Going on from There

Sadly, Hubby's prediction as to how plans actually look in reality came true. When we tried out his new floor plan in situ, our teeth could very easily have broken against the kitchen counter. The new floor plan also meant having to halve the size of the main (only) room. "No worries" said Hubby "we'll just remove my mother's deckchair. Time for it to go anyway". "What?!?!? No way!!!" I said, looking at the faded colours of Ginetta's deckchair, which doubles as an armchair, and looking at Hubby as if he'd just suggested we'd put down our cats. To make a longer story short, we returned home, our enthusiasm slightly bent, but not beaten.

However, something has been set in motion. A few days later, we decided to contact the local Geometra, to get the facts on what can be done with our Tiny House.

A Geometra is "part chartered surveyor, part on-site foreman and general engineer".* If you build/rebuild a house in Italy, you need a Geometra.

Our local Geometra turned out to be a young and zealous professional. Actually too zealous for our own good. After looking through the documents pertaining to our Big and Tiny House and making an onsite survey, he informed us of the following:

The Tiny House

1. 1.5 m2 / 16 sq ft floor area was built without a building permit. 
2. The walls are 7 - 20 cms / 2,75 - 7,87 inches higher than the building permit states. 
3. The sewer system is probably nonexistent, contrary to what the building plans states (oh dear!)
4. If we want to add space to the Tiny House, we will have to tear down the roof. It seems every other way of adding an extension is Not A Good Idea, according to the Geometra.

The Big House had the kitchen moved and a shower space added when I bought it 10 years ago. However...

1. While a building permit was requested and given for the project, I did not inform the authorities that I'd finished the work. This must be done within a 3-year period. I had no idea, of course,
2. As I didn't inform the authorities in the alotted timeframe, the building permit is now null and void...
3. ...and as the work was still done, it means that the changes made to my house, while being completely legal for the first 3 years, are now completely illegal, out of order, kaputt... I'm a bad, BAD citizen!!!

In case someone wonders, the noble discipline of Logic was born in Greece, not in Italy...

Ze End


*Thank you to Barbara McMahon, author of "The Complete Guide to Buying Property in Italy", for the definition of a Geometra.

The Beginning... Maybe...

We've decided that this Summer we are going to live a month in Hubby's Tiny House.

While this sounds very undramatic, it could actually be the beginning of something quite revolutionary. After months of mulling things over, our tentative LRP goes something like this:

• See if it is at all possible to fit us in a 27 m2 / 290 ft2 house (The Tiny House) for an extended time period.
• Sell my 130 m2 / 1400 ft2 house (The Big House).
• Buy some land near The Tiny House to gain some additional square meters, enough to add two conservatively sized bedrooms and a bathroom to The Tiny House.

Things were set in motion the other night when Hubby suddenly had a breakthrough, sat down at our dinner table and began scribbling furiously on his floor plan. By changing the position of our kitchen, he suddenly managed to create a teensy bedroom for our Little'Un. As she is only 8 and of fairy proportions, it could actually be feasible. And this Summer we're going to see if it's livable as well.

Now we can't wait to get over there and get some measurements in. While the standard suggestion in interior decorating books is that you should cut out some nifty little furniture templates and place them on your nifty floor plan, I'm not very impressed with that approach. It isn't until you're on site and move your Real Life furniture around that you truly see if it works.

Or as Hubby put it: When you look at the floor plan, it seems the kitchen is waaaayyyy over there on the opposite wall... and then, when you actually open the door, you realise that if you stumbled on the threshold, you could very easily end up smashing your front teeth in the kitchen counter!

QED.

Ze End (as my Italian hubby would put it)