The Living Room is Coming

living area flooring done

The installation of the parquet (natural oak) is done for the piano terra (ground floor). Angelo handled it all by himself, day by day. Last night he sent me the picture with sofas without legs.

I just replied that the wooden flooring looks fantastic. Sofas look a bit bulky for our small living area ;-) and not too bad without legs. But legs can be found in the white Santa Fe tool box in the yellow guest room. It is coming along!

A Bathroom Vision in Blue

A dream of a bathroom! How colours can change the atmosphere! Actually it is not just painted blue walls, it is spatulato, a Venetian technique for making painted walls shine like marble.

a vision in blue

blue and pearl grey wall colour harmonizes two different pattern of Vietri tiles on wall and floor

the lighter blue of the ceiling matches one hue of the wall tiles

the wall paint reduces the strong contrast (see before here and here)

stucco borders frame the painted areas

view from above (while painting the ceiling)

beautiful perspective of a blue bathroom dream

A "specialist worker" waxing the surface of spatolato finish in order to obtain a surface similar to polished marble.

Bath room with spectacular sea view

I wish I could be there! I have not seen it in reality yet. I only have these photos for now and have to wait for summer. 

What a dream in blue!

Grazie Angelo!! You are becoming the new Michelangelo with this project! Thank you for choosing the right blue and for spending so much time on the spatulato technique.

Small Vietri tiles for small Kitchen

San Pietro 10 cm x 10 cm Vietri tiles by Francesco de Maio

This will be our small kitchen in the seminterrato. It is the one for the guests, in case they want to cook for themselves.... or when we rent out this entire floor as our guest residence.

There will be red kitchen. Something allegro. Red is a happy colour for a stone vaulted cellar. So next step is choosing tiles. We were looking at some bold Vietri tiles with red flower ornaments, there were some with quiet modern designs from the latest collection. But these tiles (20x20cm) were too big for this small area and also their red tone might not match the red tone of the kitchen, we thought.

Somehow tired after having choosen seven different pattern of tiles for the main kitchen, we were easlily caught, when our "personal" sales consultant of our frequently visited sanitary shop, presented us "San Pietro". A tiny geometrical pattern of something red and green on a 10x10 cm tile. Totally different from all these big designs we just ordered. Kind of boring, but also cute and tricky, a bit 70ies?

seminterrato kitchen walls are now tiled

The installation of these tiles were done in a couple of hours. There was only one email exchange necessary between Angelo and me to check wheather I am ok with an extra column of "San Pietro" on each side since we had enough excess tiles. - Oh, yes, and one extra trip to the sanitary shop was necessary too - to buy more of the white tiles, since I miscalculated the correct amount (for two kitchens).

Now, waiting for kitchen delivery...

Kitchen Tile Mix completed

The kitchen tile mix is now completed and walls are painted. - I am happy and relieved how the Vietri tile mix turned out.

the niche of the kitchen completely tiled

detail of the niche

entire result: Vietri tile mix completed

And I am very glad that I did the last minute change for the "u"-shape "frame" around the niche. The bue tiles (Greca blu) would have been just too bold. However, it is still a frame as its pattern does not involve much with the rest of the mix but more with itself.

After all, I have to admit, the best would have been to just continue the mix on both sides of the niche without any "framing". We only ended up like that because we started running out of tiles and needed to think how to integrate some left-over tiles from the bathroom that do not really match the mix. But at the end we made it!

How many tiles did we break? Very few, I guess. Good job, grazie Tonino, Mimmo and Angelo!

Also special thanks to Angelo for his patience and for allowing me an extra day to redesign some areas in- and outside the niche.

Yesterday, Angelo also finished the painting of the kitchen walls with our pearl grey colour.
The parquet for the flooring will be delivered next week.

The kitchen will be deliverd mid of July - just in time for our summer holiday.


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Update:
You might be interested in what inspired and reassured me to dare a wild mix: the Thun villa in Capri, an Australian villa in Positano, the D&G villa in Portofino and a restaurant in Sicilly.

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Remark:

Our supplier, Callipo in Vibo Valentia, has a good selection of Vietri tiles, thereof Francesco de Maio is our favorite manufacturer.

 

 

Stunning entrance room with Chandelier

Bohemian crystal chandelier and another blue ceiling

Angelo surprised us with an impression of the entrance room.

LC, my son, and I were speechless starring at the screen of the computer when the picture opened up. Not only the chandelier, that is a gift from my mother-in-law, who found the chandelier one day on the street (!) slightly dammaged and with missing parts and had it restored, but also the choice of blue that Angelo painted on the ceiling - both together looks so stunning! Angelo said he mixed colours we did not use in the living room (see colour testing in the living area) and tried out different shades until he was happy with the result. I am very happy too!

Stuning surprise again, GRAZIE !

Looking forward to the master bathroom surprise coming tonight via email...