The goal was to fix-up the 2 bedrooms so we could use them in our September holdiday.
First stop after my arival in Rome was Ikea with a shopping list for household utilities. Knifes and forks, pans, bowls etc so i would be able to fix dinner. Ikea wasn't that difficult to find (my TomTom did ) and also in the direction i had to go anyway. With a carload of stuff i arived at Fara San Martino just before midnight.
Next day up early to buy a small refrigiator in Chieti about 45 minutes from the house. It was pretty hot 30-35 degrees (95 F ) so I realy needed one to keep food and drinks cold. The plan is to put it later in the cantina when the kitchen in installed. After carrying the refrigiator into the house I found out that we have about 3 kind of electric outlets in the house I couldnt find one in the kitchen to fit the plug so ended up putting it into the livingroom next to the bed. The perfect setup ofcourse cold beer and wine next to the bed!
We picked out a coulor for the bedrooms in Holland already so that afternoon i drove to Pescara to pick up the deed for the house at the airport office of the realestate company and to buy paint for the bedroom walls and ceiling. Both bedrooms will have a real light yellow sandy coulor.
The masterbedroom wasn't in a too bad condition the plaster was cracked in some places on the ceiling and the walls needed some reparing. Luckily the former owner of the house came by with a friend who turned out to be living in Pensylvania but was over in Fara San Martino for the holidays. His house, the one he was born in, was just about 4 houses down the road. Later that week he introduced me to some more relatives who were are all living in the same street. My italian is still limited to some words so it was handy to have him around. He told the former owner, Vincenzo, what I needed who took me to the local hardware store to buy the wallfiller and also to the ciyt hall to fill in some papers. Vincenzo has been a great help everytime we have seen him.
Because we dont have a kitchen yet I made the dinners on the campinggas they left and did the dishes in the barn in the garden in which we have a sink and water.
In september when we will be there for 3 weeks we will move the campinggas into the barn next to the sink and will do our cooking in there.
Table for one with a view !
After the masterbedroom was all fixed painted and cleaned up I drove by the furniture store to have them deliver the beds and wardrobe.
The second bedroom took some work. The paint was peeling of in a lot of places and it had some big holes in the plaster. Sanding down the whole room would have taken me a couple of days so I decided, since the floor was already what they call rustic, to show some of the plaster and the former layers of paint they had put on the walls over the years. Under the white I found blue and green and the plaster underneath was a real light sandy coulor.
After about 2 days this bedroom was also finished. For the time being I put in the 2 glass cupboards ,left in the house , in the room so we have at least a place to put in clothes when we are there in september.
The woodwork of the shutters and doors still need to be repainted but we will do that next month. The curtains they left turned out to be real nice, all washed and ironed they were ready to put up.
As planned the bedrooms are both ready.
A couple of evenings I started taking of some of the layers of paint in the kitchen, Thick layers of paint, probably from the last 50 years, are hanging loose and come of pretty easy. Underneath I found a real nice stucco, the colour will go real nice with vanilla kitchen we picked out.
This will be our september job. Taking off the layers of paint from the walls and ceiling and putting up tiles where the sink and the cooker will go.
So far all goes as planned, spending time out there and living in the village you realize how stressed our lives are. Its a different world, just going to the hardware store or the bank takes time! Everyone is very helpfull and if that means that the one behind you have to wait 10 minutes thats ok with them nobody gets iritated! Just sit down and enjoy the sun.
Just 3 weeks to go and our italian adventure will continue.
