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Hello everyone,
In this episode you will see how we tried to bring this abandoned Italian house to a state where we could move in and start decorating it in order to make it our home.
Since we don't know for how long we will be living in this house, and structural changes (like breaking out walls or re-modeling the bathroom) are quite complex and expensive, we decided to fix the house up to a state where we could comfortably live in it.
The house is very old (build in the early 60s), and has been closed off for 6 years.
So, after we removed the furniture a couple of problems showed their selves;
- electric system: the found out that the insulation around the electric cables had rotten away. So, we had to re-do the electric system. Here for we had the help of a good friend of my husband. He explained to us that it's not good for electric cables to stay without current for a couple of years. Of course, the main reason why our cables were rotting would be that they were put there about 60 years ago.
While changing the cables we also found out that our electric system was not grounded (no cable for earthing was leaving the house). To fix this we called an electrician.
- cracks and wall damages: the walls in some rooms showed quite a bit of damage. We called an architect to check for us if it was safe to live in this house, and he confirmed that the house was solid. The outer cement layer (non-portable layer) in the inside walls had corroded a bit over time. So, we repaired the walls with a quick drying cement ("gesso" in Italian). With pebble stones I made sure that the cement would keep its shape better while drying, as well as providing some extra structure to the wall. On top of the gesso i than applied a pre-mixed plaster paste. This costs a bit more than buying a bag of plaster powder, but for smaller surfaces like here it's easier to work with. Plaster can easily be smoothened with sanding paper with a small grid (180 to 240). An electric sander makes the job quite fast, but it will cover entire spaces in a layer of thin dust that you cannot remove with a domestic vacuum cleaner. In the rooms where I didn't want to produce any more dust, I evened out the plastered surfaces with a damp cloth.
- mold: when a house has been closed off for so long, you'll find aside from spiderwebs quite some mold. Especially behind bigger pieces of furniture that were standing against a wall. You can remove these spots with a professional mold cleaner. We also found an anti-fungal product that you can mix in with your paint in order to make sure that the mold doesn't come back. This is especially interesting for countries with high humidity (like Italy, where we live it's usually between 70 and 90%).
A special thanks to the following friends and family members for helping us: Amos, Davide, Eli, Jackie, Luigia, mama, Marco, Matteo, Mattia, Niels, Palu, Paola, papa, Roberto, Roxanne, Samuele, Sergio, Stefano
I hope that you enjoyed this video, and I wish you a lovely day!
A next making home- video should come up in January!
#renovation #interiordesign #construction #homedecor #homerenovation #homeimprovement #homedesign #homesweethome #renovations #movingtoitaly