it’s the inside that counts
They say that “it’s what’s on the inside that counts”, and if that applies to houses as well, then we’re much further along than it may seem. Although not much has changed on the exterior in a couple of months, there has been constant progress on the inside and this coming week the next foundational pour goes over all of the pipes and tubes that are snaking along the floors.
The plumbers and electricians took over the site a few weeks ago and are finalizing the first fix on Monday when I go and do the final walk-thru to be sure all of the plugs, switches, faucets, etc are accounted for and in the preferred spots. I knew that this stage would require a lot of decision-making from me but I think I underestimated exactly how much. I’d carefully made the sketches to scale ahead of time with the switches and plug positions, but didn’t even think of all of the additional “boxes” - boxes for the main power grid, the control panels in three sections of the house for the different areas of underfloor heating, the predisposed locations for the alarm board, and since the entire house will be on eco-friendly LED lighting, all of the transformer box locations for these. There were the outdoor faucets as well, including one which they suggested as I’d never thought about it - on the flat grass roof to water the bordering flower pots which help create a border.
Plus there were the decisions on the AC units, where their exact interior locations would be hidden, and how the 4 exterior machines would be arranged in a discrete way. There was no great way to hide these outside and after several planning attempts and revisions, the decision was made to buy one main larger exterior machine which can handle the AC units as well as the underfloor water heating system all in one. I got to see this big purchase (both physically and financially) in person and asked them to take a shot for scale!
Then it was to the actual lighting. This will warrant its own post in the future about this subject, but suffice to say I don’t think I had a clue going into this just how involved this step would be. (And I’m so thankful to have a great lighting designer holding my hand through this…more on her later!) I believe lighting in design so important so I’m happy to take as many hours and days as it takes to get it right, but more than a few times, I had to apologize to the crew as my mind felt like it was jelly. It’s said that if you dream in a foreign language than you’re on your way to fluency. Well this has happened many times in the nights after these multi-hour decision-making meetings on-site.
rubinetti, scatole, binari, interruttore, prese, comandi, tubi, fili…
And although each week I keep watching money flow out into this project, I feel like one of the best value deal of this whole thing is the free Italian lessons.