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Godzillavilla

~ The ongoing saga of turning a crumbling Italian ruin into a home

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Category Archives: Structure

Climbing up the Learning Curve

12 Monday Nov 2012

Posted by Shelagh in General, Learnings, Structure

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

home reno, Liguria, renovation, restoration, villas

One of the questions I’ve been asked is this: Did you find so little information that you had to “re-invent the wheel”, for every little step, because there was no practical guide or information on what you were doing?

I come from a timber frame construction country. I understand that method of construction; how to build walls, how to run everything from hot air to water to electricity through them, and how to close them up with drywall, then hang a picture on them. Tah-dah, done. In Italy, you can’t even do that last step the same way. North American picture hooks don’t stick in plaster-over-stone, you have to use special little 3-pronged thingies. I guess that should have been my first warning that it would be a steep learning curve.

Although I viewed that as a point of interest more than an obstacle, it did involve an awful lot of research. Fortunately I have Italian friends, in particular DIY-inclined ones, who gave me tons of advice. I’m also language-capable, so I could read Italian renovation magazines and go to the local home shows to scout materials and learn about their use. And – this is really important – I could speak with our geometra, the contractors, and the product suppliers, to really understand the benefits and drawbacks of certain approaches.

That ceiling probably isn’t good anymore…right?

Not that it always worked out perfectly. My post on the ‘effetto cassata‘ (When is a House Like a Cake) is a case in point. I’d researched a fantastic external plaster product from Venezia, went to their head office to learn about it, found the supplier in Liguria and spoke with him, then discovered that the contractor who had real experience with that plaster wasn’t available, so we went with someone who’d never worked with it before. Plaster is plaster, right? Apparently not. The house still looks pretty good – and the plaster is fantastically hard, hydrophobic yet breathable – but the effort of working with its different texture practically gave the man a nervous breakdown. And it did look rather unfortunately like a cassata cake before it weathered in a bit.

At other times, for example when the entire roof had to be replaced right down to all the beams, I had to trust our geometra and the contractor. This is pretty much true wherever you are, though. I’d researched the materials and the construction methods, discussed a number of options with them, and we made a decision. Language was again key; I don’t know how I would have done this without speaking Italian.

I guess it’s also useful to remember that we had a lot of time between activities, so the research could be really thorough. If we’d been trying to do the whole thing in a few months, I think I might have been far less sure of it all.

Advice: This is true for any renovation project – hire people you trust to know what they’re doing, research the methods and products so you can speak with them intelligently, use a translator (again, someone you trust to be thorough in their translations) if you don’t speak Italian.

Then be flexible in your expectations. Not everything that turns out differently than you expected is a disaster. You might even learn a thing or two.

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The Doors

01 Sunday Jul 2012

Posted by Shelagh in Design, Structure

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

architectural details, doorframes, home reno, italy, Liguria, lintels, restoration, villas

And you thought I might be talking about an old rock group. Nope. Just in case you didn’t get enough of a workout trying to figure out which window options were going to be best, here’s your chance to think about doors, too. Three entry doors need to have decisions made about their surrounding frame. We’re not even talking about the actual door itself yet, just the way we finish the hole. And yet…this too is important.

Door number one is the main entrance. Door number two is right beside it, and leads to the old torre (which will remain a garden shed at ground level). Door number three we’re not even looking at yet, because it’s the one off the kitchen. Yes, it’s that one that used to have a bathroom attached until Marcia became a demon with a sledgehammer and removed the room. We’ll deal with that later.

The main entrance (middle), with the shed/torre entrance to its left.

The shed doorframe magically holds together with very little mortar, like old teeth you expect might pop from their gums at any moment.

The main door. Those slabs of stone at the sides used to constitute the frame, but on their skinny edges (you can see it in the top photo, where they are still intact). They fell out, and revealed a nice curve at the top. I like the width of them the way I’ve set them on either side here to check proportion.

Now for some examples of what other people have done with their doors, to see how confused we can all get.

The width of this surround gives the door a great presence and balances it. I like the roughness of the old stone, which looks like it’s seen a thing or two. Beautiful, subtle details in the little groove and the rounding of the inner edge, as well as the wedge in the centre of the lintel section.

Another door with the edge detail.

This place, showing off again (it’s in Varese Ligure). The lintel shape is similar to Godzillavilla’s with that slight curve, but our doors have a more stout proportion (dare I say short and wide?). The wedge detail looks good here, too.

A rough stone frame, also on the thinner side. I know people say one can never be too thin (or too rich), but I’m not sure the rule applies to door frames. Might work for the shed.

And last but not least – although a little too rustic for the main entry, this has gobs of charm for the shed. Its framing stones are ten times the size of our shed’s puny little old-man-teeth stones. We do have plenty of larger chunks on the property if we wanted to remake it, though.

That’s it! Comments, please. Someday we will even get to agonize over what kind of doors go inside these lovely holes we’re working on.

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Luca’s Windows

25 Monday Jun 2012

Posted by Shelagh in Design, General, Structure

≈ 6 Comments

Just in case you need more photos, here are the windows Luca was talking about in his comment on yesterday’s Windows and Shutters post. They’re from his own place, which he and Friederike painstakingly restored from a gaping void into a beautiful home.

The windows have a nice, soft finish – not too WHITE – and the wood sill brings extra warmth to the look.

It’s important to think about how they look when open, since the outer finish then ‘enters’ the room.

Head-on effect. It’s hard to tell from these shots, but the walls are a much deeper, natural colour than the white windows. So it’s not just a sea of whiteness.

Their house has stucco over the stone, but you can see how they appear on the outside. The window openings are actually a lot like Godzillavilla; very simple.

So there you go. This is Luca’s vote. Any other comments the rest of you would like to add, feel free to confuse me further!

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The Secret Room

19 Tuesday Jun 2012

Posted by Shelagh in General, History, Structure

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

architectural details, italy, Liguria, renovation, villas

I’m super excited by a discovery I made when I was on tippy-toes trying to get a photo of the essiccatoio‘s lovely vaulted ceiling. The essiccatoio is the old, original tower, the part that doesn’t connect with the rest of the house. Its ceiling can only be seen by peering through the back window, because inside the view is obscured by a slatted floor midway up (for drying chestnuts). And what does the photo show me on the upper wall?

Evidence of a past door!

I feel like I’ve discovered a fabulous secret.

The vaulted ceiling. On the right side, there was clearly an opening that has since been sealed. Hopefully without bodies inside.

You can see from the plans, shown below, that this old tower is not currently accessible to the rest of the place. I always thought that was a shame, seeing as the ceiling is so lovely, but no-one wanted to risk smashing through a metre-thick supporting wall. Even the crazed Sledgettes know better than that!

However, it appears that over the newly discovered, sealed door there is a supporting arch and everything. I definitely want to explore the possibilities now. A book-lined den is taking shape in my head. Or a very cool dining room? or…?

The space in question.

The point of discovery! That window is just high enough that it’s not easy to see inside. At least not for those of average height.

From the front of the villa. Hope this all makes sense to you.

The old tower (the part to the left) actually has its own civic number, as though it’s a separate building. I’m sure this has implications for permits to reconnect the two but I’ll leave that battle to our erstwhile geometra Nadia. My part’s the dreaming!

So tell me – what would you use this room for?

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Window Details

13 Wednesday Jun 2012

Posted by Shelagh in Structure

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

architectural details, home reno, italy, lintels, renovation, villas, window sills, windows

Up until we started working on our beloved ruin, I hadn’t given that much thought to the small details that make a big difference to the overall look of a finished home. I’d noticed them – a little obsessively in fact – but hadn’t appreciated the complex choices behind the things I’d admired. This is presumably why architects study for years and then have to apprentice for more before they can claim to know what they’re doing.

Unfortunately I am not an architect but I’m still making decisions about the villa. Some of them have turned out great. Then there are the others, to which we will turn a blind eye forevermore. I put the exterior window framing (sills and lintels) into a B+ category. They were a decision we made before taking a really close look at all the options and what made them work. Some examples:

Primitive Sill: Window openings at their most basic. A beautiful example of a simple but charming stone arch and rough sill.

He-man Sill: This no-nonsense approach has great presence on a larger building, but has a bit of a penitentiary whiff about it (not helped by the bars of course).

He-man in a Skirt: Same grey, thick stone, but that bit of curve softens the look completely, even without the flowers.

Refined Sill: A city-slicker. This sill would know to wear a dress to the opera even when it’s held outdoors on plastic chairs.

Our Sill: Gives off a farm-house vibe, which I think is appropriate. Thick stone with a hand-chiseled face, but the sides of the opening are simply plastered. When I look at them beside the other photos, I worry that the opening as a whole is too weakly defined.

But when I look at them in the context of the whole house, I’m pretty pleased with their simplicity. With shutters and actual windows in them – those are two other, complicated decisions to make – I think they’ll actually suit our un-fancy house just fine.

Fortunately for me, I now have all of YOU to help me make these decisions. Thanks for sharing the glory and the blame! In the next couple of weeks we’re going to look at shutters, the windows themselves, doors and door frames. And we haven’t even gotten to the indoors…

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