Debates over a Shadow Gap – Creating a House in Italy with no Battiscopa

Though I love the feel and ambience of traditional old stone houses in the countryside whether in the UK or Italy , they can be rather limiting in design terms because a building over a certain age will likely be  the Italian equivalent of a listed building  and you will be prevented by the Belle Artes from changing the outside, certainly the external openings and sometimes the inside.
On the top of my list for my home was that it has to be full of natural light and so for that reason when I bought my house in Liguria I was looking for something I could change radically inside and out  in order to create a modern light filled home. So I ended up buying a really ugly late 70′s house, not the usual expat choice to buy in Italy ! The more traditional houses I looked at in better positions (nearer Lerici) had impossible space i.e. difficult to do anything with, and probably  more relevant to me impossible prices!
Creating a contemporary home so far out of the ugly duckling has involved many debates with the architect and also with the planners and builders. The height of the doors, the size of the windows, with large windows how to keep the house cool in summer and warm in winter, what technology to use etc etc .
One of the more amusing discussions has been over the floor/paving and the battiscopa or  lack of one. What no battiscopa said the builder what do you want to put in its place, well nothing, literally nothing a gap between where the plaster finishes and the floor begins so it looks like the wall is hanging above the floor.
This is a treatment which you often see in contemporary houses in the UK but is not seen often in Italy. Particularly as  plaster board is a relatively new building technique in Italy but which is standard in the UK and also in the UK you get off the shelf aluminium profiles to create the gap. In Italy these are not available. So started the big discussion on how we were to create the gap.
How high do you want this gap then 8cm ? No far to high as it is not a battiscopa! No more than 3cm in height. How do you keep the walls from getting dirty when you clean the floor….? well whoever cleans the floor ( and I have a feeling it is going to be me)  has to be careful and also use clean water. Ok well then perhaps, they suggested, we should use a material which wont rust or get damaged and wont need painting. Ok a compromise is eventually reached, lets use a purpose made stainless steel L- shaped profile and if necessary I will paint it the same colour as the wall myself  if I dont like it being shiny.
The finish used on the floor in a contemporary house  is often an industrial flooring in concrete or with a resin finish so it has a uniform simple look. This time both the architect and the builder seemed to think I would be better off using a ceramic tile to mimic the look at the getting a good finish is quite difficult. They may be right as I have seen some really bad finishes in the Uk and here and I dont know if I can face the worry of the builder doing it and the finish not being right. So after some thought and much searching for the right ceramic tile,  I have found one which looks like a resin finish.Apparently using a tile ‘rectificato’ (one with flat cut sides) they can be laid really close to give a similar uniform finish and it is cheaper… strange as it seems to be a rule of law that so far every finish I have chosen seems to be the more expensive option so thats good news.Here’s hoping the tiles and the shadow gap look good when finished.

Trials and Tribulations or Tense Times on a Hill near Tuscany

Well I havent posted for a while as I am trying to resolve problems with the building site which will eventually be my home,  the work has had to stop almost and the problems are on going.

Builders are generally a race apart from anyone else in whatever country you happen to be, neighbours come in all varieties from those whom you call a friend and would trust with your life and those whom you can do without , or seem from another era or even planet both species seem to be conspiring against me
Well the building site is on top of a hill at the end of a track in the commune of Castelnuovo Magra (Liguria just) and borders with Ortonovo in Tuscany. The site is reached by a winding road mainly in the commune if Ortonovo.
Well so far i have recieved 3 denucia in from residents in Ortonovo and the vigili have stopped trucks passing and effectively stopped the work on site. Two of these denuncia  relate to the state of the road leading up to the house which has become degraded as a result of the builders moving earth in  trucks too heavy for the road so I can sympathise with this . The denuncia were done by an avvocato (lawyer) at the Procura  the lawyer happens to live on the road up to the house  somewhere, just my luck. But whereas in the UK you would go to you neighbour and have a word and get assurances here in Italy I find myself in front of the local police, assuring them the builders will repair the road and unfortunatley at my expense! Aparently there was a weight restriction on the road but the sign was missing and had not been not replaced. Anyway we need to get the some trucks up with cement to finish the job so off to grovel to the Sindaco caps in hand. They started by saying that they are known in the area as being one of the more severe comunes  in the area (great). If we want to start work they need a fideussione effectively an insurance policy which will act as a financial guarantee that I will pay for the repairs so next week a survey is required and once the value of work is assessed I will have to get this policy at least a friend of mine is in insurance so hopefully it will not be too difficult or alternatively I ask my bank. After this all being well they seems predisposed to let us proceed……. crossing my fingers, touching wood(england) and metal(Italy).
The third denuncia was from an elderly man who owns a ruin on some land not far from my house next to the beginning of the track which forms the last 400 metres of the route to the house. This is the kind of neighbour from hell you dont want to have. His  denuncia relates to building materials he says we dumped on his land. The buiilding company is professional and has all the invoices for the dump we are using and the materials are not from my property. He has also been telling the builders we have no right to pass down the last 400 metres as it is a private road.This road has been used for access to the house since the house was built in 1983 and is used by the general public and other neighbours. Whether he will do anything more I dont know yet  but but i will make a few more enquiries at the comuni as to the nature of this road as everyone else I speak to says its a public road/track or at least there is a public right of way on it.However I did speak to another nieghbour who finished renovating his property last year, he started 4 years ago and used the same road. Oh he said that mad old man tried to blackmail me when we started work too!
Well watch this space an update will appear soon, hopefully with good news and a picture with some progress! Lets hope all this good weather is not wasted with no work!!