Creative Tuesday

Yesterday, Tuesday, I was creative. I kept drawing and drawing the house, just tiny sketches - with all details, with less details and with lesser details and really reduced. You don't want to see all the sheets I did with tiny houses, so just one here:


I was thinking about what comes in my mind first when I think of the house. Or what was the first impression when we saw the house for the first time? What was the strongest argument to buy it?

I like strolling down the alley that ends at the piazza with the church and our house. I like its main facade at the piazza. And of course, I love the sea view. And I realized, I really like the tiny balconies. To be more precise, I love these iron balustrades.


While doing my drawings, I remembered a post by Di from Designers' Block about personalized dinnerware, however could not find it anymore. Thanks to Di, who emailed me the link of Rabbit Toes, I can add this picture to my 'logo file' for inspiration. I like the idea of using the door with the house number.



Hotel Chinaware from Paris Boutique Hotel is inspiring as well for those who plan personalized dishes. You do not need to be noble to have an emblem or invent one - or just replace it with your front door ;-)








Maryam in Marrakesh has found a great logo for her almost ready guesthouse - a silhouette peacock. Now it is my turn to be creative. Beside my top blue picture that represents for me the essential beauty of the place - the sky and sea melting together in front of my iron balustrade balcony with an Calbrian fig cactus - these are my other actual favorites:


What's your favorite? Any ideas? Please leave your comment!

New Drawings

An email from our young and talented Italian architect was forwarded to me. He had sent along two new drawings he had made from the house. One shows the view of the front facade with the main entrance and one shows the view of the house by the see.

First I thought, there is something wrong about the second drawing. But then I realized, I had never seen the back of the house in that way. - Remember? We are located on a rock. You only would see the house in that perspective if you would 'fly' by. Usually you are about 50 meters below and in that perspective the house looks different,... shorter, shrinked, somehow.

What about using the main facade as a 'logo'. I was thinking of designing a 'logo' for dishes we would use in the palazzo. Maybe also to be embroidered on bathrobes, maybe napkins, maybe pillow cases etc.

Should the 'logo' resemble more the new drawing (above) with all the nice details or resemble more the 'reduced' drawing below?


Let me know what you think and I will post a draft soon.

Programma Esecuzione Lavori

The 'execution program for the work to do' was elaborated by Angelo, my FIL. Thank you so much for that very detailed excel sheet (tiny writing in four pages)! Excellent work! According to that plan the house should be ready end of next year and we could invite our first guests in spring 2009! Hopefully!

Well, to be honest, I hope we could use part of the house next summer. We just need a big bed and one bathroom.

Here is a screen shot from the beginning of Angelo's 'execution program':


And that's how it looks in total:


But we have not started yet. As you might see, the work should start in November. A whole year after we have signed the contract... That's how it goes when you do not live on site. Anyway, so far we cannot start because we still wait for the approval of the application for renovation. Angelo said, it does not matter to wait as he wants to be on site to supervise the work. And at the moment he is a buys 'retired' consultant working in England. He plans to be in Pizzo from January on.

Calabria and Travelling Back in Time

My MIL's cousin's wife wrote the second part of her story (see part I). It is about how she felt in love with Calabria. And I realised that we are both fascinated about something in Calabria that has to do with travelling back in time and with learning how to enjoy the simple life. Please read her travel experience:

In 1997 me, my son and L. (my MIL) took the sleeper from Mestre to Pizzo. Don't think of it in terms of "Orient Express" cause we are really miles and miles away from that. In Italy, modern and updated things stop in Rome, than, everything becomes Far West or Bronx as you said...

But, we arrived safe and N. (MIL's friend) was waiting for us at the station. That was the first time I met her and suddenly for me it was like paying a visit to a nice aunt. She gave us a delicious tomato sauce for our first pasta at home.


I have not been back in Calabria since '92 and was prepared to find things unchanged. But, little by little things in the house were improving due to many small renovations L. did during our stay. Lack of water was sometimes a problem but I sensed it in a bohemian way. Thanks to L. again I was figuring out better my approach to Southern way of living which is totally different for a person coming from the ultra operative North. From that year on I met and knew lots of friendly people always available to help and share with you what they have. Every year I can't miss the 'pantagruelian' (enormous) dinners of N. - each summer she cooks for around 10-15 persons in the typical southern way - I mean frying, baking, stuffing.... It's very difficult to stay in shape until the end of the vacations.

Through the years I've had the time to realize how wonderful the sea was, crystal waters and nice beaches that have nothing to envy to the Caribbeans.


Besides, I like how the natives are so bound to popular traditions, how they decorate and adorn the streets, the churches and the pure simple fun they have during the days dedicated to celebrate the Saint of the village.


It seems as they're still living in the 50ies. In the North we've almost totally lost this kind of genuine attitude.

You see now how positive I've become and I would go on telling you how many beautiful aspects I find in every situation.


I really like her narration. I experience the same every summer. And after I realised that I especially enjoy our stays in Calabria due to that feeling of travelling back in time, I know better than before how to decorate our palazzo. I definitely do not want to see too much (or any at all) modern furniture in our house. I really enjoy the simple decoration of my family's vacation apartment. It is still decorated like back in the 60ies, 70ies when my husband was born. This orange lamp in the kitchen, the chairs, the tiles ... It is like coming home after travelling the world. And I want to have a similar feeling in the palazzo.


Check the writing and pictures of sognatrice at bleeding espresso... She moved from the US to the little village of her ancestors in Calabria. A real travel back in time.

Photos 1 - 7:
Fiat 500 in Pizzo; one of N.'s famous pasta dishes, near Capo Vaticano via flickr; Pizzo Marina; fiesta della Madonna del Carmine; fishermen at La Seggiola; il trenino a Vibo Marina - the little train that my husband took as a little boy more than 30 years ago - and it still travels from 7pm until midnight all summer long.

Calabria in the 90ies

I got a very interesting email from one of my favorite Italian family members in Venice, my mother-in-law's cousin's wife.

In her mail she told me her first impressions about her first holiday in Calabria back in the early 90ies. Read what she wrote:

(...) I'm so fond of all Calabria that coming there on vacation for me now it's like coming back home. I feel so comfortable and enjoy all the aspects of the surroundings. But, it hasn't been so since the very beginning. Let me tell you my first terrible impressions of the first time I arrived there.

It happened in 1992, after a never ending journey by car. The house had been closed for many years and we arrived in July. It was hot of course and no air conditioning nor ventilation in it. Many times I slept in the beach-chair on the terrace. Along with the bad impression I had of the constructions which always seems so uncompleted and ruined, most of the time we hadn't water for showers or cooking. We had to spend part of the day stocking bottles and bottles of water for the main necessities.

I was desperate and wanted to go home. Much probably I wasn't in the mood to accept those things cause we mostly spent our holidays in the mountains in Suedtirol where everything is so accurate, clean, tidy, you know what I mean.
Anyway I couldn't help it and we finished our vacation.
Next time I'll tell you how I changed my mind.


The 'house' she is talking about is the appartment of my in-laws in Vibo Marina, 4km from Pizzo. Here, my husband spent the first 6 years of his live. When his parents, originally from Northern Italy moved on, they kept this home as the family's holiday residence.

I really appreciate this story as it is so true. I had the same experience back in 1996! I spent the first summer in Calabria with my husband (boyfriend at that time). It was an adventure for both of us! He hasn't been back there for years.

Of course meanwhile many things have improved, we got aircondition and water is secured. Even the construction ruine of 30 years in front of the house is finished and painted since last year.

I am curious to read the prosecution about how she felt in love with Calabria. Thank you for sharing!

picture 1: taken 2006 at restaurant Go, view of Vibo Marina, picture 2: taken 2005 at my family's house, view of Vibo Marina's port