Furniture Frenzy

Before our last trip to Bagni di Lucca we set ourselves the task of purchasing the basic furniture for the house. Not knowing the delivery lead-times, we wanted to do this now to ensure that the house would at least contain a minimum amount of furniture by the end of July so that we can stay there during our August holiday.

So, armed with our shopping list and accompanied by our indispensible and fantistically efficient local project manager/interpreter, we set out to get as much accomplished as we could in one day. It really helped that we had made a couple of reconnaisance missions to the various shops during previous visits, so we had formed a pretty good idea of what we wanted and where to find it.

We hit about five or six different stores over the course of about ten hours and managed to get almost everything we set out to buy. Of course, we spent more than we wanted to spend, especially on one of the bedrooms, but overall I think we did pretty well.

The following day we struck out to choose mattresses and pick out a washing machine and dryer.

The final tally for the weekend: Main living room: one sofa, one comfy chair. Big fireplace room: two leather art deco style chairs with a footstool (to put by the big fireplace), one chaise lounge. Kitchen: dining table with six chairs. Bedroom one: wooden bed, two nightstands, a ginormous armoir. Bedroom two: iron bed, two nightstands, marble-topped chest. Bedroom three: two single iron beds, nightstand, normal-sized armoir, small desk and chair.

We still have several things we will need to buy, like tables, mirrors, lamps and assessories, but once August arrives, we should have enough of the basics in place to stay in the house.

Colour Madness Redux

My acute (actually, it's probably chronic) colour-choice anxiety continues. The preliminary verdicts on the choices so far. . .

Main bathroom tiles: excellent. Although it is hard to see in this picture, in real life, they look great.

Kitchen wall: so far OK, but I have only seen it on a small patch on the wall.

Walls for main rooms: Yikes! I'm not convinced that this works. I think it might be too yellow. However, I've agreed to live with it a while and see. Maybe it will grow on me.

Still to be seen: shutters and doors, outside walls and the ground floor bathroom tiles.

Overall, I'm relieved that the tiles turned out well. If a paint colour doesn't work, we can always re-paint. But if we get the tile wrong, that's another story altogether!

Progress, Progress, Progress

The builders and tradesmen have accomplished quite a bit since our last visit. They have finished the plumbing and electrical work, the trenches in the walls and floors made for the new pipes and wiring have been filled and plastered. . .

the bathroom tile work has begun. . .

the wall for the new ground floor bathroom is up. . .

and even the painting of the interior walls has started.

We expect them to complete the kitchen installation by mid-June and finish off the bathrooms and the interior paint work about the same time.

Although a huge amount of work remains, including all of the exterior painting, roof and gutter work, not to mention building the patio and a great deal of landscaping, things have progressed steadily so far. It looks like we may make it by the end of July after all. At least we are cautiously optimistic.