Monday, July 16, 2007

Progress Update 16/07/07

There has been some progress at the house during the last week and the scaffolding has finally come down to reveal our lovely stonework. If you look at the photo taken last year compared to the current state of the exterior you will notice a distinct difference! It will look great when the new windows are installed but unfortunately our builder continues to ignore us so we have no idea when the doors and windows will be arriving. They are progressing with the tiling inside although we are less than impressed with the standard of work in areas, you would be amazed by the bathroom floor and what they felt was an acceptable standard. I'm afraid it was so bad I can't even bring myself to include a photo! Let's hope things continue to progress and standards improve a little.

Sunday, July 08, 2007

Progress Update 08/07/07

Unfortunately our builder continues to be completely unreliable and work on the house continues to progress very slowly (if at all). Our builder has actually done a disappearing act for the last few weeks so there is little to report. He did put in a brief appearance last week when he laid a few tiles and did some more work to the external stonework but our end of June completion date has clearly slipped! He has made new promises that the work will be completed by the end of July but we are not holding our breath!

With the exception of the difficulties with the house we are both well and continuing to enjoy our life in Italy. For those of you who are following our progress as well as progress on the house you may be interested to know we are expecting our first baby in December! We felt that moving to a new country, learning a new language and taking on a wreck of a house of house wasn't enough of a challenge so we decided to complicate matters further! So far the Italian healthcare system is proving to be very efficient, although we still struggle with the language, and everyone has been very pleasant and helpful.