The renovation - well, I say *renovation*, but what I really mean is demolition - started in earnest a few weeks ago. We are very lucky that we've bagged ourselves a gorgeous apartment to rent, in a...
Renovation…
In the beginning, our blogs were mainly about destruction, demolition, debris, dirt, dust and sometimes, despair. It wasn’t easy, and sometimes, sitting in our new “home”, surrounded by boxed up belongings and builders’ tools and ladders and half built walls, we did wonder what we had done. But those walls do get built, the tools are finally dispensed with and the familiar belongings find new homes. We’re now able to document the “nice” bits of the reno project – the upcycling, the recycling, the repurposing. Making empty spaces into rooms. Breathing new life back into a house which needed a lot of TLC.
We hope that this journal will provide inspiration if you are embarking on a similar journey. We hope that it will give you the courage to just do it. And we hope that it will give you an unshakeable sense of belief that it can be done. Because it can. And guess what? We’re still doing it. The house may be finished – although we never say never – and so our focus has been on major demolition and construction work at both the front and rear of the house. Want to know all about our renovations?
Open a bottle of wine, curl up on the sofa and come and join us on our journey…
recent renovation blogs
our initial advice when buying abroad
Finally, work has started in the house. We visited last week and arrived to the sound of chiselling and hammering as years of plaster was starting to be removed from the walls of the rooms on the...
our renovation learning : #1
Although we have renovated houses before, this seems a very different renovation. In our very first house, we did change it a lot, but we did nothing structural. Mostly, it seemed to be constant...
the start of something new…
Although it still feels as if we are on a very extended holiday here in Andalucia, and will be returning to Istria and our stone house, we're going to soon realise that this is not the case. We...
a whole new renovation
When we decided to sell our house in Istria and move to Spain, we initially didn't look at future renovation projects. We thought that we wanted somewhere we would move in, and tinker around the...
honeysuckle success story
Over the past four or five years, we've had mixed success with our three honeysuckle plants. They have been moved around the garden quite a lot, due to some extensive renovation works, and last...
a little bit of art deco design
Our Istrian stone house has not an iota of art deco about it. With a very traditional Mediterranean stone house structure, a Scandi inspired interior and a contemporary exterior, there's nothing at...
repurposing a chimney pot
One of the stranger things we packed into the back of the removal lorry when we came out to Istria, was the large clay, chimney pot which had been removed from the roof of our West Didsbury house,...
house reno : stairs : update 3
It's been a while since I first posted about the stairs which lead down from our living room, into what we now call The Snug. I'm glad to say that the very dangerous wooden stairs which we inherited...
villa cesare : savudrija : istria
A little bit of a different renovation tale today. One that is slightly more ambitious than the one we have embarked upon! When we're out and about in Istria, we often stumble upon what we think are...
our very unique feature
Although the whole job isn't quite 100% complete, we do have a very, very unique feature in our house. If you've never seen any of our photos, or read any of our renovation blogs, you might not not...
mandala window
Although not overlooked, now that the small house has been demolished, we felt we needed to do something with the downstairs bathroom window. No-one can see you in the shower, because the house is...
winter house maintenance
Our stone house in Istria isn't currently a holiday home. Having relocated from Manchester nearly seven years ago, we have lived here full time, renovating the house from top to bottom. We've lived...
private parking
We've never lived in a house before that has a private parking area. All of our previous properties have had on-road parking, and because we lived in busy Mancunian suburbs, parking could be tricky....
entrance to our home
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...
garden vision realised…
Ever since I saw this photo, I knew exactly what the garden at the rear of the house needed to look like. And, luckily, our builder was totally on board and could see the vision we had. Now, four...
construction continues…
It seems as if we have once again, shared our home and garden, with builders, for a considerable period of time. But we haven't really - it's only been four months - but we've been so keen and...
secret garden progress
It's only called the Secret Garden because it's partly hidden from view and it sounds a whole nicer than the back garden. Since the weather broke and we've had lovely long days of hot sunshine, the...
and another garden wall is built
With a reliable builder finally working with us, we've decided that we can't let him go to waste, and so are adding jobs to his ever-growing list. The weather has been pretty dire the last week or...