Back to Plan B...

One of the ongoing controversies of Il Poggiolo is... where to put the Kitchen in La Casa Grande. I have bruises to show for it. Back when the main house was in the decrepit state shown in the photo below, the Kitchen, as dictated by Mr. You-know-who in his Grand Plan A, was to be built in the Little Room with the prison-like window between the Portico, out of view, and the main Entrance Door to the main house on its right. Preserving an ultra-short Entrance corridor leading to the upper most of the two large rooms of La Casa Grande, destined by Mr. You-know-who to be the Dining Room, we would thus have to punch through an ancient stone wall of not some puny thickness to connect this Kitchen to the Dining Room. The other large room of the house, off the Portico, would be the Salotto... or, Living Room. Decorum is preserved, to the pleasure of Mr. You. Va' beh.
 

Several circumstances lead to throwing Mr. You's Grand Plan A into the trash-bin. Here's the list...

1. The sub-flooring to the Portico was deamed by our geometra & builder to be pericolante... or, quaintly said... highly dangerous!!! It's reconstruction raised the level of the Portico's floor by several critical centimeters, transforming the doorway between the Little Room and the Portico into a thorough-fare suitable ONLY to any elves & dwarfs wishing to serve dinner out on the Portico AND NOT for a 6'-2" American, much less for a 5'-4" Mr. You. Oh... yes... certainly... we could jack that part of the house up, smash through a two foot thick wall at a delicate juncture for supporting the two stories of house above to have a decent doorway for a fantastic sum of Euros!!! No, Thank you. There are other more important uses for those Euro's in the Future Life of Il Poggiolo. And, yep. The Kitchen would have to find another spot.
2. I had become fed up with slaving-away in what I must say is quite a cute little sage-green Kitchen in La Casetta, whilst our Guests & Mr. You have a rollicking Good Ol' Time with their cocktails of Pro-secco, etc. upstairs in the Salotto in front of a fire. I decided I wanted to cook with Il Popolo about me. Enough of this being relegated to a Cut & Chop sort of Siberia. Naturally, Mr. You-know-who never fails to mention that my Hallmark Phrase whenever anyone dares to enter our Kitchen in Genoa is... OUT OF MY KITCHEN!!! Tut-tut, I said to him. No Little Room for My Kitchen.
3. In the meantime, I asked our builder... he's our plumber too... just where might a Kitchen go without entailing much cost & inconvenience to all concerned. He pointed to what was a corner... in the Grand Plan A of Mr. You... of the Salotto. Well, there it is, I said. 

So, I drew up My Grand Plan B. The lower ex-Salotto room of the main house would be a Kitchen, a Dining Room and a small sitting area in front of a fireplace. The ex-Dining Room would be a Salotto & Studio with a fireplace with ample room for skate-boarding. And, the Little Room would be just large enough for a single-bed Bedroom with Bath-with-shower. Ta-da!!! All was well with My World. Secure in the builder's confirmation as to just where best a Kitchen should be, I ably fended off the consistent assaults by Mr. You in resurrecting his Grand Plan B, regardless of who pointed where.

Then, the Winds of Construction changed. It happened during our 2 hour + meeting with our builder & geometra last week about the Big Plumbing Plan for our little borgo. The particular change of direction occurred when it was collectively decided to bury the septic tank under the pavement of the Cortile. Tubes connecting tubes connecting other tubes dictated that the Best Place for the Kitchen would be in the darn Little Room. My Bedroom would have to await the completion of the drying shed. It's anyone's guess when that will happen. I was too stunned to KILL any of the possible candidates.

I mourned the symmetry & society of My Grand Plan B. Mr. You already has his terra-cotta Bedroom & Bath off the Portico. I would have my Bedroom & Bath in geranium red off the main Entrance. A cozy room dedicated to the three True Italian Pursuits of Domestic Pleasure... cooking, eating & talking around a fire in ochre would be ideal in the lower of the two large rooms. And. Mr. You would have his Grand Salon of a Salotto & skate board track, if he so desired, in bordeaux, and where no-one would ever go because there is not cooking-eating-talking done there. Va' beh.

So now... the currents are favoring Mr. You's Grand Plan A. I do not want to surrender... damn it. Stay tune for further controversies. Gads.