Look Mommy, There’s a House in the Street!

 

The house move started early Sunday morning and lasted to mid morning Sunday. There were challenges along the way, but crews worked to solve problems and get it moved. Interesting to me were the crowds that gathered, cheering successes and fretting setbacks. Kind of like the snowstorm-effect where everyone comes out and talks. 

It was a relief to see the house backed into its final resting spot. The shots here were taken as it came down 43rd and then Fremont Avenue. The night shot is at 3:30am trying to come up Phinney. Inspiration for this blog entry: Pink Floyd's Goodbye Blue Sky - the child in the beginning of the song says "look mummy, there's an airplane in the sky". 

Fremont House to Live On

 

It’s not the usual way you’d think about getting a house, but it’s possible: save a house from demolition and move it to your lot. That’s what’s going to happen this weekend in Fremont (the self-described center of the universe). What a find, what a save this will be. The house was a former B&B (called the Gypsy Arms and featuring a S&M dungeon) and now it will live again in “upper” Fremont minus the dungeon. Rampant (or eventual?) development just made this cross between a Victorian and Craftsman not viable anymore. Sad, but a happy end this time. 

By the way, if you are searching for a house to buy and move, try the Nickel Brothers site. The Nickel Brothers will be doing the move this weekend. 

The Big Squeeze

Not sure what the story is with the house pictured (near the Ballard Bridge) and the fact that development happened all around it. Instead of taking possible sides, my mind immediately goes to practical issues: How does drainage work on this lot? Can I grow something up those walls? Is it noisy or quiet? Will it turn into a funky coffee house?

Via del Canneto Sounds

The sound of church bells that waifs over the street. The muted sound of opera practice: a teacher playing piano scales and a student following in voice. The click-clack of a pair of heels. The banter of a mother and child on their way to or from school. The swoosh of the neighbors broom (she is dressed in a smart black and white wool dress with yellow rubber gloves ). The sound of the mailman shoving letters through the slot. The sound of an electric scooter – which has a more pleasing sound compared to a gas-powered scooter. The raising and lowering of tiny garage doors – highly prized on this narrow alley/street. The sound of the dog (who watches from one of the little “bridges” across the alley) as he barks to alert the alley that another dog is approaching. People are not of interest to him. The chatter between the man who cleans the street and a man leaning out the window. The sound of the baby in the tiny courtyard across from our house and the mother saying “amore – attento!” The cooing of a dove that is on vacation from the city center. The chirping of a sparrow building a nest somewhere under an eave. The giggling of lovers slowly strolling up to where Via del Canneto meets Costa Scarpuccia and where they can sit in the tiniest of parks (one bench in an indentation in the street) and makeout for two hours. The sound of rooster (yes), again where Canneto meets Scarpuccia; behind a sliver of a garden that isn’t visible. The bone-jarring slam of a door (the woman in the yellow gloves again).

Foresteria Poderi Luigi Einaudi – Dorgliani

The Foresteria Poderi Luigi Einaudi is where we stayed for 8 days on our Piemonte trip. First, the name. The word “foresteria” is a term for a place that provides lodging – a “forestiero” is someone who comes from afar. The word “poderi” translates to “cultivated lands”. And, Luigi Einaudi was the first president of the Italian Republic between 1948-1955. (In Italian politics, the prime minister is really more important.)

foresteria: complesso di locali destinati all’allogio di ospiti e forestieri
forestiero (pl. forestieri): che, chi proviene da fouri, non è del luogo
podere (pl. poderi) : terreno agricolo coltivato

The hotel is located south of the town of Dogliani on a hill in a nice position. For most of the time, it was just us, I guess you can say, very low season. While not apparent from the outside or even to guests in the hotel is the fact that underneath the buildings is a complete wine making facility which you can a tour.

Pheasant Rent

We went to our property manager’s place to deliver the rent, look at some more apartment options and enjoy a glass of wine. It's on the way up to Fiesole so we took the #7 bus. He lives in a small part of a large palazzo (not his) with a wonderful situation in the hills. He showed us around the grounds, nice.

But somehow conversation always turns to food. We walked away with a pheasant (fagiano) that he had killed the day before. Although it's been gutted, we'll still have to pluck the feathers out. But not until it's spent a couple of more days in the fridge for the meat to ripen a bit.

Our gift was fun carrying back home on the bus in a little old plastic bag with its tail feathers sticking out. Don’t look a gift pheasant in the mouth.

(addition 01/02/08: It wasn't gutted after all. "Quick, search the internet for removing the insides of a pheasant!")

Lights Out!

We blew both the inside and outside breakers trying to run the washer and oven together. We weren’t sure at first what was going on. Resetting the main breaker on the panel inside didn't do the trick. We had some keys that looked to open a another panel outside, near our front door, but they didn’t seem to work. Mark rang Anna’s buzzer (and immediately realized she had power) but then he had to say something. It was funny as he tried to explain what we wanted. She came out and helped a bit but Mark had figured out the key situation and got the outside panel box open and we reset everything. GOOD! On with the ribollita (soup) which was cooking. He had turned on the oven to toast the bread that goes with the soup. Power failure = interruzione della corrente elettrica.

Finding a Place to Stay in Florence

We first thought we were going to stay in Bologna so we spent 20+ plus hours reviewing the layout of the city, figuring out the best neighborhoods, getting familiar with the rental sites. We used satellite imagery (Google, Bing)to look at buildings from different angles to figure out where apartments were located in various building. We probably spent too much time. Then something happened. We were talking one weekend and it became clear that neither of us felt "great" about Bologna - though we'd never been there. (Okay, some Italian friends did pooh-pooh it which made us starting wondering). Anyway, we decided to scrap Bologna and head to Florence. We'd been to Florence twice before and were familiar with the city and it felt like the right choice for us.

The process started all over again: scouring rental sites (housing, apartments), emailing contacts, checking bird's eye views, etc. This time we got a little more aggressive and emailed a lot more trying to turn up leads. There were a few sites we kept going back to:

• http://florence.craigslist.org/apa/
• http://www.windowsonitaly.com/
• http://www.inflorence.co.uk/
• http://www.vrbo.com/vacation-rentals/europe/italy/tuscany#1276
• http://www.slowtrav.com/italy/listings/florence.asp
• http://www.florencehousing.it/

In the end, an ad on Craigslist caught our eye (one that we had ignored before) and we followed up on that and secured an apartment. All in all we spent probably another 20+ hours between us. I wish were were more satifisers instead of optimizers (?). However, the work I hope is justified because I think we saved money and have something decent. No pictures or location information will be revealed until we get there. (We already had one deal fall through. It was a cool apartment in the Santa Spirito neighborhood that we had all lined up and substantial deposit emailed...only to be rejected. We are still a little sore about that one.)

Attached is a neighborhood map we made and printed out so we could keep it handy when looking for housing.

Update March 2014

It’s seven years later since we wrote this, and a lot has changed. You should also take a look at:

• http://www.airbnb.com
• http://vrbo.com
• http://www.homeaway.com
• And Google or Bing search with “rentals in florence”

In looking back at our experience in Florence and the multiple trips we’ve taken to Italy since them, we advise:

• The pictures most often are better than the actual thing. Not that this is bad, just be prepared.
• Think about where the apartments are located. Use mapping tools to get a sense of “place”. Street views can be useful to get a sense of life on the street. But don’t read too much into it. Case in point, on a recent trip to Villanova Mondovì, we found that the town was much more charming than the impression we got from just looking at aerial shots or street views.
• Think about walkability. Do you like walking to the store to get groceries? Do you like popping out for the passeggiata?
• Noise bother you?  Maybe, as charming as it might seem, don’t go for the apartment on the main piazza.  You can always walk to the piazza and enjoy it that way.
• Use the reviews and read between the lines. Think about who is giving the review.

Update July 2016

We repeated the "fun" of finding a place to live in Bergamo, Italy. Our experience is detailed in the post: Perché Bergamo (Why Bergamo)?  There are several tips in that post, the most relevant being if you are on-the-ground in the place where you are looking for an apartment, build relationships and tell people what you are looking for. Word of mouth is a pretty good way of finding a place.