GUEST RENOVATOR
Creating Casa Leona
The Dream
Over eight years ago when our son was 15 and I was working full time as a health consultant in education my dear husband Dan was fixing a roof on a local college and managed to slip and fall to the concrete pavement below.
Very luckily he survived, albeit with a broken hip, shoulder, both feet and wrist.
Whilst I was full time nursing him at home, and helping him with his recovery for 6 months, we began to talk about the fragility of life and how one never knew what was around the corner.
This led us to our dream of escaping from work and the UK and having a home somewhere really different and having adventures and seeing the world.
Despite me spending probably way too many hours on Italian property websites it took a few years to get to the point where we could realise that dream.
Although we had to stay put in the UK for a while, that didn’t stop us visiting Italy every year and looking for houses!
Casa Leona
Thick snow, freezing cold and halfway up a massive mountain, we found our house… it was old, shabby with cold dark rooms & I instantly fell in love with it!!
My husband Dan is a builder and architect so whilst he wandered around measuring rooms I sat by the wood burner listening to stories from the lovely couple who had owned Casa Leona.
It was one of the happiest houses I’ve ever walked into.
I was sold, heart totally ruling head!
After we left it only took us about an hour to message them and offer them the full asking price and they accepted.
Wow, we had just bought a 6 bed farmhouse with land for the price of a reasonably smart BMW!!
We were so excited.
Sitting here at night the stars seem to go on forever, the noises of the various wildlife is constant and the solitude is so relaxing, we lost the stress & strain of our life in the UK.
The dream for our life in Italy is to enjoy the art and architecture, the beautiful scenery, the food, the wine, the culture and the people.
Casa Leona will be a base so we can go traveling around the rest of Italy & Europe.
The Plans
When we found Casa Leona we agreed to change it into an eco- friendly house with a vegetable patch, woodworking rooms for Dan, & a couple of holiday apartments for friends, relatives or paying guests.
Dan drew up the design plans for the whole house and we’ve split it into a 3- phase job.
Phase One: the house needs rewiring, new double -glazed windows and doors, an open kitchen with a wood burner that will heat the water and radiators.
Phase Two: Is to extend the dining room to outside with a large veranda and steps down to the garden. Then add verandas to the rear, improve veranda’s to the front, repaint exterior walls white, add exterior lighting & entrance steps.
Phase Three: Create two self -contained apartments with one incorporating what is currently a hay loft, (subject to planning permission).
Casa Leona – Updates
We returned to our house for a week of working in February. It was very snowy yet so warm and sunny it was a great week. We started the renovation by removing the wall between the compact kitchen and diner to make it into a larger room.
We are going back 1st June for a month hopefully with some other workers to try to rewire, do the plumbing, & first fix done for the new kitchen and upstairs bathroom.
A lovely local Italian builder quoted to do the whole renovation and we could not actually believe how expensive it was, broke the budget about four times over.
So this renovation is going to be done by just us, and hopefully a little help from our friends!!
Links
Would you like to be featured as a Guest Renovator? We’d love to hear from you! Get in Touch Here.
Find Casa Leona on Facebook
Viola – Viola is a comune in the Province of Cuneo in the Italian region Piedmont, located about 90 km south of Turin and about 35 km southeast of Cuneo
words & images Julie & Dan Forshaw
and the gang x
We wanted to renovate a house in Tuscany but we can’t get to the bottom of what we are allowed by law to do ourselves and what has to be done by specialists. Eg roof, plumbing , electrical, general building works. Any advice would be most welcome as it’s a real stumbling block for us!
Ciao Susie, can I suggest you join our Renovating Italy Facebook group, lots of great advice and a fantastic community!! ciao lisa x
Top effort team! Dreams can be resl