Signed...

It's a bit skewed but, this is the contract I signed on Thursday evening. 

Phase III is now contractually supposed to begin this coming Monday... if it doesn't rain... or, at the very latest, by April 4th.  Gads.

Tomorrow...

Six months of quibbling on fitting-out the Upstairs Apartment & puttin' in the plumbing et al. 

My New Song is Tomorrow. Is there only one in the title? What I have been through, there are too many. The Original Broadway show Annie can certainly retire off to Ft. Lauderdale, thank you very much. "Tomorrow" is the only word I have heard from the mouths of Our Geometra & Builder. They both have poor communication skills. However, the eight letter term... dammit... translates perfectly into an Italian phrase... and God Bless Doris Day for this!!!... Che sara' sara'. Ought to be the national anthem in these parts. Gads.

Beautiful Day For...

This sunny view of the Mediterranean Sea was taken from Nervi, a suburb of Genoa, looking towards France. Beautiful, no? 

Meanwhile, down in Codiponte... from which you cannot see France, just the Lunigiana... the sun was out too. However, it brought with it these terrible Grecale winds. While slugging it out in The Garden, the damn gales snapped limbs off my olive trees!!! Oh! And let me ask you this? Have you ever tried to water desperately dried-out plants in Force-10 winds? Well, don't. Blasts of spray everywhere but.
And so, dried off, I turned to Construction. It has taken Our Builder & Geometra nearly six months to coagulate the costs into an acceptable contract for Phase III of Construction... plumbing for all & fitting-out of the Upstairs Apartment. Yes, I keep repeating myself here. So, why? Haven't A Clue. And, those two fellows cannot blame me for the addition of finishing the roof of the Portico & re-building of the front steps... dangerously missing a couple of flights of steps... to the Main House for prolonging their Deliberations & Computations. 

By the way, if I have not mentioned this in an earlier blog, I no longer care to refer to the Main House as La Casa Grande. As Mr. You says, it smacks of some kitsch hacienda belonging to Don de la Huaega, a kilometer & a half out of ol' Monterey. The new title might translate into Italian as... La Casa Principale. Now it sounds like a train station. Ugh.
Yesterday, I met with Our Geometra to take a look at what I must spend according to Our Builder. It is amazing to me that stucco-ing the interior walls is the largest single item on the books. Gosh. All the Work-guys do is throw successively more refined layers of plaster on walls until done & go home. For that, I have the pleasure of shelling-out nearly $10,000? I want the plaster concession, thank you very much.
There were other nuances of Price to Construction... why does putting three beams & some wood planking up to cover the nasty terra-cotta & iron I-beams of the Portico's roof... or the sub-flooring to the Terrace above, if you care to look at it another way... must run me nearly $4,000? All the materials are on hand... damn-it... from dismantling & keeping The Good from the old roofs.
Or... how come the cost of a new front stoop barks at $5,500 when, the Game Plan only called for re-using the old stone steps & rock facings on a new-built structure? The last item would take a morning to erect. I did have what I thought was The Brilliant Idea of creating a space underneath the steps to park... out of the rain... my fancy-smancy lawn-mower. Very expensive garage.
The conclusion to my pondering of above is another meeting scheduled with Our Geometra & Builder to go over all before anyone puts their John Hancock on paper. Time is running out too. Phase III MUST BE FINISHED by June 30th. July 1 is the kick-off for Our Summer Parade of Guests!!! Gads. 

Phase Three...

Ahhh... let's review all The Phases of Construction to date...

Phase One was La Casetta, its roof & interior. The interior alone was 155,000 square inches of $$$s into Euros fun. 100 square meters sounds so dinky.

Phase Two was the rebuilding of the roofs & re-inforcing the stone structural walls of the main house & drying shed. 475 square meters of the most $$$s into Euro fun yet!!! Hey! That makes 5,113 square feet.

So now, Phase Three. On tap for a Monday, the 7th of March, beginning is the fitting-out of the Upstairs Apartment & its terrace, the Stanza dei Tini... the room with all those wine vats... transformed into a Laundry Room with Bath and Water Reservoir... gives those vats something useful to do... capping off with plumbing for the entire Il Poggiolo complex.

I can only imagine what $$$s into Euro fun is in store, however, it better be much, much less than either fun for Phase One OR Phase Two. Gads.