A Frame Job + Parapet Walls

The living room needs to be cleaned up.

The arch has been proceeding well, but then came to a screeching halt this week. Between Umberto's broken finger, Easter, Pasquetta (Easter Monday), Liberation Day (today) and the fact that Bogden is on vacation, there's been nothing done on it at all. However, prior to this, they were able to accomplish all the steel framing and remove the scaffolding.

Planning the parapet wall

Making progress

All done! Looking into the guest room

Since we had Jimmy, and Umberto is starting to panic about the finish date (which of course we realize fully is at this point completely unrealistic because of a combination of change orders/scope modifications and external events that have affected Umberto's work flow), they did manage to complete the parapet wall replacing the railing above the stairs. Fun note: "parapet" makes more sense when you understand Italian; the word is "parapetto," where "para" = "on one side of" or "next to" and "petto" means chest.

From the dining room

Umberto has also been talking about plaster! Very exciting.

Love,

Alexandra

From the stairs

Hazmat suits and large holes

A new day, something new to see at the house.

Today was the day they REALLY broke the arch open between the family room and the kitchen. We really enjoyed seeing their work earlier in the day. Bogdon explained that because the opening in the (heavy, load-bearing) wall was so wide, we needed not only a girder, but an entire steel frame around the whole thing to spread the load and support it. Such fun! Said frame has been ordered, and may arrive tomorrow.

This morning. Jimmy is our new best friend!

Look at that smile!

This afternoon!

Our afternoon visit was unexpectedly exciting: we were upstairs and heard quite a racket coming from the attic. What could it be?

We found out soon enough when two men in hazmat suits emerged from the attic carrying portions of one of the two water tanks that we'd found in the attic. Come to find out, these tanks had asbestos linings and therefore required remediation. Joy! I had been wondering in the past few days when they would show up for the removal, so I was actually happy to see them. I will admit, though, to finding it rather disconcerting to see the whole suit-up for a few rather small items (in the context of the removals I had heard about through my earlier work)...particularly given that they had to break up the tanks (and I don't know that they used HEPA vacuums afterwards!) before removal just to get them down the stairs.

In any case, they're gone now!

Love,

Alexandra

P.S. We now have Jimmy working with us because sadly Umberto hurt himself yesterday: six stitches and a fractured finger. He didn't let Bogdon tell us yesterday because he didn't want us to worry...

House News...More Destruction...

Since things were going so very well with the house and we were thinking that it was time to start replastering, it was obviously time for a change of gears. Based on Bogdon's recommendation, we decided to open up the abandoned fireplace in our bedroom to create a niche (useful for a bookshelf, chest of drawers, or whatever) and to give us the opportunity to reinforce a section of wall that wasn't impressively robust. Yay! More demolition. Umberto was so excited that within an hour of our having given him the go-ahead, the wall had been knocked out.

One of the corners in the bathroom

How it looks now!

Since that wasn't quite enough fun, we also decided that the ceiling over the final section of staircase (going up to the second floor) was rather low and really needed to be raised. More scaffolding, more demolition, more rubble.

Looking from top of stairs

And, as things seem to come in threes, it was obviously a good plan to enlarge the doorway into the guest room.

Note the bricks supporting the scaffolding

New header in!

When that is finished, Umberto has promised faithfully that they will be starting the large arch!

Love,

Alexandra

Rally! Deruta!

This is either my third or fourth time attending the Deruta rally, and it's always a joy to see my ceramicist pals, meet more, and see the baby cars.

Bonnie, Bob, and their friend Lydia accompanied Michael, Ashley, and me. How did we all cram into the 500, you ask? We didn't: Michael took most of them in the Panda, and Bonnie went with me in the baby car. 

I hadn't seen this green one before

The buildings here are so lovely!

This one isn't mine! But it is very similar

Mine's the blue one on the left

As always, it was great fun to take off to the cacophony of horns and then have a pretty drive through the surrounding countryside, interspersed with villages and their associated spectators!

Love,

Alexandra

Statuesque Piazza

It's been a busy few days, so I've been a bit slow on blogging, but we had the absolute joy of watching the finalization of the statues' erection in the Piazza del Popolo last Friday afternoon. As our friend Bob put it, it was similar to the joy of watching ants crawl around in the grass when he was six years old...

To save you the time of watching it yourself, here are some photos:

Base piece

Getting taller!

The fellow to the right has the crane controls.
The middle man is Pepper's assistant.
The one on the right in the green jacket is doing a documentary.

Love,

Alexandra

Building Walls

Storage area to left

Stairwell in center, upper corridor
to right, girls' room below

Niche-to-be

Additional storage area to right

We have officially entered the constructive phase, and it's just tremendous fun. Bogdon has been working hard on building walls in the attic. Essentially, the attic is created of two rooms with a load-bearing wall between them. We want to use the room nearest the outer wall for Michael's office (it has a view! It has a window!) and the interior room will have the stairwell from the lower floor, as well as storage space. Since the office will have climate control, we wanted to block off the storage space to reduce utility costs, as well as for aesthetic reasons: Michael wouldn't really enjoy working in what feels like a storage unit.

The stairwell (with the upper corridor open to it) is now complete, as is the wall to one of the storage areas. There was previously an opening between the newly-created storage room and Michael's office, which we have closed to create a niche for a printer or whatever.

So exciting!

Love,

Alexandra

Piazza Happenings

We're very excited to announce that there's a major art event in the Piazza that will open on Friday. To be completely frank, it's not because we love the works in question, but because watching the installation is guaranteed to be entertaining.

Beverly Pepper is an American sculptor of some renown who works in metal...LARGE quantities thereof. She created the rather visible pieces outside of Consolazione, and there are also two sculptures on the steps to San Fortunato (which will be moved to a permanent location at La Rocca later on this year).

Building the frames

The big excitement, though, is the arrival of four sculptures that were last displayed in Todi in the 1970s. In order to place these, the city needed to provide the bases, and we were lucky enough to see some of this work today!

Creating the forms

BIG concrete mixer! Concrete is most often mixed by hand
in batches, here, so this is an unusual sight.

I'll update you when the sculptures actually arrive...

Love,

Alexandra