Italian Adventures – We Bought a House in Italy!

At my home in Shoreline, WA, I have created a few different sitting areas, wanting to create space for neighbors to gather, quiet space for me to read or unwind, and family gathering areas. I love it.

When we visited Casale Gelsomino, I could see potential around the garden to create similar type spaces. I had a vision that would take me years to accomplish, but all great things take time.

In April 2022, one of my top priorities was finding outdoor furniture and creating inviting spaces offering sun, shade, gatherings and quiet. Because I didn’t know the area yet, nor did I know where to find stores for specific things, I started my journey on the Italian website ManoMano. It’s similar to Wayfair in the U.S. There were a lot of different options at a variety of price ranges so I felt pretty good about it. I saved a number of items and began my research of the product reviews. Finally I placed my order: a wood seating set of a love seat, two chairs and a table; two tall wood chairs for the balcony; 4 wood chairs for around the table (once it arrived), and a tall high top table & two chairs. They were delivered fairly quickly and would require a lot of labor putting them all together. Top priority – the seating set (pictured above). To this day, this still remains one of my favorite spots, depending on the time of day.

I knew we would need a shade area so I ordered a pergola from Leroy Merlin. This store is HUGE and sort of like a combination of Home Depot and Bed, Bath & Beyond in the U.S. Pergolas come in a variety of prices and material – wood, metal, combo, etc. Trying to keep my expenses down, I ordered a fairly inexpensive metal one that proved easy enough to put together. It was the perfect size for the corner spot along the walkway in the NW corner.

Here’s a funny story about the pergola. Adriano and crew (the gardeners) arrived one day to clear out all of the dead trees and plants throughout the garden – I wrote a separate post about this. When they were nearly done, Adriano raised a concern that the pergola was not bolted to the stone. in Italian, he explained the Umbrian wind would carry this away in an instant. He then headed into town, returned and proceeded to bolt the thing down. Thank goodness for Adriano, as we had not yet experienced the wind but once I did, I was surprised more things didn’t blow away! This is also yet another example of how special the Italian culture is. He didn’t hesitate or attempt to charge me, he just knew what needed to be done and did it. Va bene!

Next up, the chairs from hell!!! (shown below)

I ordered 4 of the chairs pictured above but note there are only 3 in the photo. These were the hardest chairs to build – EVER! I started on the first one, keeping the screws loose to ensure I could put all of the pieces together and fit them into place appropriately. However, there was one spot where the holes simply didn’t align, and I mean not even close. Andrew was still in Italy with me and came over to help but there was no way this was going to work. He insisted that we were going to need to drill new holes. I thought to myself, there is no way we should have to drill new holes, we must have done something wrong. We started on a second chair but ran into the exact same problem. OOF! The 3rd chair had some broken pieces and I was not ready to take on the 4th. I would set these aside and try again once Jessica arrived.

In the meantime, my new Deruta table arrived. It is absolutely beautiful. TIP: offer to pay cash and you will get a huge discount!

Andrew flew home, Jessica arrived with my mom, and one weekend we set out to conquer the chairs. Unfortunately, there was nothing we did wrong, they were manufactured wrong. So out came my drill and off we went. So Stupid! These chairs ended up being more hassle than they are worth, as the screws frequently come loose and require tightening regularly.

I ultimately ordered 4 new chairs that folded, making them much easier for storage. When you frequently invite people over for aperitivo or dinner, or whatever, you can never have too many chairs.

Meanwhile, I continued on my journey to create fun spaces. My friends at Tutto Torna posted a really cute distressed green bistro table that I had to have. I then ordered the perfect bistro chairs to go alongside the table.

I then found some comfortable-looking chairs that seemed great for around the yard. I then found a small firepit and thought, these chairs would be great to fit around the firepit. So another purchase was made, this time no assembly required.

We hung some lights around the pergola to make it useful and decorative at night. The spaces created thus far have proven to be exactly what I hoped for and enjoyed by many. We even had the Italian neighbors over for dinner!

In the spring of 2023, the two new terraces were complete so that gave me more fun places to create. The circular terrace in the orchard garden area was designed specifically for the firepit and black chairs. The upper terrace was designed to enable us to walk directly out of the kitchen and up to the table for outside dining. Carlo, the man we bought the house from, left a circular stone table that leaned up against the house. Adriano wheeled it up to the new terrace once I ordered an iron table stand and we had a new dining area!

In May, Jess and I started to paint the stone table…this would be a work in progress for several years.

January 2024, it was warmer outside than inside the house because the radiators were not working, so we built a fire and enjoyed aperitivo by the firepit.