Blue Ceiling by Angelo

Today I receive a blue ceiling via email :

And the text massage goes like this :

The ceiling of the corridor in front of the ground floor bathroom. I missed the blue after so long time! Is that ok? What color do you want the walls? White? Light yellow? Light ocra? Light pink?

Ciao
Angelo

Ah, I have missed Angelo's humour. I almost forgot about his "blue" addiction, didn't thought it's that strong! I wrote back that I like it. Light blue makes the ceiling appear higher - not that this was necessary in our case - but here the blue leads the eye towards the center. You do not notice right away that the ceiling is not symmetrical. And I really like that simple Art Nouveau lamp. We had it in storage so far - can you believe that? ... it never had a place to beam. Not sure though, if this short side corridor is the right place. We might have a better spot, but will see. Regarding the walls I opted for just white paint as this is a small and rather dark corridor. If this is too boring we can repaint it later.

I am happy with this Wednesday mail by Angelo. Grazie! 

I thought this is funny: Palazzo Pizzo Team on skiing holiday

the interior, finance and construction team of Palazzo Pizzo (from left)

We took a week off and met in Switzerland for a skiing holiday with family and friends. In this picture above you see from left: me, myself, my husband CC and his father Angelo, our major help at Palazzo Pizzo.

I thought it is a very funny picture, not only because we were all wearing helmets, like construction workers, but also you can tell who is in love with GREEN bathrooms, who's idea was the RED bathroom and who painted the entrance hall in APRICOT. Can you ?!

And if you ever happen to go to Klosters, don't miss the Berghaus Alpenroesli, it is such a beautiful and romantic spot for lunch or dinner:

two pictures above via Alpenroesli

However, now we are all back at work. Angelo drove down to Pizzo and I am awaiting updates soon. I will keep you posted, a presto.

Bathroom: Can't take my eyes of subway tiles

A beautiful mix of three different shapes of white tiles, separated by a thin border of black tiles and finished with a pastell mint wall paint - I am impressed by this composition ! 

Not sure via which blog I found the above picture, but the photo below is from another blog and it shows the the same bathroom! So, I proudly present both pics together in one blog :

I just can't take my eyes of subway tiles

Subway tiles (on walls) are often combines with hexagon tiles on the floor. Here above with tiny, mosaic type hexa tiles.

But you can do it easier and cheaper, but not less interesting with square tiles :

Just another bathroom of ours ...

Rectangular subway tiles on the walls and square tiles, diagonally layed on the floor

Since we had not made any further specifications than "green" wall colour, our son (7 y.) actual favorite colour, Angelo used the leftover paint from downstairs and added a border of his choice. I think it looks super good, especially when you see the "matching" green leaves through the bathroom window and ....

.... a bit of sea view

More about this bathroom later with before & after pics.

The Welcoming Entrance

After having written a lot about visitors - real visitors, virtual visitors, booked visitors, future visitors - just-in-time, the entrance starts to look welcoming :

view from inside

view from outside

BEFORE stairways

NOW stairways (wooden railway still missing)

BEFORE ceiling

AFTER ceiling

Actually, the first pinkish paint became somehow an apricot, peachy Bellini colour - not sure if this is due to a second coat of paint, on purpose by Angelo, or that it has to do with light / photo flashes. - BTW, the lamp will remain the same, remember?

BEFORE entrance

NOW entrance (during renovation)

man at work - Tonino preparing the last new marble step

Some Surprises Revealed

CC, my husband, had the chance to check out the house and the latest news in and around Pizzo for three whole days! Last night he sent me some pictures that were a surprise, since Angelo never reported about some work he had done. I think he had so much fun being creative and experimentalizing, he didn't want to wait for any approval. See the results here :

A ceiling like a "gelato al limone" or "sunny side up"

It is my son's room. Let's see if he likes it...

Actually, you do not look all the times up, you rather see the room like above.

A pinkish two tones ceiling in the entrance - love that!

Angelo is working on restoring that stucco rosette by replacing some missing peaces.

I asked him to leave the bit of background like it is now (with some yellow, ochre colour). 

Here the maestro in person coming down the stairway he has just coloured.

The stairs look that way as we have to replace the old marble steps that were a lot broken.

Another surprise: a framed mirror for 20 Euro.

And it looks good! Was not ordered or found by me, but it can stay!

I knew that Angelo had found some fresci below the ceiling paint in the living room.

But I did not yet see the result after scratching away all the excess paint.

Awesome ! Like it !

Not sure what the plan is for the rusty beams.

The whole in the ceiling is for some chimney or stove.

Last surprise: a "neat" chandelier in our bedroom...

This mail from CC had the comment: "If you do not like it, it can be removed".

My answer: "yes, please, remove to guest bedroom until we find better solution".

Wow, so many new pictures. Actually it was not all done in three days. Angelo was hiding this from us! Cheeky ! However, he announced that he had chosen a different colour for our son's room. I knew that that will be a surprise. But did not expect so many others. Well, we have so many rooms, why not some surprises... I think Angelo had great fun to bring in his own ideas without waiting for my "pro-and-cons-naa-hesitating-maybe-not-decision-making-process". Vero, Angelo?

The Red Bath Room

This came via mail this morning:

Painting completed. I took the liberty to add some details. If you do not like them, brush and paint are available....

Ciao

Angelo

The Green Bath Room Ceiling with BEFORE and AFTER pics

amazing restored ceiling of the "green room"

At the beginning, when we overtook the house, there was only one room painted in "original" colours (all others were painted white). And that room became then our "green room".

Later, we decided to have a larger kitchen by giving in the space of the former bathroom. So, the new bathroom had to be part of the "green room". There was no way around, we had to remodel it by building in a wall and split it into two spaces. By doing so, the ceiling stucco pattern was interrupted. However, we decided to restore it as good as possible and even use the same colour scheme as before: pale green, and pale rose for the ceiling with white stucco ornaments.

And here is the result !

Angelo did again an amazing job ! Bellissimo ! Grazie !

walls are painted with "smalto" (water-repellent paint)

Below, see the BEFORE pictures :

I am not sure in which corner of the "green room" I took these pictures (above), since I took them some years ago... But when the wall was installed that separates now the coming new bathroom from a kind of side entrance and storage area, the pattern of the ceiling stucco looked like in the picture below :

ceiling stucco interrupted by new wall

my "photoshopped" proposal for Angelo

But he did a much better job ! What a surprise !

Coming next :
Walls: pale green and a darker green, eg. Pea or Saxon green by Farrow & Ball, for the lower part with a white stucco border inbetween the two colours. We have ordered mosaico tiles for the wet areas and terra cotta tiles for the flooring.

Invitation to visit the attic with me

Come along with me upstairs to the attic, visit la mansarda...

Wait, what is new here :

We have installed a sliding door to be able to close the attic, in case we have a party or maybe guests staying up there. As the entrance before was so much smaler and even the stairs up here were so narrow, that Angelo had this stairs enlarged and this door intalled.

This lamp you have seen in my last post already: it is a simple round shaped wall (or ceiling) lamp of Murano glass. Above the lamp are wooden panels. (We might need to paint them white). They are here because we needed a path, a way to walk between the right and left part of the attic (as on the other side, the roof comes down very steep).

Ah, see, Angelo has already unpacked some of our furniture... well, these Shanghai style rocking deck chairs do not belong here (one floor down would be correct), but never mind. Have a seat.

Oh, look, an old chest from my husbands single household... not sure if it will remain here. But so far no other suggestion (as no other room his ready, ha ha !!!)

A new door ! Where is is leading to ?

To a bathroom ! Tonino is still at work.

Look, the bathroom is already finished !!!

The renovation process is so fast nowadays that I cannot keep pace with them on my blog.

I love these white rectangular tiles! And the turquoise colour that goes with them.

And here by tonight, there will be a tiny extra accent with a bit of Bisazza mosaic. I am even more curious than you, to see how my husband's idea will look (because we have to pay for that extra!!!)

And here ends the tour for today.