Wine Time For Real......maybe

Well, again, I had every intention of writing about making wine in the Motta's basement.  I even uploaded the photos to Picasa so that I could include a slide show, but the thing is, that was so long ago and there are other things going on now.  So if you're interested, you can scoot on over to my Picasa web albums and look at the wine photos.  They're captioned for your increased viewing pleasure.  

That said, I better talk about the house.  Fabri and I are STILL living in his parents house and I'm reaching my wit's end.  We went on a lovely little vacation to Nice this weekend to get away from things.  We went out Friday night to an Irish Bar to eat and listen to some live acoustic music.  We saw some people in costume, but nothing like how it is in the US.  On Saturday we did a bit of shopping at all my favorite Nice stores: H&M, Zara and Etam.  We also cooked lunch and dinner together in the apartment.  We made scallops & pasta for lunch.  For dinner we had fondue with bread & broccoli for the first course and then steaks & a salad.  Oh, and we of course ate chocolate croissants for breakfast every morning.  Sunday we left Nice around noon and had lunch in the alps in the French town of Fontan.  Fabri did his American tourist routine and the poor waitress was very flustered by her inability to speak English.  She did know some Italian by the way as there are a lot of Italians that go through there.  

Now we're back in Savigliano going to the Saluzzo house daily to check on the progress.  Right now our wonderful painter Paolo has been working for 4 days.  The walls needed a lot of work before Paolo could start painting, especially in the living room & foyer which had wallpaper underneath the paint!  

Tomorrow (hopefully) our wayward electrician will show up to finish the job he said he'd have done 2 or 3 weeks ago now.  Because of other delays, we would only be 2 days ahead if he had his work done, but he could still delay us more if he doesn't come and finish things.  The big project he needs to finish is making the window shutters electric in the living room and the kitchen.  

When Paolo is closer to done, our reliable plumber will return to finish hooking up the kitchen including our American fridge which has side by side freezer/fridge and ice & water in the door.  That is very rare here in Italy and we can't wait to show it off.  The bathrooms are pretty much finished except he will install a door for the bathtub/shower and we need someone to make a custom shower curtain bar for our shower in the small bathroom.  

Here are some photos of the house.  If everything wasn't covered in plastic for the painters, I would take more, but it will look better painted anyway.  We are on the first floor at the far end of the building.  There is plenty of street parking, but we have a garage as well.  Across a side street is a large grassy field that will never be built on because it has something to with the military (I assume storage of nuclear waste, but the bunnies that live there appear to be of normal size and with the proper number of appendages).  The grounds of the apartment building are very green with a lot of trees and plants and a small fenced in dog run.  Fabri chose it because he knew I would want to live somewhere that felt like I had a yard.  

As you enter the apartment you enter to the now opened up foyer and kitchen.  You can see in the photos the new peninsula and breakfast bar.  As you proceed past the kitchen you enter the living/dining room.  On both ends of the room there is a large window & door leading to the two balconies.  The back balcony is slightly smaller than the front which has a door leading to the kitchen as well.  This spring/summer we'll buy a table and chairs so we can eat outside on that balcony.  Ok, from entering the apartment, to your right is a small hallway and the master suite.  There is the larger bathroom with a bath tub and Fabri's & my bedroom.  To your left there is the smaller bathroom with a shower and the washing machine/dryer and next to that the guest room/office/reading room/whatever.  This room gets a lot of light as the window faces south and there is a beautiful view of the city of Saluzzo.  

One last thing, don't forget to leave comments!  And sign up to be a follower.  I imagine that mean you'll get emails when there are new posts, but I don't really know, I will have to check Fabri's email after I publish this post.