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Continued from History:
As foundations were dug, and walls rebuilt, we began to collect the elements which would lend our house a lived in air. Domenico painstakingly visited his sources, collecting 14 sets of antique doors. Our contractor, poetically named Dante, managed to nab some old discarded paving stones from the main piazza in Todi, which we used to create steps. The stone mantelpieces in the kitchen and the living room came from an old man in the Marches, who salvaged them from abandoned farmhouses.
Texture was very important to us, and so we used hand made terra cotta tiles throughout ground floor. Rather than wax them to a shiny finish, as is the norm, we opted to leave them in their rough, matte state. Upstairs, on the bedroom level we made the brave choice of using wood for the floors. Rarely is wood used in Italian country homes, for no other reason other than following age-old tradition. We were lucky enough to have a friend, Paolo, who had cut down several cypress trees a decade before. The wood, beautifully seasoned by now, was cut into uneven lengths and widths and hand installed by Paolo. Its fragrant pine scent was an added bonus we hadnt planned on, and, eight years on, still fills the house with its perfume.
One of the most important design decisions was, in fact, a bit of an experiment. Domenico had always wanted to incorporate the pigment directly into the final coat of plaster, rather than simply painting the walls. He sensed this would give an added layer of texture to the rooms, making the colours appear part of the fabric of the walls. The contractor, who had never attempted this before, was hesitant to try. Yet soon Dante was grinding terra cotta and mixing it into batches of plaster with raw pigments Domenico had brought up from Rome. The result was splendid. Each room is slightly different, all warm earth tones, which seem to glow on their own and give the house the cosy feeling everyone remarks upon.
Since cooking is a large part of my life, I knew from the very beginning that the kitchen would be the most important room in our home. Deciding where to place it was the first decision to make. The original kitchen had been on the upper floor, which would have been impractical. We chose to knock down a wall between two small stables, and create one large space which would serve as both eating area and working kitchen.
When we first started working on plans for the kitchen, my wish list was quite long. Happily, the large space enabled us to include almost all of the things I had ever dreamed of in a kitchen. The working area of the kitchen focuses on a central island, which separates the two zones. This oak topped piece of furniture manages to incorporate a book shelf, a spice rack as well as two deep rolling drawers for pots. What cant fit in the drawers is hung from a hanging rack above.
But for all my kitchens modern conveniences, my favorite part is the large open hearth. Although it looks as if it had always been there since time began, it was actually designed by Domenico; it incorporates an antique lintel as well as old paving stones from the piazza in nearby Todi. Throughout the winer months, we never let the fire go out.
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