May 27, 2010

Old tiled floor restoration


Oh, wow, bellissimo !


We got old beautiful tiles in three rooms of the house.
Now, in two rooms the original floor can shine again!
Today I received some beautiful photos of the restoration work.

It was a work process over two days:

Floor grinding and levelling starts here

Vincenzo at work with his machine

Grinding, levelling and joints sealing completed 

Now, Vincenzo makes the floor shiny (lucidare

Vincenzo has finished his work. BRAVO ! Bravissimo !

As you might see on the right (above), we used some other old tiles of the same thickness (from the third room) to repair broken areas. The same was made before us in the other room in the corner (below) :


In case you are looking for some professional cleaning or polishing of your floor (marble, granite, all kind of stones and tiles), stairways or a treatment for terra cotta floors- give Vincenzo a call!



I almost forgot to post a BEFORE photo:

BEFORE: Unfortunately, the electrician needed to install some cables and broke more than was already broken.

AFTER repair with old original tiles with floral ornament :



The spare tiles used for repair are from a third room where too many were damaged to be able to restore the floor nicely. So we decided to take them out and re-use them in another smaller area. There we will need less of them and had some leftovers to use as spare tiles in this room (above).

May 19, 2010

The renovation goes on

our big helper Tonino with his selfmade paper hat

The renovation goes on.
Angelo is on site again after a short break in Northern Italy.
While CC, my husband, has already left to Bangkok and started his new job.

(About Bangkok: CC stays and works in a - so far - safe area. We all hope that the situation is solved soon and peacefully. In two days my son and I are booked on flights to Bangkok for school testing dates, house hunting and BBQs with friends. I know that we should cancel the trip - and maybe go to Pizzo instead - or just stay home and relax.)

The above picture (I like it blur) shows our big helper Tonino who lives just across the street. Every second day he makes for himself a new paper hat, as in good old times. And speaking of old times, Tonino used to work in this house long before us. Yesterday, he continued repairing walls that have cracks or show other damages.

PS:
Angelo has offered to move the antenna. Maybe we will not be able to see certain channels. But in two years there will be digital TV or HD TV and then we will be able to see all again (if I understood well).

May 10, 2010

Do you know how big of a role does football play in Italian men's life ?

That big:

- our 6 m high TV antenna -

I am filing this post under the label "Now I have to live with this". BUT I am NOT going to live with this. Either out neighbour is going to sue us, or I am going to buy a metall sew ! - was my first reaction.

I wrote a post and saved it as draft, because I cannot publish something I am too emotional about.
So I slept over it - one night - two nights ... now it has been almost four weeks. It kept me from writing about other nicer things a lot. But now, this thing needs to be introduced. 

My husband explained to me, that the antenna needs to be six meters high because of the mountains behind Pizzo, and in order to capture some channels that he would not get otherwise - some football channels.

Got it?
Italian men's first priority in life: FOOTBALL.
Italian men's sense for aestetic, that is very high, comes after football.

It seems that I am the only one in the family who disapproves this ugly monster antenna.
Italian women probably are used to this technical support for their husband's hobby.

Even my little half-Italian son seems to not understand me.
He said about the photo : "Wow! How cool! Looks like a space station's antenna !"
(He is 6 years old)

Well, I hope it must be possible somehow to move that thing to the left (close to the wall of the house). If one sets a foot on the terracce it should not be the first thing to see. It needs to move. I will keep you posted.

----
update: it was possible to move all to the left! :-)

May 05, 2010

looking for mosaic tiles and sharing news

While looking for mosaic tiles for two of our bathrooms I searched up and down all available online catalogues of SICIS and Bisazza and I googled images of particular series by these well-known Italian mosaic manufacturers. - Until I got frustrated by the price I would have to pay for tiling floors and walls with these luxury products!

And then, I found another brand: trend

I have not yet checked out their price level, but think they must be more affordable, since even Lamezia airport has a huge mosaic on a wall made by trend. And an entire hotel's fassade in Cosenza is tiled by trend. The pictures of these two Calabrian references are not that great, therefore I have choosen different references - especially for a kids bathroom:

stipes by trend mosaic

'electric wallpaper'

a blue hotel bathroom in Austria

for our bathroom next to the church ?

red mosaic tiles for our guest bath ?
(red Diesel store in London / green Diesel store in Stockholm / mosaic by trend)

too much colour for a not so morning person

this last one looks a bit like LEGO - but it is still mosaic by trend

*
And then I came across more references, international ones, from Asia :

Buddha statue and temple in Thailand brightened by Orsoni gold mosaic (part of trend Group)

pool of the Library Resort in Koh Samui, Thailand by trend

pool of the Oriental Hotel, Bangkok by trend
*

Aahh, this is a sign, I thought.
This should be our company providing us with mosaics for our bathrooms.
Some of you may know that I LOVE Thailand.
Thailand has been our home for five years.

And then there is this NEWS I should finally share :

We are moving back to Thailand !

And if you wonder what will happen to our palazzo in Italy?

The palazzo will be our European home base !

Sounds funny, right? But it will be that important for us. More than before.
And everyone who wants to see us in Europe would have to come down to Calabria.

It still feels so unreal to me, but we are going to live in Thailand again and I will blog from Thailand and we will continue our renovation out of Thailand. It worked somehow out of China, it worked from Germany and it will work from Thailand.

And I need to take a closer look at this mosaic manufacturer !

Source: all photos vie trend Group, founded in 2000 in Vicenza, Italy


May 01, 2010

sun shade sail

Beautiful sun shade sail by Stacks & Stacks (via remodelista)
It fits nicely into this lovely little back yard with banana trees and bamboo.

Wishing you a sunny weekend !
*