La Scala in Todi

"Scala" means staircase, and today, our scala arrived!!! We are so excited!

It arrived high up on Umberto's truck, which meant that it had to be lowered into the truck bed before moving it through the portone.

Then, strapped to the winch and raised carefully:

With much consternation, they decided it needed to be rotated onto its side to get it through the opening in the scaffolding

And in!

The second piece was much easier:

Then came lots of measuring before attempting to mount it. There were a few panicked minutes where I saw frantic measuring, physical counting of the actual steps, calculations on phones and mental math. I offered what I thought might resolve the problem: "Um, the final step up is the floor level of the attic!" Hurray! They were much happier and could proceed joyfully from there.

First step of said joyful work: drill holes in the wall to attach the steps permanently to the house.

Lower attachment points

Upper attachment points

Time to try putting it together!

At one point, there were 6 people working on hefting this sucker around

A little spot welding, and voilà!

From the library

From the girls' room

Other updates:

The window in the upper hallway has been (mostly) opened. The plaster work is essentially done. The wall in the guest bathroom is pointed and the ceiling in the guest bathroom has been regrouted. Various bits and bobs have been removed (lots of cleanup!) and the windowsill in the bathroom has been raised.

Such excitement!

Alexandra

The arch is up! And so is the intonaco (mostly)

Today's exciting update is that the arch was completed around 5 today. I didn't stay for the final infill, because I had other things to get done, but it was clear that it would happen so that the intonacisti could come tomorrow and finish off that patch of wall. Apart from that section (and I assume the wall on the other side, in the living room), the first pass at the intonaco has been completed. They're coming tomorrow for those bits and to grade the remainder (I think mostly knocking off the bits that aren't smooth enough for the final coat), then they'll be there on Monday for the white topcoat. So much fun!

Part of Michael's office

A nice storage area for Michael!

Our bedroom!

Intonaco in progress in our bedroom

Done for now!

I don't know what Umberto's next steps are, but he has been talking about the massetto...the subfloor...so maybe? That would be a huge advance.

Love,

Alexandra

Overarching Goals + Intonaco

The house was a hive of activity today: we had Umberto, Bogdan (I finally asked him how he spells his name!) and Jimmy working on the arch, and we had no fewer than 6 people working on the intonaco. I don't really know how to describe intonaco other than plaster? Stucco? It's an interior finish surface that consists of a lower, cementitious layer that bonds to the stone walls and an upper layer (composition tbd, but I'm told it's white, meaning I expect that it's plaster-based) that is perfectly (we hope!) smooth and ready for painting.

By the end of the day, the three had finished one of the arch's columns up to the capital, and the second just to the base of the capital. Tomorrow will see the arch finished, I think! So exciting.

The intonacisti have done the lower cementitious layer on nearly the entire space, with the exception of the living room, final portions of the dining room, the attic spaces, and other small sections. They expect to be finished with this phase tomorrow afternoon (or possibly Thursday morning, since they have to use a special mix for our bedroom).

The intonaco is fascinating to watch. Essentially, they have a little mixer outside with a grating on top divided by a jagged baffle. They break the bags onto the jagged baffle, and the cementitious mix falls through the grating and into the mixer. The mix is then combined with water (I assume there's a hose hookup, but I haven't inspected carefully enough to declare that with complete certainty), and pumped via a hose slightly larger than a garden hose to the final destination. The mix is squirted onto the walls like toothpaste (toothpaste under pressure, that is), and then smoothed after a few minutes using enormous floats. The workers started by coating the walls only up to their working height without scaffolding, then let the concrete cure. After that, they erected scaffolding to finish the job.

Love,

Alexandra

Another archery competition!

A few weekends ago, Todi hosted another archery competition. Sadly, it started the day after Florence left...and she would have loved it! Michael and I spent quite a bit of time wandering around taking photos of some of the targets for her.

This was chosen by die roll

Instructions for the target

The archers really outdid themselves this year. They had a target which you had to shoot from automated rocking horses. They had targets at the back of a plywood army (which was gorgeous, by the way). They had snails rocketing across a garden via a (strong) spring. There was one for which the roll of a die chose the actual target. All very creative and entertaining, and definitely not your grandpa's bullseye.

Market!

We loved the graphic on this!

The animal targets were beautifully placed
in woodland/natural settings

This one was really complicated as far as what got points and what didn't

You had to shoot THROUGH the heart-shaped opening to hit the target behind

This is a never-open chapel next to the high school

 

The horses moved back and forth while the archers were shooting

Capped off by flag wavers and drummers!
The fellow in the center was one of Jeremy's classmates in middle school
and is a darling.

Love,

Alexandra