Home Improvements in Italy

In this episode we chat about our experience with home improvements with our own little house here in Italy - what we did ourselves, what work we had done, what we learned and what we screwed up. 

From gas to plumbing to electric to walls (building and tearing down) to installing furniture and appliances and solar panels, we've done a bit of everything. 

It's a good topic for anyone thinking about buying and fixing up a place in another country.

You'll also learn our favorite expletive to describe situations that start out terribly but end up better than you had initially imagined - we coined the word ourselves!

Want to know more about us and our travel services? Find us at: 

www.LittleRoadsEurope.com

www.facebook.com/LittleRoadsEurope

We craft small-town driving itineraries for travelers to Italy, Ireland and Scotland.

And our "alter-egos" as musicians:

www.OrsiniVirtuosi.it

Transcript

HOME IMPROVEMENTS IN ITALY podcast notes

Note: This is not a complete transcript, but rather the show notes we write in advance to prepare for the episode. 

INTRO: 

Welcome to Little Roads Unfiltered: Italy and Beyond

Today we’re talking about our experience here in Italy with home renovations…

Among other things, you’ll hear about…:

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[music up then down to 20%]

This is Matt Walker          …and I’m Zeneba Bowers - 

We’re recording while sitting on the terrace of our tiny home in Italy - so you’ll get a sense of the sounds of life in our little town - complete with ecc ecc ecc

“ … we’ll be talking about renovations in Italy in today’s chat - here on Little Roads Unfiltered: Italy and Beyond.”

[Music up then fade out]

For those of you who don’t know us: We are professional musicians and also travel writers and consultants, living and working here in Italy for the past 6 years. 

If you want to learn more about us and our lives, you can find us on our website LittleRoadsEurope..com, on our socials, and of course here on our podcast.

…and by the way, we hope you like our intro music - Matt arranged it, and we recorded it right here in our house! Since we’re musicians working here in Italy, we thought that would be a fun and sensible addition to our show.

So let’s get to talking about home imporovements…

A lot of people have in mind the idea of buying a place in Italy and fixing it up, and that is totally doable - obviously, we did it! - but important to have realistic expectations. 

I think this entire episode could have been titled “Don’t Assume”, since nearly every problem we have had came from us making assumptions when we knew… well, less than we should have.

First: had to get electric and water put back on. Luckily for us our realtor did that for us, even though he didn’t make much money on our transaction. The house only cost 26K! But he organized all that, which was a godsend.

Also, good to know that you would have to have access to the dump, legally.  Marco got us in until our paperwork came through, but you have to be a resident and have the proof to get into the dump. At that time in our lives it was the most exclusive club in town!

Typical in Italian real estate to have the previous owner’s stuff left behind. OR, it could be that they leave absolutely nothing, including any appliances or even lightswitch covers. BARE

In our case, we had everything. EVERYTHING, like expired jars of peaches and a toilet brush that had apparently been used for over 50 years.

Initially the place was divided into three rooms(sort of), really grim and dark. 

Wall came down, we didn’t even recognize the space. That actually turned out great, but at first we were shocked that every single wall was gone.NOT what we intended, but it was misunderstanding/miscommunication 

[They also had to put in new big wood beam]

Speaking of beams : Wood beams in attic - guy ended up scraping dust down everywhere

This situation is something we coined a term for: Fuckertunity. (define)

We actually put that in our book, when we wrote about the next situation:

One of the first things was to get heat. Had the stufa delivered, idea of a nice wood fire, with a bread oven on top. I had visions of me, 30 years from now, with Mrs Santa Claus buns in my hair, baking homemade bread over wood that you collected up in the birch forest. 

Luckily that never came to pass because there is nowhere to put wood anyway! I don’t know what we were thinking. 

Stufa was delivered completely broken, glass and ceramic pieces everywhere. 

Courier refused to come back, we had to shovel it into our rental car, well over 250 pounds

We left it on the corner, then someone stole it! So lucky. City would have charged us with illegal dumping.

Got a new stufa, from LOCAL place. THIS is why they say to buy local. Never would have delivered something broken. And if there had been a problem, they would just walk back to our house from their shop to fix it.

One job we really wanted to get done but can’t is solar panels. This is definitely a “don’t assume”  moment. If you have any projects you want to do, ask your realtor and contractor about any local laws that might make it not possible. We can’t have solar panels because we are within 150 meters of the historic town center, even though you could not see the panels from the town center.

Another example of that was painting the porch, had to ask neighbors

“Happy Hiller club”: tried to do that here, but it was unheard of. People will come if there is an emergency, but it is really hard to get anyone to come for a small job. Can wait months or years. So it is a good idea to have a roster of electricians, plumbers, so you can call several people.

That brings us to our big project: not a renovation per se, but it had elements of renovation - dust, drilling into wall (to move electric), ecc.

Local guy designed, local craftsmen/carpenters at shop in Montefiascone

Local custom work is more affordable than you think 

Hired guy to dismantle and haul away old stuff

10 foot high ceilings, step ladder

Evacuated house w cats for 3 nights for work to be done

Friday 13th return planned

Had to extend 1 day because of miscommunication about painting - tons of dust, would have been disaster to try to be there 

We were lucky to be able to do that (turned it into research trip in Bolsena, we talked about on our March wrap up episode)

Overall lesson is: Don’t assume things, either that it’s like in your home country, or that the workers have read your mind - lots of differences

Write down goals/dreams 

OUTRO: 

I think that’s a good place to wrap it up here - we hope you enjoyed joining us for our chat about renovations in Italy !

If you enjoyed what you’ve heard, please give us a like or a good rating on your favorite platform, and tell your friends about us… 

And don’t forget our ASK US ANYTHING

We talk about a wide variety of topics here on this podcast, from travel tips to slice-of-life stories - we post a new episode every Tuesday. 

So catch us next time - we’ll see you down the Little Roads… CIAO!