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!