Fixing Querciatello

Name: Fixing Querciatello
Address: Via ARIETE, Rome, 00128, IT
Telephone: +393466015228

Casa
Italia
Rome
Fixing Querciatello

Restoring an old farm house in Tuscany, Italy

03/08/2023

Querciatello in the years before we came by

03/08/2023

Querciatello before 2004.

03/08/2023

The history of restoring a house. Querciatello as we found it 2004

03/08/2023

Querciatello as we found it 2004 - 1st floor. No 1st floor really - as apparently, some friendly souls had reused all the terracotta somewhere of their own. No chance of a walk upstairs, that will have to be an experience for the future. However, at least some of the wooden substructure seems reusable.

03/08/2023

Querciatello as we found it 2004 - Roof. Pretty, original and with tiles full of lichen, but not very useful. The construction and roof has to be re-done, but at least the nice old tiles can cover some of the new roof.

03/08/2023

Querciatello as we found it 2004 - Facades. The facades are great and basically sound. They are made of three colours of stone, two shades of cream coloured sandstone and one black volcanic rock, with windows and doors framed by red brick. They are one of the reasons why we fell for the house.

03/08/2023

Querciatello as we found it 2004 - Garden. The garden is about 5000 m2 and mostly very steep. The gentle sloping part is covered in tall grass, weeds and shrubbery and the steeper part in oak forest. We will have to squeeze to get room for some lawn, swimming pool and car park. One end of the garden is full of 3-4 truckloads of old rusty rolls of fencing material all covered by blackberries - what a pain.

03/08/2023

Querciatello as we found it 2004 - Annex. The old wagon and implements room, we call it the annex. We can't really get a good look at it yet. The roof has collapsed and the room is full of creepers and trees.

03/08/2023

Querciatello as we found it 2004 - Lower house. A great room (100 m2), six columns, four half columns, eight arches, 3.7 meters to the roof, 50 cm rubble on the floor, a black-berry shrubbery in each end and still fodder straw in the mangers. Unfortunately the columns are too flimsy so we will have to rebuild them.

03/08/2023

Querciatello as we found it 2004 - Upper house. On one side the roof has gone and shrubbery grows in 1 m of rubble and debris. The room holds a collection of bats, scorpions, salamanders, slow-worms, spiders and much else. On the other side the roof is intact and the stable holds a collection of old junk. The old kitchen that doubled as entrance had a large oven now reduced to one metre of rubble. Next to the kitchen is the old kitchen storage and cheese room with a closed arch.

02/08/2023

Fixing Querciatello 2004 - Works. The year of cleaning up, tearing down and removing.

02/08/2023

Fixing Querciatello 2004 - Main kitchen. The first embryonic start of a new kitchen. Some raw walls (my first attempt at a brick wall), a few niches, tubes for electricity and concrete floor left for future development.

02/08/2023

Fixing Querciatello 2004 - New roof. The new roof on its way with the"cordone" to link up the outer walls. This work was done during the winter, it was cold and snowing and probably the workmen spend more time trying to keep warm than they actually worked. We did not come very often.

02/08/2023

Fixing Querciatello 2004 - Removing the old roof. Acrobats without safety net handling heavy timber over brittle inner walls, 5-7 meters in the air, taking the old roof off. Luckily everything went well and nobody got hurt!

02/08/2023

Fixing Querciatello 2004 - Columns Lower House. The old columns in the stables were too flimsy and attacked by salt from animal sweat and had to come down. We found a nice 3 cm thick, classic looking brick to build the new columns. Now the stables look a bit like an old monastery.

02/08/2023

Fixing Querciatello 2004 - Garden. At present the garden is a sorting and cleaning ground for stones and bricks. We found more than three big truckloads of old rusty rolls of fencing material stacked in the forties but never used. All nicely hidden away under a thick blackberry shrubbery.

02/08/2023

Fixing Querciatello 2004 - Floors. To make the concrete foundations for the new floors we have to remove rubbish and rubble, excavate to desired depth and drag first layer of concrete, lay iron reinforcement and drag second layer of concrete.

02/08/2023

Fixing Querciatello 2004 - Facades. Every single stone has to be scrubbed and cleaned of surrounding mortar. The house is 28 m long, 12 m wide and 5-7 m tall. That makes a lot of square meters to clean. The outer walls are kept apart by a "cordone" (a reinforced concrete frame under the roof) and held together with a number of chains.

02/08/2023

Fixing Querciatello 2004 - Walls Upper House. The chain gang at work taking down unwanted walls and de-plastering others - dusty job.

02/08/2023

Fixing Querciatello 2004 - Floor 1st floor. As the old roof came down all the old internal brick walls had to go. Then the new floor was made. Starting from below there is the carrying woodwork of beams and cross-beams, the 33x16 cm terracotta and iron reinforced concrete - more to follow later.

02/08/2023

Fixing Querciatello 2005 - Works. Querciatello got a new roof, new internal walls and clean facades.

02/08/2023

Fixing Querciatello 2005 - Bricks - bricks. Amira has the patience to sort and clean all those piles of nice 200 years old bricks. They make a good rustic look when reused and give some good muscles carrying around.

02/08/2023

Fixing Querciatello 2005 - Roof. The new roof is very different from the original. Starting from below there is the carrying woodwork of beams and cross beams, then 33x16 cm terracotta, 5 cm polyester plates, iron reinforced concrete, asphalt paper and finally roof tiles.

02/08/2023

Fixing Querciatello 2005 - Ceilings. The ceilings more or less have their final look - they "just" (nothing about this house is just) need some cleaning - looks good though.

02/08/2023

Fixing Querciatello 2005 - Facades. Each m2 takes one hour to fix. Loose mortar has to go. Then new mortar has to be filled in and dry and then be scraped down to one cm deep. Holes have to be repaired and new stones filled in. Also door and window frames have to be repaired. Now that is a big job!

02/08/2023

Fixing Querciatello 2005 - Moving in. We made some first attempts at moving in. Two times three nights and one time five nights this year. It was dusty, in the company of bats and cats, sometimes a bit humid. After that we gave up and have decided to wait until we have the windows in.

02/08/2023

Fixing Querciatello 2005 - Removing plaster. We are planning where possible to keep the stones exposed. That means that the plaster first has to come off till 2 cm deep around each stone, then the walls have to be sand blown. Finally the spaces around the stones have to be re-plastered, dry for a couple of hours and then scraped down to one cm deep. Hard work - but it looks good.

02/08/2023

Fixing Querciatello 2005 - Passages. We reopened two arches. Two doors had to be made taller because we are raising the floors 20-30 cm to get room for ventilation and installations. Five new passages had to be opened. So first you install double iron rods over the selected site, then you smash a hole through the wall, build up the sides in brick and place a new cover stone.

02/08/2023

Fixing Querciatello 2005 - Internal walls. A number of new walls have to be built, to replace old walls that had to fall when the old roof came off, and others to create new separations especially for the future bathrooms. Not too high walls are built with 8 cm bricks, taller ones in 12 cm.

01/08/2023

Fixing Querciatello 2006 - Works. A year of pointing, plastering, sandblowing and the long waited arrival of electricity.

Indirizzo

Via ARIETE
Rome
00128

Telefono

+393466015228

Sito Web

http://www.querciatello.com/

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