlier or stay later to meet our furniture. Your place will be such a gorgeous transformation, too. Thanks for the support!!

[Di]

Hi All,
It's been awhile since I've contibuted here. We have been busy selling the farm and moving (some furniture to Italy, too). There are a few more pictures to continue the story. Doug is going to meet our furniture in November so I'm counting on lots more of the interior then. Progress was made with doors and windows:

[Italy4me]

Fabulous!
I love your front door.
Hope to catch up with Doug when he is over.
Well done.
Best wishes, Lesley

[Doug]

Gee, since I'm here, I'd better update Di's thread. And I'll be catching up with Lesley and Brian in about 3 hours!

This old house is looking beautiful. I slept on a mattress just feet from the stove to keep warm .... it takes awhile to warm the 18 inch walls. Sleeping here also alerted me to a very noisy chimney (ciminiera rumorosa) structure that needs replacing.

Everything is nearly complete. There were lights placed in the wrong spot that need correcting, the kitchen faucet (rubinetto) is too tall and won't allow the window to open, so must be replaced. The gas water heater works great and the stufa heating stove is trying hard to warm things. It does produce more moisture that must be addressed with fresh air later. Funny that a guy from Sarrubi was here yesterday hooking up the oven and stove (cooker and hob to you I think?) Well, he never bothered to check things when he was done wiring, so the electrics part of the oven and hob are not working....no spark to the gas, no juice to the elements below!

But there's always domani. At least I hope it gets fixed today, and the furniture is supposed to arrive Monday. I'll share photos with Di and she'll share with you.

Ciao,

[elgian]

Ciao a tutti;

glad to see you made it, Doug. By the sound of it, the weather must be already quite cold. We'll be setting sails in another two weeks but we haven't bought any heaters yet so, guess what our first job is going to be, the minute we set foot in Scalea.

Also, I assume your Internet connection is wireless via either modem/router or cell phone. So, mind if I ask you which ISP (Tim, Wind, Vodafone, 3Italia) you've selected and what tariff?

... was here yesterday hooking up the oven and stove (cooker and hob to you I think?) Well, he never bothered to check things when he was done wiring, so the electrics part of the oven and hob are not working....no spark to the gas, no juice to the elements below!

Yah! I've seen that before ... I call it student syndrome. You give them a deadline for an assignment or a report or a thesis, and they start working on it the day before the deadline! In this case, the guy was just a day late.

ciao

[Doug]

Hey Gian,
It turns out they mount additional wall switches in the kitchen that control power to the cooker in addition to the breakers. Old dog still learning some tricks.

The gas heater we bought is ventless and this place is extremely air tight with the walls and new windows. Hence, both the stove and my brain stopped working from oxygen deficiency. Crack the window and give the little fella some air, and it fires up. House is now 18 inside and I bought an electric heater to augment things. We WILL buy a new vented stove when we can afford to. This one might be good for the basement.

I got an Alice Maxxi 100 account for the wireless internet thru TIM. I opted for this with 24 hr coverage and 100 hours of use for 20 euros. 128 kb card which has been fast enough to send Di photos. The little modem they sell for this is 139 euro. There's a 400 hour version for 35 euro. This morning the internet was dead but the phone still worked and I feared big problems. It cleared up in a couple hours and I'm in business again. Di hasn't posted anything here yet. Let me show you my little nest in front of the stufa. You can see more blankets would be nice.

Ciao,

[Lynn]

Hi Doug, you sound as if you have become a medern pioneer; blazing trails in the wilds of Calabria. Sounds like you are doing a great job. Sorry we'll miss you in December. We get there on 10th. Give our love to Di.

Lynn

[Doug]

Good day,
Lynn, I would not call me a pioneer, but a daft American floundering about Calabria! So daft, I've been up since 4:00 cleaning the floors. The marble now has a nice patina I'll have you know. Just in time for the movers to trash everything.

I'm done whining about gas stoves and will eventually replace this with the Swedish Jotul that we wanted all along and that is vented to the outside. Anyone wanna buy a cute little heating stove to suck the air from your house?:mrgreen:

Part of the story to this diary is that Di and I are now 7000 miles apart dealing with things. No problema...until our American mobile phone service went belly-up yesterday for some reason. Email works and my work phone works, but I probably should not charge personal international calls to the American taxpayers (unless they voted for McCain).

The remodel problem now is the silly kitchen faucet (rubinetto). The nice one we ordered interferes with the nearby window, so we need a shorter one. I brought one back from Sarrubi and it was weak. Bought another at the hardware in San Nicolla, and it was so weak even Angelo called it brutto. So today, he and I are headed to Crusco and ?? to find a rubinetto and do battle for a new stufa di gas. Trying to minimize my reliance on Tony and others, I've got 3 pages of prepared Italian phrases to get my points across.

The plumbing is doing well. The tankless gas water heater is great and offered an easy 20 minute, full heat shower to warm me when the place was cold. The old fashioned toilet that I have envied for years (seeing them in movies) requires more adjustment. Flushing the thing fully would blow someone off the seat, so there is a string inside to adjust how much water is released per flush. Another daft American notion?

I'm off with Angelo Oliva in a little while and I cannot say enough good about the man and his craftsmen. He is a joy to work with and their work is top shelf. I think Howard and Jan Wilkerson are liking his work on their place down the hill from here. And hey, how often do you get an embrace and double cheek kiss from a contractor. I love this place and the people. No room here to tell you about the 3 course home cooked meal I got from the neighbors yesterday. Gioseppina "whipped it up" in an hour after attending church. Incredible.

Be well and do good things,

[Niamh]

Hi Doug,
Sounds like you are keeping busy. Certainly getting lots done.
Like Elgian we haven't bought any heaters yet either and it sounds like they will be badly needed. The open fire probably won't do the job beautiful as it may look.
Would move the bed down to the sitting room only it had to be cut in two and welded back together to get it into the bedroom in the first place so it's going nowhere !!!!
Got some photos this morning of our kitchen (so far) and the stonework on the fireplace and feature wall. Looks really great. Very happy with it all.
Only another 4 weeks to see it for real.
Best of luck with the furniture delivery - hope that all goes well.
Take care and stay warm !
Niamh

[Doug]

Hi Niamh,
I had an experience yesterday at Crusco in Grisolia where we bought all the tile, but also this gas stove. I've showed them websites (Italian) that have the larger, vented Jotul stove we originally wanted, but the response was "we don't have gas stoves in Calabria, only wood and pellet". So if we choose to replace this in the future, we'll go around stubborn Calabrese and buy it elsewhere to ship down. It's just ironic that someone spent a lot of money installing all the new gas mains here and local equipment suppliers don't want to take advantage and sell new appliances. We too are stubborn because a good gas stove is just as attractive and has the warm radiant heat of a wood stove -- without the mess.

I should say that every other service we had from Crusco was great. Our tile and bath fixtures are good from them.

Furniture may or may not arrive Wednesday now.

A welded bed? I love your new exterior. I may go snooping thru the windows today for interior views when I am at Jan and Howard's place just down the street from you. Sounds like we'll all be here at xmas. See you both then I hope. We'll be back in-country December 20th

Doug

[Doug]

Aye,
Another post in the same day. Well, crisis lurkes at every home improvement project right? Had just finished a shower when I heard a water line break in the utility room. A fitting on the washroom sink faucet. No folks out at 7:15 to see me dash out in a towel to the main water cutoff. Flooding was contained to the entryway. Had it happened when I was away???

Good news is the plumber was coming today anyway. Here's the odd news. The local plumber (who I know) walked into the police station yesterday where I was chatting with the local constable. The cop asked the plumber if he had met me yet and Gigi proceeded to rattle off my address here, my full name, home town address and city of birth -- all from the passport. I asked if he was with Carabinieri, MI-6 or the CIA and he chuckled about some document. Tell me how a plumber in small little Italian town has memorized all that about me? Can one of you ask Agatha Christie to stop by please. Well I intend to put Gigi (il idraulico) on the spot for his work installing the valve I hope for no more diary entries like this.

Doug

[Niamh]

Great story Doug. Just amazing the plumber knowing all that detail. Just hope everyone isn't as well informed - only joking.
Great you got your tiling sorted out and fingers crossed for tomorrows furniture delivery.
Feel free to have a look around our place if you are down that way - no problem.
Sounding good for Christmas - the more bodies around "the merrier".
Ciao
Niamh

[claire tudge]

Originally Posted by Doug

Hey Gian,
It turns out they mount additional wall switches in the kitchen that control power to the cooker in addition to the breakers. Old dog still learning some tricks.

The gas heater we bought is ventless and this place is extremely air tight with the walls and new windows. Hence, both the stove and my brain stopped working from oxygen deficiency. Crack the window and give the little fella some air, and it fires up. House is now 18 inside and I bought an electric heater to augment things. We WILL buy a new vented stove when we can afford to. This one might be good for the basement.

I got an Alice Maxxi 100 account for the wireless internet thru TIM. I opted for this with 24 hr coverage and 100 hours of use for 20 euros. 128 kb card which has been fast enough to send Di photos. The little modem they sell for this is 139 euro. There's a 400 hour version for 35 euro. This morning the internet was dead but the phone still worked and I feared big problems. It cleared up in a couple hours and I'm in business again. Di hasn't posted anything here yet. Let me show you my little nest in front of the stufa. You can see more blankets would be nice.

Ciao,

Place looks amazing, would love to renovate one of these properties but finances tight with the exchange rates etc but something to do in the future, well done you

[Doug]

This is supposed to be about remodeling, not eating, but here goes. I had a nice late dinner in Scalea last night with a group and got home to SDT at 1115. Late, but still early enough for a snack of humble pie. Ya know how those Italian entry door locks work? Once closed, you must have a key from the outside? Yeah, yeah I sure did forget my key. The closest was with Angelo and it would be rude (brutta figura) to show up at his place in Papasidero at midnight begging for a key. Fortunately Jan and Howard were at the same dinner and I knew they'd be awake and I bummed a warm bed. Come se dice grovel in Italiano?

I'm usually careful with the key but there will now ALWAYS be a hidden key somewhere when we are in-country.

Today or tomorrow will see repairs on the blown water faucet, final placement of lights, fans and kitchen faucet. I'm doing a test to the dishwasher too. Why a dishwasher? We were in a rush when ordering all the components and I surely would rather have more cabinet space than a washer. Too late now. We could always not use it for washing, but storage?! The living room wall vents to aid the gas stove air supply will come soon and I'm meeting Peter Flynn today to show him how to fire things up 3 days before we come back later this month so the house will be warm. The water faucet had a faulty connecting nipple that was cracked when installed and a couple of days under pressure blew it out. At home I would point to shoddy metal from China, but this is Italian-made. Have I insulted enough countries?

And the shipment of our belongings -- they promise me the glitch with the American steamship company was dealt with and our container in Naples is released and should be delivered tomorrow. I don't hold my breath, but maybe we're nearing then end of the wait. I don't dare change the airline and car hire schedules until I get confirmation.

Doug

[Margaret]

Hi Doug - was glad to read your experience with the key - having done it twice! You only have to step outside and forget to block the door and that's it. Wonder why the locks don't have a way of 'fixing' them. My solution is to carry the key on tape round my neck - with it only coming off in bed, sea and shower! Bit like a 5-year old with gloves on elastic!
Interesting that your 'resume' is so well known - Hmmm!
Cheers

[Italy4me]

Reliable sources inform me that a container wagon has been spotted in SDT this morning so looks like Doug is having a busy day today 8-)).