It's a Work in Progress--Part 3

March 2, 2009--Okay, here it is. The final installment on "It's a Work in Progress." That is not to say that the house is finished because there will be things to do here for our lifetime and probably the lifetime of our kids and grandkids!

We left off at the pizza oven. I'll give you a hint about the next blog--we had a pizza party--with friends and everything!!

OK, let's go into the house. But wait...........


Our friend, Nello, who is from Sicily showed Larry how to make sausages and also salame. Here Larry is holding up the salame he brought home. He thought it was pretty good and that the sausages tasted the way he remembered his grandpa's tasting. They just made another

batch last week. He brought home so much we had to plug in the other refrigerator so we could put the sausage in the freezer!

This is our finished kitchen. You can see the nice work that Larry did on the tile above the sink and stove.

This view shows our table and looking toward a small cupboard that matches the kitchen.

Here is our pantry as Larry is putting the shelves in and as a finished product.

This is our woodburning "stufa." We use it to make coffee, hot chocolate, and, of course, to help heat the house.

This is the first time we tried actually cooking in our stufa. I say "we" as if I actually participated! My job was to document the event with photos and, of course, to eat the meal. It was very tasty and the chicken turned out nice and brown and juicy!

Doesn't that look scrumptious?

And here's our table ready for us to sit down and eat.

I think that we are ready to tour the rest of the upstairs. This is looking into the dining room/living room from the kitchen. You can see one of our new plants and Miss Kitty's new scratching post. She was too tall for her other one!

I am now standing in the corner by the plant looking across the room. I want to mention that in addition to being a dining/living room it is also my indoor track! I walk around this room and through the kitchen and back when I choose not to walk outside. A little walking music and I am good to go!

And this is taken from the opposite side of the room.

Here is a nice photo of our fireplace.

This is one of the two rocks they found in our walls (and our first rock house!)

Here is the other rock they found. We also found another one in the pile of rocks that Larry went through--it is bigger than the two of these put together.

Here is a close up of our new (used) desk.

Now we will take a stroll down the hallway. You might be able to make out 3 doors.

On the left you have the backside of our pantry which will be a typical hall closet with places for coats, sheets, towels, and the vacuum! Further down on the left is our small guest bathroom which has no lights at this time which is fine for now as Miss Kitty uses it for her bathroom and she doesn't need them! On the right (out of view)is our bedroom which you saw in the blog from last May. So, we will just head down to our big bathroom.

This is the best bathtub ever! I'm not kidding. It is so wide that when I sit in it and read I can hold my arms next to my side and be comfortable. That is really important when you take hour long baths!

We found this corner unit at a used furniture place in Pesaro. In fact, with the exception of our bedroom set that we bought from our friends, every piece of furniture came from there!

I think our shower is very unique. We left one wall the original stone and sealed it well so that it doesn't absorb any water.

This is looking down the hallway from the bathroom. Pretty cool, huh?

We finally had our handrail for the stairs leading to the bottom floor installed. We ordered them before my fall in August, but they only arrived in February! Ma, siamo in Italia!

ODDS AND ENDS These are things I don't want you to miss, but don't really want to devote an entire blog to them either. Hope you will enjoy!

This is a shot of the house showing two of the "chiave" we had made for the house. Originally they were made to help hold the house together with a bar that runs through the floors and out either side of the house. We have the bar, too, but the keys are purely decorative. In case you are wondering the keys are the X's on the side of the house!





On February 18th we had a lot of snow. Larry had to go out in it to take care of a friend's dog so he got some nice pictures.


This was taken from our house--you can see the castle and the church.











Looking back at our house.












Might as well get another shot of the castle!









Almost every morning Larry is able to see deer in the field across from our house. I rarely see them because I sleep in until about 7:30 most days. One day they were on our hill where Larry planted our fruit trees--but he was already outside before he saw them and didn't have the camera with him. If you double click on the picture you will be able to see them better.


We had our second load of wood for this winter delivered. This is about 10 quintali worth. That is 10 x 100 kg. We are getting low again so unless spring plans to spring soon we will be ordering more.


















Larry was asked if he wanted to get some of the wine that they had at the Honey Festival. He was happy because he had been looking for it everywhere. The man asked if he had a demijohn and Larry told him he didn't. That was no problem as the man said he would let Larry borrow one. Here he is with the wine! We're pretty sure it is going to last awhile!!





Creepy Crawler Alert!!!





When we are digging in the back we often come across these totally gross worms. They look almost like an earth worm, but they are huge!







I wouldn't even hold it in my gloved hand.

Right after this disgusting shot, Larry threw the worm down and we noticed that the head was almost decapitated! I would have been sick for a week if it had have fallened into his mouth!