La Cucina : Die Küche :-)

Dear Reader,

One week to go and finally the kitchen arrived!!

And not just that: We also managed to get electricity in the house, the terrace and balcony have been partly assembled, most doors are placed and several refinement works have been completed :-) :-) :-)

There is still much to do, in particular we don't have any bathroom ready yet (!!) and neither water no heating system are working!!

But hey, we still have five days to go!! ;-)

So first, here a few pictures of our new kitchen!!!! :-) :-) :-)

Here details of the ash wood cabinets...

And here in the evening, when we brought the first light in the house!! ;-)

The kitchen is a Lube Agnese, colour Camelia, with cinnamon quartz worktop :-)  I already love it and can't wait to start backing and cooking as soon as we're settled!! I also find the colours fit perfectly with the walls, windows, and floor. The whole room just feel soooo cosy and warm and ready to welcome friends and quality family time!!! ;-)

More pictures will hopefully follow in the next days, but first it's time for us to focus on packing and cleaning and moving and unpacking...

So much to do!! And of course with the best possible timing a cold caught Holger and me these days...!!! Aber was soll's...Kopf hoch and let's get the job done!

Write to you soon,
take care till then,
Ele

Il camino!! The first fire...

Dear Reader

this weekend has been quite intense and our house experienced a huge new step forward: we built our fireplace and for the first time we could have warmth and welcoming fire at our place!!

A fireplace or stove was a great wish of ours and a priority for the house ;-) After a long search our choice fell on an Italian wood stove from a company that has accompanied my childhood and youth: Palazzetti. :-) Open fireplaces, stoves, chéminées...in my family there has always been a Palazzetti (or two!!) to warm up cold winter evenings and bring light to Christmas Eve nights ;-)

To save on the budget we chose a model that would not require brick or stonwork, so that we could assemble the whole thing ourselves - with the help of some good friends! :-)

Despite the ca. 260kg of stove to move around, the whole process worked nicely and smoothely, and on Saturday evening we could enjoy our first fire - and start heating up the otherwise ice-cold house!!!!!

The most heavy part of our stove (130kg) - arrived at home safely thanks to Daniel's readiness to help and delicate touch with its excavator!! :-) 

Holger and its father did then a great job assembling the stove like professionals in a few hours!!!

 

And before dinner we could finally light our first fire!!!! :-) :-) :-) Il nostro primo fuoco!!!! 

Even a simple polystyrene block feels like a cosy couch with a well-placed fire!!!! :-) :-) And for the first time, we could enjoy our living room...

The stove works great and we could raise the temperature in the ground floor from nearly zero to an almost comfortable level ;-) We still have to paint the pedestal (right now it still looks greenish from the priming we gave) but the stove already fits the room very nicely. And best of all, we got a solid 15kw fireplace with plenty of place to admire the flames (from everywhere in the ground floor) and that we could assemble ourselves!! Sooooo proud of my men!!!! :-) :-) :-)

So, one more step done. No matter what, we're not going to freeze over in two weeks time... ;-) which is already a lot to say, given that we're still missing electricity...!!!

Have a good, warm night dear reader,
Ele

New Stairs: Le scale sono arrivate!!! Die Treppe sind da!!

Two weeks to go and today we could finally climb again up to our first floor: the stairs have been assembled!!

And what stairs they are!! Simply gorgeous, we couldn't stop staring at them and walking up and down to test their usability ;-) ;-) ;-)

Here for you a few pictures from today and yesterday, taken during the assembling process... the first takes on the stairs, from the cellar up to the first floor!! :-)

Even the workers were enthusiastic about the final result :-) and we're enthralled... the stairs are beautifully handcrafted, feel solid and look feathery light at the same time :-) just lovely!!

Time to go to bed dear Reader, the forelast week of house-building is almost starting, and we're every day more excited!!

Write to you soon,
have a good night,
Ele

Farben, Colori, Colours...

Oh je!! Twenty days left till moving, and the work has now entered the final, hectic, exciting stage!!!

Steffen, "der Lange" alias Marco, and Paul are working long hours to get everything ready on time :-) and they're doing a fantastic job: every evening when I arrive at the house from the office is like a daily Christmas ;-) always something new, and every time it looks more gorgeous...I could stay there for hours just looking at every tiny detail in the freshly painted walls, the new flooring, the window frames... :-) :-) :-)

The big new events this week have been the flooring, the final electrical installations, the window frames, and of course the wall painting!!! :-) So here a few pictures, I'd love to know what you think of the colour choice, it took us many looong evenings to come up with a decision.

At the end the choice fell on three nuances from the Kabe Farben (http://www.kabe-farben.ch/): a hell beige/cream (KB 460) as main colour for the whole "day-time" part of the house (ground floor, stairs, and allroom), a warm greyish (KB 489) as basic colour for the bedrooms and a fresh, stimulating green (KB 275) as accent colour for two of the bedrooms...

My wish is to have a colourful, warm, and happy house...let's see if we're on the right route!!

Here the first day of painting, Steffen preparing the surface with tape and a first bedroom wall already painted...

 Here how it looked like a few hours later:

The flooring is now to be seen as well...I tell you, this deep structured oak surface is amazing to see and feel:

Here the accent colour in one of the rooms :-) :-) I ab-so-lutely love this green!!!

Here the other room with a beautiful view on the floor (and a glimpse of the other green wall):

The allroom in the first floor with the cream/beige painting:

 

 

 
A quick glance to the cellar, which also got a nice white coat...

 

And here finally the ground floor, also with the same cream/beige colour:

Have you noticed the nice white-line pattern along the corners?? We're happy we listened to Steffen and Marco's suggestion and we let them paint it like this...it really looks much lighter and spacious and together with the cornice mouldings it creates an extremely cosy atmosphere!! :-) :-) :-)

At home we've started packing and sorting out stuff, still so much to get done before we can actually move, next week it is time for the stairs to come, can't wait!!!!

Have a great weekend dear Reader, I'll update you next week with new pictures!!
Take care,
Elena