Italian builders

Italian builders do my head in.

I went to check on the state of the apartment today. What this usually involves is me reminding F that I have now asked once a week since June for the tiles to be taken off the wall in the kitchen because I do not want beige floor tiles on the wall with a glossy black and white kitchen. Once a week since June, I've also asked for the radiator to be removed from kitchen because I want to put a shelving units there and given that the kitchen is tinier than a postage stamp I really don't need the heating on when I'll aready be sweating from the heat of the oven/hob.

Surprise, surprise, this week was no exception. The beige floor tiles are still on the wall and the radiator is still in the kitchen.

Is Builder Angst a valid motive for murder in Italy? 

Comments

[wisequeen]

This post brings back not so pleasant memories of when we renovated. We waited so long for quotes that we did it ourselves, yes banged our elbows and heads installing plumbing and kitchen and I wrote a book about it.
My goodness you have been busy! How is the new language school going? Can't wait to read yr book.
Donna

[Emma Bird]

Donna

Dealing with builders in Italy sucks. I thought buying new would be easy and allow me to forget all about the nightmare of the oh-dear-the-roof-collapsed saga. What famous last words!

I can't believe you went ahead and did it yourselves. I'm looking forward to reading about it.

The school is going well. We open officially in first week of November but all the classes filling up quickly. And I'm getting lots of exercise walking backwards and forwards posting flyers.

[Ian]

Emma, we are on our route 'dolce vita' (our house is in Tuscany), and I bought your book a few weeks ago, and read it in 2 days flat. very good, full of great info, and I will go backto it time and time again, if/when I decide to set up my business (Im a project manager, something that Tuscany has a lack of). We are also at the beginning of our renovation, and so far (fingers crossed) we havent had any major upsets with our builders, but I'm braced for it. If you have a minute, take a look at my blog http://chickenhouseproject.typepad.com/too_late_for_tuscany/
I started it as an antidote to the stress of doing a remote renovation project, and to make sure that all those funny little moments (good and bad), don;t get forgotton when we are enjoying an Aperol on the terrace in years to come.

[Emma Bird]

Hi Ian

Great blog! It brought back memories of our ODTRC saga. Though clearly we didn't get anywhere as near as far as you. We got as far as day one before the builders knocked through the supporting wall. Oh well, you win some, you lose some. We definitely lost that one.

Thanks for your lovely words about our book. I'm so pleased it was useful for you. You're right that about there being a lack of project managers.

Good luck with the rennovations! I look forward to reading about them.

[susan]

There is a company in Abruzzo called Abruzzopropertycareitaly.com who address these type of problems with builders etc,hope that helps someone in the Abruzzo area,regards.