I think these are my two favorite shots.

Although I am thinking about heading back over and shooting this one again when the sun is a bit lower. It will get rid of the flare and give the lion a better glow I think.

Thanks Alycia!!

We also got the floors laid in the living room/office space but we still need to finish the baseboards. (they were all out at Ikea today)  We started to place some of the furniture, but still have a ways to go and will be waiting for our new couch for about a month.  The room, if you can really call it that, is incredibly narrow so we will have to be super creative in figuring out how to best utilize the space. But I guess that’s city living for you! 

Today we picked up our kitchen and began assembling it.  This is what it looks like so far.  The legs still need to be added, as well as the counter tops, doors and appliances!  The wall behind the kitchen will have a white tile backsplash with black grout and the counter tops will be done in black with black handles on the cabinets. I also found some really great fabric to reupholster the kitchen chairs with. So this is where we are at the moment.  We are both exhausted and sooooooooo ready for this to be finished!  We will move in knowing that there will be many little details to finish up and hopefully we can keep ourselves motivated to get it all done.  

 I will be back in the next day or so, hopefully with a near complete home to show you! For now hope everyone has a good week! Ciao ciao!

Ok so here are the new photos!  This is what the kitchen currently looks like…..

Yes there is still a little of the blue tile left, I'm hoping I can paint over it to avoid having to rip it out, or maybe another creative way to cover it up.....

We still have some work to do on the doors and we will be cleaning and sealing the floors as well.

And these are a couple of inspiration kitchens that I am looking at!

And the bathroom has undergone quite a transformation, even though its not completely finished, its still pretty dramatic!  We are still waiting for our new toilet bowl……..

It was supposed to be here last Thursday but still hasn’t arrived. Somehow I’m not surprised….Then they told us it would be there today after 4……..We’re still waiting.  Oh the joys of living in Italy!

Today I put the first coat of paint on the walls in the bathroom and ended up needing more paint, so I will be finishing that tomorrow.  It’s a nice dark plum with white tiles and white fixtures, I hope it will look fantastic! 

The tile has since been grouted and looks even better now, I'll show some more photos as soon as I get the painting done.

And here is my inspiration bathroom!

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Except our walls are even darker!!

I hope it won't be as long until the next update!  Hopefully we will be moving in this coming weekend, assuming we have a toilet bowl of course! 

Thanks for having a look!  If you know of any great sites for interior design or inspiration, I would love to hear from you.

For now Ciao Ciao and Happy Monday! 

When we started scraping what we thought were loose, dry layer of paint off the wall we realized that it was much more than we expected.....basically the entire thing, so I just kept scraping to get as much off as possible and this is the result! 

This photos shows the, not decades, but I would venture to say the centuries of paint on the walls.  I'm thinking there are between 6 and 8 layers here! All really dry and crumbly.

So after scraping and scraping for days, we finally added fresh plaster to the walls.

And now we have nice, new, clean walls that are ready for paint. But we are going to wait to paint the kitchen until the bathroom is done since it is right off the kitchen and there will be a whole lot more dust and dirt around.

So after we prepared the kitchen we began (well really Luigi began) tearing up the bathroom.  Check this out! We've a lot of work to do here!

The shower door came out and some of the old broken tiles as well.  I know it seems pretty hard to imagine that this will ever be livable, but we have Mastro Lui on our side!

We'll be replacing all of the fixtures and I can't wait to get rid of this awful, horrible, terrible, peachy, salmon, or whatever color this is, paint on the walls.  We're going to add more white tile to the walls and then paint the rest a nice deep plum or eggplant color with all white fixtures for a simple clean style. 

but for now we are off to ever faithful Ikea to look at Kitchens and bathrooms! Wish us luck on a Saturday morning!

A presto!

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These walls need some serious attention!

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And this is an idea of what we are thinking about for the new kitchen

nice and simple and clean

Next we will get to work on the courtyard that can been seen through the kitchen window.

We are certainly making progress! Hopefully it won't be too much longer before we can call it home!

You can also see that we finally have a floor!

I also thought I would throw in a couple of photos of Luigi's work truck since we've been spending so much time in it lately!

And here's the captain himself!

and this is a little collage of some ideas fore the room, bedding, throw pillows, etc. lots of color of course!

and then I thought I'd throw in a photo of my little Michelangelo just because he is always so patiently waiting for us in the window when we get home! Can't wait until our little garden is ready so he can take naps in the sun!

Thats all of today! Be back tomorrow with more new photos!

But, to really help me feel better and replenish my vitamin supply, my best girl Lisa and her significant other Count Cosimo made Luigi and I, along with our friends Christine and Doug, an amazing Sunday Lunch in their Tuscan garden.

What could make a girl free better than pasta made with fresh asparagus, artichokes in a light white wine and lemon sauce prepared by the Count humself? Enjoying it in the garden on the first day of sun in more than a week with some of my favorite people thats what! So here are a few photos of our glorious afternoon.

 Christine contributed a delicious curried beef and of course we ended with gelato, sunshine and great conversation.  Now I am energized and feeling like myself again and ready to get back to work! Thanks guys!

This is the first shade which was much too light and had almost a flesh tone to it.

This is the first try and the second shade together, still just a bit too light.

And then we got it right!

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It is a little darker than I had originally planned, but I am really happy with the way it looks so far. It will need one more coat tomorrow since it is still a bit streaky, but I can't wait to see it all put together. I think it will look really great with the white furniture and some funky bedding.

We have been working a little slow this week since we both have "real" jobs in the middle of it all but tomorrow we are off to Ikea to buy the flooring, so we are hoping that by the end of the weekend the entire room will be finished.  We still have to varnish the window and finish the wardrobe and get rid of this awful light! But at least the hard part is over!   

Time to get a good nights sleep so I can be ready for a full day of work.  I hope to have some fun photos for you by the end of the weekend. 

Happy Friday, be back soon!

I really should have taken a photos before Luigi fixed it because you could actually see the several layers of color underneath, yellow, white, and the green of course.  So this is a layer of plaster over the concrete and now we will have to wait for it to dry before painting over it, but at least it will be fresh! You can also see to the left another section, a bit smaller this time, but another one nonetheless!

And then........I was painting another wall and look what happened here! Great!  This one I actually fixed myself.  After watching Luigi for a while I thought I'd give it a try. Not bad for a first timer.  Let's just hope it stops here and that we don't have any more surprises!

But, since I know these are not the most exciting photos, I wanted to post a couple of photos of some bedding I found on Anthropologie.com my favoriteist store in the entire world! 

Are they to die for or what?!  I absolutely love their home department, these two I especially love for the bedroom.  Think I'll be trying extra hard to fill up that tip jar in the next few months.

I would buy everything in this store if I could! Tomorrow will be a busy day for both of us, so I'm not sure how much work we will get done, but hopefully I will have some new photos to show you. 

Happy Monday! A domani