In this video update, come with me on a tour of our house in Italy. It’s 5,000 square feet and in the region of Piemonte in northern Italy. This is Part 2 of the house tour. It shows what the upper floors of the house looked like when we bought the house and before any cleaning and renovation work had begun.
What You See in the Video
- Check out all the rooms on the second and third floors of the house.
- See the most damaged bathroom in the house, which hadn’t been used in decades.
- On the top floor, you’ll see the part of the house that was in the worst shape…but the views from the balcony were beautiful!
The Story Behind-the-Scenes
The house has a second and third floor. The second floor spans the whole length of the house, while the top floor is only above one half of the house. The stairs run up to a landing on both levels. On the second floor landing you can go left or right depending on which side of the house you’d like to go to.
These areas of the house were part time capsule and part liveable space.
The first few rooms you see in the video hadn’t been used in a long time. We’re not sure how long but the small closet in the first room and the wardrobes had school notebooks and school diplomas going back to the late 1800s and early 1900s. One of the wardrobes had clothes, now perfectly vintage, and toys that date back also to the late 1800s. Still, at the end of this line of bedrooms, there was a non-functioning bathroom which was likely added in the first half of the 1900s.
What we loved on this side of the house were all the doors leading to a balcony that runs parallel to the hallway on the courtyard side of the house. From the very first visit, the house stood out because of all this light! Some old houses we had looked at were so dark and had few windows. This house was the exact opposite. On the flip side, though, these rooms had no heating so we knew then that lines would have to be run.
The rooms on the other side of the second floor were the most liveable in the house. There was a working kitchen and bathroom, although both were incredibly dated. This part of the house also had heat. But the room that captured my heart from the start was the living room. I could see the potential in its covered brick vaulted ceilings and absolutely loved the brick floor.
Up on the top floor, no one had lived or spent any time in for a long time. The house needed some structural work and these were the rooms that showed it the most. On one end of this level, the floor was sagging and many of the doors leading to balconies or juliet balconies had broken glass.
The top floor rooms were also full of furniture! Over the years, it seemed any piece of furniture someone wanted to store away got put up here. There were multiple wardrobes, at least 10-15 chairs, numerous bedside tables, dressers, and one-of-a-kind pieces like an antique baby cradle and a wooden chair with a cutout…that was clearly used as a toilet…complete with the opening in the back to hide the chamber pot!
What’s more, many of these pieces got stored up here with things inside, from slippers to playing cards, prayer books, and even a loaf of VERY hard bread. One thing was for sure. The views up here were amazing and part of our first conversation with the engineer was about how we might open this room more to be able to see the view of the hills and the Alps in the distance.
Where To Next?
See all the renovation updates in order by heading back to this renovation journey page.
Or watch more now using the navigation links below.
Previous update: House Tour Part 1: Ground Floor, Courtyard, & Cantinas
Next update: Prepping the House for Renovation
