I’m afraid this is getting a little repetitive but we are moving toward the home stretch. I went over the day before and looked in the closet. Bad. Clothes are pretty dusty. I decided to go back today and tape them both shut and try to tape the cardboard over the living room doorway. Probably too late now but they still have to sand the floors so can’t hurt I guess. I want to be there when they are moving stuff out of the living room as it is covered with dust in there. I want to “carefully” remove the plastic on the sofa after everything else is out. Then I want to vacuum it before it moves. I’m pretty concerned about it.

So I went over and did the taping. One of the workmen was still there. After I was done and he’d left I took a few more pictures. They made good progress. The new wall around the terrace looks really good with the old stones on it. Here is a picture. See how they match the windowsill stone?

They started building the zona di notte doorway in the hall. I am not sure how I feel about this. I guess it’ll be OK once it’s done. It will allow some privacy in the bedroom and will also allow us to put the cats there if work is being done. I am sure I’ll get used to it. It will also restrict how big a piece of furniture can go back there. Picture.

They also finished the last tile in the pantry doorway. It’s hard to see but here’s a picture. It still needs to be cut along the edge to fit. I guess they do that last.

Meeting

We have a meeting set up with Emanuele Wednesday morning to discuss final work. As far as I can see we have these things left:

• Finish door in hall
• Cleanup site (whew!)
• Floors to be sanded and refinished in 2 steps because of the furniture
• Kitchen to be installed
• All walls need to be painted
• Overhead lighting needs to be installed
• All wiring needs to be finished; covers, switch plates, dimmers, plug fittings, etc.
• Fireplace needs to be opened, inspected and cleaned (and I think Emanuele is Umbrianizing it sometime)
• Need to replace mantle on pellet stove fireplace
• They took off old door shutters and still need to install the new ones

I want to talk to Emanuele about moving the shelves in the living room into the pantry but I think I’ll wait on that. I want to be sure they are firmly attached so they won’t fall and I am not confident I can do that.

Shopping

Today we also went down to the lighting store near Perugia. Drat. I thought because it was a big box store it would be open but Monday mornings in particular are problematic. Actually I think the Italians have a great idea easing into the work week. Not getting up early and going to work on Monday would have suited me just fine when I was working 🙂 . We just need to give up on this doing anything on Monday idea.

Since we had gone all that way we went into a really big shoe store that WAS open. Pretty good prices. Luther got some running shoes. Next we drove down to Metro – another REALLY big store. When we went in it stretched on forever and reminded me of Costco. Well it SHOULD have reminded me of that because after we’d walked blithely in a woman kept calling out to me, Senora, Senora! I don’t really answer to Senora yet but finally figured out she was talking to me. Turns out you DO have to be a member, just like Costco so out we went!

I contacted Cecelia who helped us with our Gas and Water contracts back in the summer. We will meet her on Thursday to see the furniture store owned by her fiancè’s family. I may not like it but I’d like to look. I forgot to say we visited a store up towards Citta di Castello last week called Tiziano. It was recommended to me by Susan. They don’t have a lot of space for furniture on site but they can order anything you want from a bazillion catalogs. This may solve my furniture problems. We need to measure our mattress and bed to order those. Now I have to wait until we open that doorway I taped to do that!