A few weeks ago, I broke the news that I recently fulfilled my 30-year dream of buying a house in the suburbs of Turin, Italy. For those of you who continue to follow me, Instagram You’ve probably seen the bizarre story shared by my architect when the building was completely rewired and the layout adjusted slightly. While you’re reading this, hopefully I’ll stay home and meet with the architects and builders to see how things are going and plan the next steps now that the demolition is over. .
I’m still working on the exact color scheme and tile design, but I do have a rough idea of what goes where, so you might want to take a look at the high-level plans. We’ll be sharing more on Instagram today and tomorrow, so follow us on Instagram if you want to see what’s going on.
First, go to the entrance hall. It used to be dark and full of people, so I couldn’t take decent pictures. But this is the door to the outside and the photo below is after stripping all the wallpaper and paint. The floor tiles weren’t very appealing and I’m hoping to find something better as this is the first room we see.
The door on the left of the image leads to the second floor, and the door on the right leads to the bedroom on the first floor. There is another staircase leading to the kitchen and living room. The house is on a hillside, so it feels a bit rugged and not as level as you might expect. It is also possible to enter from the street, instead of entering through this door you can turn into the garden and enter the ground floor. It took me years to figure it out because when you look at the floor plan it doesn’t make sense until you understand the effect of the hills.
Below is the plan for this space. A yellow ceiling with wallpaper and a large pineapple chandelier (already bought on eBay) symbolizes a ‘welcome’ of course.we used corston Hardware and lighting fixtures (bronze) in my London house, just launched in the EU, so I took full advantage of the product to make it available in Italy. With his 70’s versions of these Perrin brass lights installed in the corners of many rooms rather than spotlights, simply replace the old with these lights that are safer and meet current electrical requirements. Wallpaper is an aspiration for now, but it leans toward Versailles. What do you think? And the floor tiles are yet to be confirmed. Other places have terracotta but unfortunately not the original “terracotta” but porcelain tile. However, replacing everything is too expensive, so the question is whether to match in this area or choose something else.
Well, the kitchen wasn’t very nice, so I haven’t shown it yet. It has not been touched for a long time, and he has only one small window. The first thing we wanted to do was open up the wall between the dining room and let in more light.
As you can see, the cupboards and drawers were a bit jumbled, with some falling apart (or falling apart) and doors and drawers not closing. It opens into this lovely dining room and yes, I expected the owner to leave a mural, but it didn’t. However, they plan to keep the rather beautiful marble table above it and place it in the center of the room as a preparation table for the butler. It is also possible to add a storage shelf at the bottom.
Last week, the builders widened the space between the two rooms, but left the rather nice door intact, so we’ll use it elsewhere. This was the original opening.
And now it looks like this:
The wall on the left side of the photo is 70 cm deep, so units can be arranged along the wall, creating a seamless space with the dining room. The family left us a nice old wardrobe. I plan to add shelves there and store dishes and table linens on the other side of the narrow wall.
Below is another window slightly “blown away” in the image above. We plan to put a bar cart in this corner. The owner left us four chairs. As you can see, his four other similar chairs are combined around the dining table.
This is the view from the dining room looking towards the kitchen. Use the left corner as a pantry. There is a door leading to the corridor, but it is blocked as it is not needed. The previous owner had furniture in front of it. The kitchen is quite bright even with the shutters closed.
Here is the layout we are considering. I hope to make a plan this week so I can share it at a later date. The dining room leads to the living room, which was introduced in the previous post. The ceiling is nicely painted and the only change is new paint on the walls.
Now move to the master bedroom. This is above the dining room and was formerly the bedroom of an elderly woman who has lived here with her family since 1964. There was originally a door between it and the living room, but we restored it and knocked through it from her bedroom to get to the room. A large bedroom/dressing room/bathroom that makes up a private bathroom. This is now an unfurnished living room that becomes the main bedroom.
This is as is. These two chairs of his face the sofa, on which the bed is placed, from which you can wake up in the morning and look at the garden. I have a strong desire to protect curtains. As you might imagine, Madhusband has other thoughts…
But there is a way out of my madness. Many of the doors are already painted green and we intend to leave them. Also, as you may have noticed in the top photo, the garden walls of this home are covered with 100-year-old wisteria trees. So, in honor of Claudia, the owner of this house, who loved this wisteria, I’m thinking of decorating this room with this wallpaper and naming it after her.
The adjoining dressing room has a separate bathtub and is a combination of lavender and green, with green floor tiles in the ensuite bathroom.
This is a picture from last week when the bath was planned and there was a knock on the door. The door originally faced the outer landing, but it was blocked, so we re-hang the door here. The holes are intentionally made the same size. I might paint the perimeter to look the same size as the door from the landing, but it floods the space with light so there’s nothing to block it.
FYI, the bath is on the platform. This means you can run plumbing from the next room without digging and damaging the floor. It is designed to be large enough to wipe your body without getting down to the floor immediately after getting out of the bath. That’s one of the things we’re going to look at today. Sometimes it’s smaller, sometimes it’s not.
Today I will introduce only one more bedroom. That’s the Iris Room. Why, it won’t surprise anyone when you see the plan below. In addition to the living room, there is another beautiful ceiling painting. It’s a small double, so it’s odd that this is pictured instead of a large double, but I plan to have tea with Claudia when we stay a little longer in the summer, so she plans to ask her about it. She said the living room ceiling was painted 100 years ago, so this may have been done before she moved in.
As you can see, the corner is damaged and the builder has promised to contact a friend who specializes in restoration. Otherwise, just keep it as is and add a clear matte varnish to prevent further damage.
The room will probably have cream walls with blue woodwork and the adjacent bathroom will be blue and yellow. It’s her one of my favorite rooms in the house and her mother-in-law has already booked it for her stay. If we start organizing interior design retreats, weekend cookouts, or even photography workshops, this could be your place to stay.
We hope you enjoy these insights on our plans. As I said earlier, keep an eye on Instagram. I will share some pics as we walk around today. We will also keep you updated as we work on bathroom and kitchen ideas.
Since we’re apart, this is a somewhat bumper post. My son is good at taking care of cats, but it’s out of the way to fill it out here, so see you on the weekends.
