When we bought our house in Istria in 2016, it looked very different to how it does today. It was kind of quarter renovated. The roof was new. The guttering was new. Windows had been fitted. And that was just about it. But, we saw the potential – even seeing ahead, to how the actual entrance to the house could look. Which, at the time admittedly, as awful as it was, wasn’t number one priority. But, recent works have meant that I’ve looked back to 2016 and reminded myself of what we – and visitors – were greeted with…
To be fair, once we moved in, this SHOCKING entrance to the house was power washed very quickly, immediately making things look slightly better. But, with a full on house renovation, everything else took priority and it was a good while before we even thought about what to do with here, apart from add a few potted plants, in the early days.
The biggest improvement came, when we had the well, which originally sat inside the house, relocated to the platform outside the front door – but it still took us quite a while longer to do anything further.
There was a big gap between the well and the front wall of the house, which wasn’t really that dangerous – it wasn’t too high and we kept away from the edge, but it definitely didn’t look great. So, we came up with a solution and fixed a wooden palette in place, which had the advantage of planters being able to be hung from it, so immediately making the entrance look a lot cheerier.
The concrete patio, in front of the house, and steps were painted in an attempt to make them look better. However, in hindsight, it was a costly error as it took an awful lot of specialist outdoor paint and within a year it had started to peel and crack. We also painted without addressing first the real issue – the terrible state of the steps. These had been poorly made and were definitely in an unfinished state, something we should have dealt with, but we didn’t, until very recently, because at the time we couldn’t find anyone to do the work, and we certainly couldn’t re-concrete them ourselves.
However, having finally found a reputable, and quite frankly brilliant, builder we added this small(ish) task to his list. And what a transformation. As well as the whole of the garden area being covered in white pea-gravel, and the side access road covered in larger white stones, the steps now look very smart, especially as the paint has been reapplied correctly. The window shutters, which were way past their best despite our best DIY efforts, have been removed. They were so dilapidated that we couldn’t even close some of them, so the decision was made to just get rid. We did have new shutters costed but as they were rarely closed – we prefer light flooding in – we decided against having them made. Why we didn’t tackle this a long time ago is a mystery, but we’ve tackled it now, and what a massive difference it has all made to the entrance of the house, with relatively little effort on our part and all done not too expensively, either…
Obviously, the painted wooden palette has been long gone and so we also requested that a wall be built between the well and the house wall and painted the same colour as the steps and the small balcony outside the front door, and we left the builder to it, thinking “it’s just a wall”. But look at this beautiful join. The way the wall just melts into the well. Now, that is attention to detail.
So, another job ticked off the House List. And it’s ironic really isn’t it, that when you just start to get your house exactly as you’ve always wanted, your head and heart shift, and you’re planning to be on the move again…