Patience, Pandemic, Palazzo, Post Pandemic and the “Reveal” of the Kitchen… after so many years.

I have recently been reminded that I haven’t posted for a while and found several drafts that I began to write.. so now I determined to finish at least one to bring you up to date on our palazzo story and Arpino!

Somehow I don’t think those first three words of this posts’ title fit together. In fact I am sure of it! But what was a girl to do? There is was a pandemic and I am over ‘that’ age. According to the NYT, 1 person out of every 100 Americans over the age of 65 has died of COVID. That is a scary statistic in my book (even though I am not in the US and barely still an American!). Although patience with life at that point was definitely the order of business, I did find alternative paths to enjoying the palazzo I incredulously own in Italy and not letting the frustrations of the distance and delays take up too much space!

A stufa (Italian for woodstove), it’s story and journey to Arpino is definitely one of them. And there is the story about our ladies that I promised you a while back.. so this will be a rambling post not only about a stufa and three ladies, the joys of subito.it, ebay.it, FB marketplace and those ‘sneaky’ mercantino and antique dealers posting alluring pictures showing up on my Instagram feed.. and finally a kitchen renovation reveal which finally happened after 8 years!

Let’s start with the ‘ladies’ as our Arezzo market find takes us back to the January of 2020 before a world that knew COVID. It was a world then that now we can only think of nostalgically – a world without thinking.. should I put my mask on or not, without fear of infection from our ‘babies’ and grandchildren, without zooms, without thinking twice about going into a store or getting on a plane. I know that things are definitely better than they were, but does it feel a lifetime ago to anyone else that life was just simpler before the pandemic?

January 2020 a few months before the world changed, my friend Amalyah and I were in our favorite haunt – the Arezzo antique market. The market happens the first Sunday of every month and the Saturday before. I discovered this market years ago, before the internet, even before the Euro, dragging my daughters as I remember. Then though, we could only buy little finds that we could store in a suitcase, hoping things wouldn’t break as we headed home. It has occurred to me, more than once, that maybe I bought the palazzo simply so I would have a place to put all these wonderful treasures without having to transport them over the seas!

Walking up the hill we happened upon these ‘statues’ which were so incredible in detail and beauty that we both stopped short. I thought.. well.. you never know and I asked the price before even thinking what am I going to do with them? where would they go? how will I get them to Arpino? The price was so little compared to anything that I might think a work of this kind of art should be that my heart just raced ahead of any practicalities.

We asked the history.. as Amalyah would say: the provenance. We were told that they graced the entrance of a theater in the late 1800s in a small town outside of Florence. Is that true? We are still working on that… 🙂 But all three together definitely are an arch that seems to have fit the description. One our ladies might be the allegory of music, holding a harp; the second, of art as she looks like she is holding a small sculpture and our man of wind in the middle… the three pieces fit together beautifully and I thought.. I can’t afford Roman antiquities but these are not a bad second!

This last trip, I finally was able to have the hanging lantern replaced with a spot light hoping our ladies natural drama will create the WOW effect that I am looking to create for whomever enters the palazzo, without a hanging distraction.

During the pandemic and various lockdowns, I kept my Italian life ‘fix” alive by perusing online websites selling second hand merchandise in Italy. I am not as adept at it as others who have bought and moved to Arpino, but I do find the occasional item that lights me up! 🙂

My two major online purchases are kitchen related – one a beautiful wood burning stove that will keep the kitchen warm in the winter as well provide us with constant hot water.. and also I think looks beautiful. I fell in love over FB Marketplace, although in actuality, the practicality of it is yet to be proven and the space it has taken in the kitchen is probably not worth it but it is pretty and unusal! The second, an amazing century old pantry that I adore.

This is what I saw online. I seriously lucked out with this purchase! It looks much better in person.

This was the wood stove I saw online. It was located in Puglia, a four and a half hour drive from Arpino. If anyone is looking for a new career – a reliable country wide small van delivery service is needed in Italy!!! Isn’t it fantastic?

Eventually, they both made it to Arpino… and now the story of our upstairs kitchen!

The first picture with pink walls is April 2015, the week, we got the keys! We progress to gray walls and white modern chairs when I was thinking NYC industrial décor in an old palazzo… Palazzo Kim Kitchen décor ideas has taken many twists and turns since then!

We then find a light fixture in a cool shop in Arezzo and put up shiny white shelves

I swear we didn’t light the fire to cook Neveh.. who I think was just 2 there!

And so the kitchen stayed like this, adding bits and pieces, knowing one day there would be a permanent place for everything to live, but we still enjoyed it with lovely family meals and happy grandkids! The kitchen lost some of its tiles with the addition of the kitchen gas oil heaters during the structural renovation, but I knew one day we would finish the kitchen, so I wasn’t too bothered.

And so we arrive to 2022. I have someone who can finally do some construction work and restrictions of COVID have lifted somewhat and it is TIME! I may finally have a finished kitchen!

But what does that look like? Honestly for so many years I have been thinking about it and planning it that I think in the end it just emerged around pieces that I accumulated over all those years: The carpenter’s table, the farmhouse kitchen table, the dark straw chairs, the pasta table and the wood stove. And then as the work started, we found stone, lovely stone and a stone doorway.. all over, of course that we left exposed. Is it exactly what I imagined? Absolutely not! Do I love it? Mostly yes!

So it starts with a plan – how to fit everything – where, a vision and colors.

From Pinterest, not exactly but the feeling was there.. which I sort of got in the end…

I LOVE these colors – the kitchen was lacking among other things warmth.. In my opinion. So I go to Rome to see what I can find… and I end up with this

I thought it was a dark green tile – it looked that way in the store for sure.. and I got paint that I thought would match.. I wanted one wall a washed red.. although it looks more orange here and it turned out actually to be more salmon…

I come back to Arpino with all the materials and we begin… and much to our surprise we found under the plaster, this beautiful stone. It took more time, but we were able to expose the stone and it looks and feels fantastic. We began to add the color and the tiles well.. but I didn’t think it worked well. In fact, I hated it!!.. so off comes the yellow and the salmon.. I have left a bit of the salmon.. jury still out.. but it is only paint!

Now the color of the tile is a completely different issue. The tile, beautiful as it is, is not what I wanted.. so some of it will come off and we will add bits of the palazzo tile that will tie in both sides of the house as these tiles are at the other end of the house as well as at the top of the stairs. I am having them cut to 13 cm, the will be mounted blue side down, and the last row of tiles is being removed to make room for them.. so hopefully it will darken he look of the green a bit while giving another nod to the history of the house.

The mutura piece of the kitchen holding the stove top, oven, a set a drawers was built.

So the beautiful exposed stone begged for a shelf to hold our everyday dishes.. and it is mounted expertly.

Here we are today, with everything almost done except the row of tile.

The kitchen functions beautifully. I never was going to have a ‘normal’ kitchen – it was always going to be pieces of furniture that worked. And it does.

The pasta table is a brilliant work space. We added the wheels to it, which gives it just enough height so it works as an island. When we need the table space, it can just be wheeled out of the way. The dishes are very convenient on the shelves which are just the right height. Glasses live in the pantry next door. The pot filler is fantastic. I always dreamed of one. It works brilliantly. Pots on the shelf that was finally built for the carpenter’s table. And there is even enough light now in the kitchen at night.

It may have taken years, but it feels just right!

Until next time.