Friday 12 April 2013

What lies beneath - uncovering the structure of an Italian centro storico home.

Having never seen a centuries-old Italian house stripped back before, I wasn't sure what the structure would look like: it felt naive to think it could be solid stone through and through!

In UK, if you take up the carpets and pull down the ceiling you'll very likely have wooden floorboards below and wooden joists above as seen in these photos from the UK project I'm running just now.

Wooden joists and roof supports

Wooden joists and floorboards
Not so in Italy.  While UK plumbers lift a few floorboards to put new pipework in, Puglian plumbers dig channels in the concrete!  Here's some pics of the new showerrooms for the holiday apartments:

New shower

New toilet and bidet

New sink
 The old stone flooring's been taken up on the first floor and there's no floorboards there either.

New sandpit in the living room!
The mezzanine level has been rebuilt without any boards.

Unsupported stairs in this photo make me really nervous!

Never fear,  Signore silver fox builder's here!
So far, I have found just one tiny piece of wood: the lintel over an internal door within a load-bearing wall.  Not sure whether it was likely to be part of of the original structure.
Door in the marshmallow pink bedroom!
It'll soon be tiled over as part of the new en suite so here's a pic for prosperity!

Is this the only piece of wood in the entire structure?!
So is this contrast due to the materials in plentiful supply - wood in UK, stone in Puglia - or is the lack of wood in this Puglian house due to the greater risk of fires in the hotter climate?  Any other theories?

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