House Progress

There are so many things going on, it can be hard to keep track (and to find time to document them in writing!). Here are some snapshots from the past few days:

Drywall in Michael's office

Drywall in the attic space/hall outside the box rooms

More of Michael's office

We're converting the column (required to
hide the vent stacks) into a bookshelf

Bogdan redid the doorway outside our bedroom

New stucco on the terrace

Beginning of the end for the ugly external staircase, plus new stucco

Travertine sills on the bunny wall

Starting to hide the vent stacks in the girls' room

Temporary treads for the interior staircase

Beginning the tile next to the bunny wall

Tile next to the bunny wall...finished

And today, Florence and I went to Alessandro's workshop to check out the bookcase for the library. When I say "bookcase", it doesn't come even close to describing the structure that he's creating. Bear in mind that the ceilings are over 3 1/4 meters high here. He is justly proud of his creation. It's not yet stained or finished in any way, and is nonetheless spectacular.

With Florence, for scale

It's hard to show how massive this thing is!

Close-up of one section. He bookended the burled wood beautifully

One section of cabinet fronts.
The bottom part of the pilaster will have
carved motifs that echo the 19th-century fireplace mantel

Meanwhile, Roberto Baglioni (another Todi acquaintance) is
handcarving the capitals and the other details

Love,

Alexandra

Happenings Around Town

It's hard to keep track of everything that's going on, and we don't get to a fraction of the events. However, I try to snap photos to keep a record of some of the things we do attend or happen to stumble across, depending.

Here's a brief rundown of some of those things:
The first note is a sad one: Umberto's father died yesterday, so we attended the funeral today in Casemasce, a collection of houses about 20 minutes from Todi. The church was full to beyond overflowing, meaning those who didn't want to hang out in the doorway gave up and just stood outside the church in the scattered shaded areas. The church, however, is very typical of small town churches in the area. I find them quite lovely:

This shot was taken after everyone had left to walk to the cemetery

Last night, there was a modern dance exhibition at the "Nido dell'Aquila"..."the Eagle's Nest," which is a former convent with a lovely view over the valley. While the view was somewhat limited (if you weren't in the front row, you wouldn't see the footwork, and when the dancers went down on the ground, you couldn't see a thing), it was nonetheless a delightful occasion to enjoy a beautiful corner of the city. Afterwards, Nadia (on the left in the group photo) and her family hosted a heavy hors d'oeuvres dinner, called an "apericena" from "aperitivi" and "cena" (dinner).

On another day recently, we happened across the fashion show put on by the local design school. One of the high schools here prepares students for professional work in fashion, including dress designing and other similar work. They had the opportunity to compete/show off their year's project.

Nadia (mentioned above) and her family have been preparing a delightful new outdoor seating area in their palazzo's courtyard. Fabrizio (Nadia's husband) has made lovely tables, some with chessboards, and various decorations. I think it has turned out beautifully, and can't wait to eat in the new space!

And last, but not least, I thought we should remember how cute our bunnies are. Here's Maxwell, busily checking out the contents of my shopping basket.

Love,

Alexandra

New "Spot"

A lot of English words are taken and used in Italian, but end up meaning slightly different things. In Italian, a "spot" means a filmed advertisement. A week or two ago, Todi was the site of a new "spot" for beer, and numerous locals were roped in as extras. It was such fun to see the (slight) modifications made in order to provide the right atmosphere.

Pretty sure these were for real eating, rather
than filmed.

One of the local grocery stores

 

Pianegiani was also used, but I didn't take a photo as I was zipping through.

Love,

Alexandra

Tiles and other news

Clear view

Kids' bathroom

Moving in new thresholds

This week, the focus has definitely been on tiling. We have Franco coming every day, and so far, he has succeeded in completing two bathrooms (including the grout) and one other bathroom plus bedroom (no grouting).

Cleaning up the terrace

Another step forward is the window trim painting, courtesy of Enrico, which will allow Umberto to continue with the finishing of the mortar where it abuts the trim. He hasn't made enormous progress yet, because he's doing a primer coat plus two main coats (as in, he's doing it well!), but I think he's done the primer coat on most windows and has completed the first coat on a few windows. He's also continuing to work in the shop to get the frames ready for installation.

Repoured landing

The guest room was done
by the end of the day,
 as well as the bathroom (not visible)

Bogdan has been working on the lower landing on the upper staircase (our new one that leads into the attic). Since we have an inconveniently-placed but nonetheless fabulous fireplace, we needed to find a way to meet a lot of goals: have a staircase that's inviting to the occupants, have a fireproofed area in front of the fireplace (we're doing wood flooring in this part of the house), and not take up too much room in what will be a rather small space. In the end, we have elected to build a platform that acts as the final step into the room, and Bogdan has been busily working on its construction.

New landing

Franco at work

Bogdan has also been doing odd jobs like cleaning off the balcony, including the eyesore of a satellite dish. It's amazing how much a "little" thing impedes the view. We're so happy to have that gone! He's also poured a new subfloor on one of the small landings, to prepare it for tiling.

Master bath

In other words, a lot of changes in a short time. The pace is expected to accelerate, though, so we're trying to document as much as possible during our thrice-daily visits.

Love,

Alexandra

Trash Talk

There's a new waste-collection initiative in Todi that we're having to learn. Up until now, there have been various (marked) bins for separating your personal trash dotted here and there throughout the town. The bins were all emptied every day, and essentially it centralized pickup for the trash collectors.

In an effort to increase recycling and (we think?) accountability, the system has completely changed. Each family (FAMILY, no matter the size: from 1 to infinity) is issued one compost bin and one undifferentiated bin plus a key to locked centralized recyclables containers (glass, plastic, paper, batteries). We have twice-a-week compost pickup (scheduled for early morning on Tuesday and Friday) and once-weekly undifferentiated pickup. The size of the bins might surprise you:

The gray is undifferentiated, the browns are compost

Because we have two bunnies whose litter boxes must be emptied (and I'm paying for a family of seven in our trash taxes, for heaven's sake!), I went and begged for an extra compost bin. We'll see if it's enough capacity.

Here's the interesting thing, though: every plastic (EVERY plastic) goes into the recycling. We're talking milk containers (not just bottles, but the laminated cardboard/foil "bricks"), magazine wrappers, medicine bubbles, you name it. This alone, of course, greatly reduces our undifferentiated load. That said, the trash collectors are serious about it: the first day of our undifferentiated collection, they ripped open our bag and refused to take it because it contained "compost" (the collection from our sink basket after washing dishes and some ant-infested items James had mistakenly placed in the bag) and plastic (some lightweight food wrappers). Citizens be warned: if you want your trash removed, it had better be only trash!

A couple of thoughts on that, though: we're supposed to put "dirty" paper in the trash; are they going to open up bags to ascertain whether the paper is dirty enough? Also, the compost removal is rather poorly timed, since it's the same day as "fish day": we have our disappearing fish shop that comes Tuesday and Friday, meaning the earliest we'd be ready for compost removal of that sort would be Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. In reality, we have to wait until the third day after fish day...we're a little worried about the stench come the third day. The simple solution is to put that in the fridge, but remember that fridges here are small! Another comment: they have gone from a centralized system by which they can remove the garbage often to a decentralized (door to door) pickup that they can only manage much more infrequently since the pickups take much longer.

As one could imagine, there is much consternation. We are taking the "let's wait and see" approach, since we welcome the discussion of environmental damage and would like to see more attention paid to the amount of waste individuals are creating.

Love,

Alexandra