Budgeting for the rest of the work

The budget at the moment is around E12,000, we've got to pay E10,000 for plumbing, E3,000 (I think) for electrics, E15,000 for windows and external doors. We want to complete the works for E50,000.

So just E10,000 to spend on kitchen (budget E2,500 if we're lucky), and all the cementing, plastering, tile-laying and painting that has to happen in the next 3-4 weeks. Tiles will take E600-E1,000 of that, depending just how cheaply we go. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a basic cheap white tile, like you would get from B&Q here. The cheap tiles tend to have gold edging or pink flowers, or some other offputting factor! So, all in all, we’re just on budget if the next bits take the time they should.

And then there’s the furniture...!

Will our walls fall down?

The many plumbers have gone and the electrician is free to work in peace. He takes his work very seriously, constantly thinking about our future needs. Although we’ve said no to TV and telephone, he’s left us the junction boxes and an embedded tube up the roof so we could later put in cables from aerials/satellite dishes without having to open the wall again. Probably a good thing – if an Italian buys this house it’s unlikely they’ll share our taste for new technology and no TV!

Roscoe is not the flavour of the month with the electrician. Just after the cable tubes were cemented into place, the new high definition cable arrived from Hong Kong. And its ends were too chunky for the tube! Normally an electrician could attach the ends of a cable after feeding it through, but this HDMI technology is highly protected against piracy – designed to stop anyone interfering! The only option was to put in yet another tube double the size of the others.

(On the subject of new technology, we’ve been downheartened to hear that broadband is unlikely ever to reach the village. Both my local phone shop expert and computer mechanic are of the opinion that even a low quality of ADSL would cost too much to bring to our village, where few people would want it. More encouraging news, a neighbour has mentioned using UMTS, a kind of high speed internet that uses a mobile as a modem. I’m currently using EDGE, which is half the speed of UMTS and frustratingly slow, but sure to cover all of Italy. UMTS is not everywhere, and there are no 24/7 packages, but would probably still suit us better. We’ll need to do some tests with our neighbour’s phone around our house!)

With all this futureproofing, plus our current cabling needs, and all the pipes for the radiators, our walls are looking distinctly patchy! Normally pipes and cables could go under floor tiles, but our floors are made of beautiful old tiles that would fall apart if lifted. The workmen were given a strict injunction not to touch them. Which is needed, given that this is Italy and everyone is tearing out old features and putting in nice modern marble...

The men do seem to share our concerns about drilling into the supporting walls. Our main toilet cistern is not able to be, as planned, encased in the wall. I was not happy to hear that our only option was to have it overhead, as in Victorian loos. This rules out the Geberit two-button, water-saving flush – so a bit less environmentally friendly too.

Meanwhile the one pipe that’s not encased is the gas pipe. They have to be exposed in case of leaks. And given that the oven is at the far extreme of the house from the gas meter, this means a lot of visible pipe both on the front of the house and inside. Had I realised, I would have paid a bit extra to have gas coming in from the relevant side of the house.

Ah well, I’ll know next time!

Over to you, readers, a request: do you know of Geberit-type flush plates (the two-button plate for a wall-encased cistern) that aren’t big and ugly? It’s for our guest loo. Or indeed, for our main loo, flush mechanisms that can go with an overhead cistern but that are environmentally friendly?

Plumbers and sparks

(The pictures are (1) the 1.2m (!) tunnel the plumber had to drill through our very thick walls for the boiler vent, and (2) the small loo getting all its pipes in, plus an encased geberit cistern being hidden in the wall.)

While I was out of the country for a week (Roscoe stayed to supervise), the plumbers and sparks arrived en masse. Earlier than they promised, actually.

From a relatively peaceful two drills at once, we now have around five people hacking away at the walls at any one time. People are tripping over each other, and so Concenzo and the boys are taking some well-earned rest.

No less than three plumbers are laying pipes for the central heating and bathrooms, muttering from time to time about me buying a French rather than Italian shower (they understood a little better when I explained it was a third of the cost of the Italian ones!).

I’ve discovered that our main idraulico (plumber) is pedantic and likes to have a scheda tecnica (technical spec) for everything. The French shower, unfortunately, didn’t come with one, and the idraulico didn’t like having to decide how high to put the shower (yes, really). I mean, is “a bit above our heads” so hard to understand?”

Even more unfortunately, Roscoe got the worst of his irritation. I tried to be sympathetic, even emailed the shop (who said, “It’s really very simple. Are you sure your plumber knows his job?”).

To take the weight off Roscoe, I marched off to talk to the idraulico myself, armed with the French shop’s instructions. By this time, he had come to the conclusion that showers should be positioned around the 2 metre mark, i.e. above a man’s head. Jolly good.

On the way out, Roscoe muttered something about him being much nicer to me. Figures.

Meanwhile I’m even less popular with the sparks, having had a flash of inspiration and changing our bedroom layout. I excused myself by saying, better to change my mind now than later!

I want open-plan wardrobes – making it really easy to put away clothes rather than dump them on the floor! The new plan is to use the wardrobes to screen off a section of the room, creating a semi-private nook for our bed. We just have to wait for the furniture to know if it’s really comfortable.

(Roscoe is more for fluidity in layout. I just don’t see it working, unless you go for the dreary central ceiling light, and get dazzled when you lie back in bed.)

Modern Italian bedrooms all have the wonderful feaure of relay light switches by the sides of the bed, so you can turn the main lights off from bed and not stub your toes in the dark. Great. But it does mean we need to decide where the bed’s going now.

I was so convinced I knew what I wanted until they started asking all these questions!

Stage 2 begins – electricity and plumbing

Just as things seemed to be crawling along, Concenzo gave me the go ahead to invite the electrician and plumber. They arrived together, which led to an exhausting 2 hours of arguing over exactly where we want each light and radiator. A real case of “too many cooks!”

All these questions have made it more urgent for me to decide what kind of look I want – which will impact the bathroom fittings and the light position. I don’t want to be rushed into the wrong decision because the plumber needs to know now for example! So we’re off to Ikea again on Sunday, this time to actually buy things! I’ve got a list of lights I want to try out to see what the different effects are like, as well as some other bits and bobs.

The house now looks like a patient ready for surgery – all marked out in red paint and ready to be cut into. The plumber isn’t able to start until a week on Monday, and the electrician comes after, so I guess it’ll be late September when they’re finished. Then Concenzo and the boys get to fill in and clean up after them.