Before, during, current
With our first summer living in the house coming to its end, we may conclude that it turned out more magical than we ever could have imagined; the house as well as our first summer in it. Our Salento house, so warm and homely that it after roughly one year of renovations finally turned out, is pure happiness to us and we are thrilled that we took the leap to buy and renovate it. I instantly felt that this was my place on earth and jumped on the idea of taking the leap in a heartbeat. Meanwhile, Freddie needed a bit more time to become as convinced. He did not need long however, for once he first walked into the citrus orchard and experiencing the magic thereof, he felt that this was his place on earth too [he has a thing for the orchard, let alone, for the oranges it provide us, and though he did not envision what I did in terms of the potential of the house our first time around, he never hesitated to take the leap with me].
Below are some before, during and after pictures of this southern Italy dream of ours. All are somewhat randomly clustered, but to give an idea of what we bought into, thus a sense of what we have done, the house had no bathroom, no bedroom and no kitchen; there was no water inside, only one source of heating and all electricity had to be redone. Moreover, the roof to the kitchen had to be torn down and rebuilt and all plumbing had to be done from scratch. The spaces where we now have the bedroom, bathroom and the studio used to be garage spaces, of which parts where used to dry tobacco back in the days. Most of the nails for the tobacco have been removed and the spaces have been cleaned and painted, but the walls and the roofs have been left un-plastered, which preserves some of the rough texture that we both fell in love with.
Speaking of love, our love for the worn heritage of the house has guided much of our renovations, and though some parts have undergone quite heavy changes, we have made all decisions with the wish to preserve the overall old character of the house. Some such decisions include the installment of vintage wood stoves instead of radiators, so to preserve the antique tiles in the living room, dining room and kitchen, yet get the comfort of heating. The decisions of buying raw copper appliances to the bathroom and to make that entire space (as well as the new floorings in the old garage spaces) in the traditional material of cocciopesto, also goes hand-in-hand with this style preference of ours, as both age beautifully while quickly carrying signs of use. All-in-all, it has been quite important for us to delicately renovate so that the charm of the house remains intact and that all things, including new acquisitions, feel like they sort of always been part of it.
We have yet a parking lot as well as a conservatory to design and build, quite some trees and a hedge to plant, raised beds to plan and construct, and, not to be forgotten, a grand chunk of land to cultivate. That is all part of living the dream though, and that con calma. We are in no rush to finalize any of it, but rather concerned to let it take time and sort of come about as we live here. Fact of the matter is that this sentiment influenced the entire project, for though we have had a clear sense of the home to become, we have let most renovations emerge along the way. Tranquillamente. Our Salento home is one of pure joy, for which reason the rest of the work to be done with the same salentini-tranquilli-attitude of rhythm that we both have come to embody, and with which most of the renovations hitherto has been accomplished (I admit a few break-downs along the way, three to be exact). Right now, we are just so grateful for jumping together and having spent the most magical of summers in the — for us — most magical of homes. So pinch pinch for the taking the leap and cin cin for living the dream.
