Monthly Archives: February 2012

Where to Put the WC

27 Monday Feb 2012

Posted by in Structure

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Here’s the challenge, and if anyone has an idea about how to solve it, please tell me: There is only one bathroom on plan for Godzilla, and for a place that sleeps 4-6 that’s not great. A second bath was supposed to go on the ground level, but it turns out we can’t go forward with that floor without completely excavating the existing cement floor to provide the air space underneath that is now required by code.

Main floor existing and proposed. Existing gross bathroom turns into lovely terrace overlooking garden.

Top floor with bedrooms and the mega-bath.

For this puzzle, you therefore have two floors to work with (shown), and a few caveats.

  • The top floor already has a bathroom planned and yes, we could squish two in that space but that would result in two rather sad, cramped bathrooms instead one fabulous one. I’d rather wait to pee than ruin that luxury.
  • The main floor has a space under the stair that we were planning on having as a reading nook, but it could fit a toilet and small sink (with one heck of a view out of the french doors that are supposed to go in there).
  • The main floor also has potential access through metre-thick stone walls into the old torre, but the ceiling height is lower, making this option possible but challenging.
  • A third possibility lies in carving off some space in the planned kitchen. The existing toilet (the one that drains directly into the garden, yuck) is supposed to turn into french doors that open on to the garden, and any other way out is awkward, so it is being removed. Apart from it not being an approved extension in the first place.

So there you have it. Take a look at the plans and photos and let me know if you have any brilliant ideas.

Kitchen looking towards old bathroom to be removed

The planned mega-bathroom

One of the smaller upstairs bedrooms; could these have WCs in them?

Planned reading nook and french doors. Would it be just as lovely as a toilet?

Apennine Skies

19 Sunday Feb 2012

Posted by in General

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What is it about mountains, even little ones like the Apennines, that makes skies so dramatic? The sky around Godzilla changes constantly due to our position near the crest of the mountain ridge. As breezes through the valley bring the sea air up from the coast and over the top, they create some very painterly effects and wonderful light.

The strange light of a gathering storm

While it’s always a delight to bask under a clear blue, sunny sky, the special ones, to my eye, are the ones with clouds.

Nature's painterly effects

A 'blue sky' sunset

Beautiful Heat

12 Sunday Feb 2012

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Given the current chill in Italy – and the fact that Godzilla’s seen more snow in the past week than we’ve had in Toronto all winter – I’ve been giving a lot of thought to heat lately. While Canada is a forced-air kind of place, Italy is more about stoves and radiators, especially given the impenetrability of Godzilla’s walls for installing massive ducts.  Even putting in the tubes needed for radiators involves jackhammers and strong men.

Runtal's Arteplano: each one a work of metallic art

So, while a pellet stove is likely one of the ways we’ll be heating the place, I’ve been amusing myself by checking out all the fabulous creativity that has been going into making radiators look interesting. To whit, the wonderful inventions pictured here.

Caleido's Flora: fun and vibrant

I love the idea of mixing modern with Godzilla’s ancient walls. The fact that some of these might in fact cost more than Godzilla’s walls doesn’t deter me from my cold-weather fantasies! Dreaming is part of the fun of renovating.

Caleido's Pelicano: good for bread, gloves or towels

Tubes' Add-On, modular and extendable

Tubes' Soho: not just chic but super-efficient

Links to the companies that make these rads:

http://www.runtal.com/

http://caleido.bs.it/eng/home.html

http://www.tubesradiatori.com/eng.html

Spaghetti Westerns

05 Sunday Feb 2012

Posted by in Culture

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Ready to try and outsmart the steers

Ready to outsmart the steers at Sesta Godano

One of the craziest summer entertainments in our area is the rodeo that’s held in Sesta Godano. Rodeos are surprisingly popular in Italy; there’s also one just south of Milan which is a theatrical, year-round fabrication of the American Wild West. A little like Disney creating reproductions of European castles in Florida, only not quite as expertly done. The ‘Indian’ who rides around a crazed gallop while scooping scalps off the ground, for example, is easily identified as an Italian with a wig who has fallen into a bottle of self-tanner. But that doesn’t stop the audience from screaming with delight at his performance.

The mural makes it all so much more convincing

The Sesta Godano show is more impressive. American-style cowboys come from all over Italy to compete. While it can’t hold a candle to the level of expertise shown at, say, the Calgary Stampede, it at least boasts competitive roping teams, barrel racers and other serious practitioners of Western riding.

What I always marvel at is how this particular group of Italians are so enamoured of our North American heritage, when we’re so enamoured of theirs. Italians have their own cowboys, the butteri of Maremma in Tuscany, and they are no slouches when it comes to handling horses or cattle. But just as the spaghetti western filmakers found something highly compelling about the Wild West, the romance for that culture across the pond endures.

A Maremma buttero. Photo by Giulio Cerocchi; for more of these go to http://www.giuliocerocchi.net/new/category/butteri-di-maremma-in-movimento/