The restructuring and consolidation of an old stone house is no child’s play. Such a project requires the ability of a pro, so we decided to hire an architect.
The first phase of the work with the architect consisted of a visit to the house and a first exchange of ideas where we had to picture the future appearance and functions of the house. This phase was very important because at this point we needed to spell out our own needs and requirements to the architect, and to do this well we had to first nail down our own ideas and make up our mind on a number of things.
First of all, since we liked the external appearance of the house, we decided to keep it as much as possible close to the original, except for a few necessary repairs and updates. We confirmed our decision to make the older west wing into our new home and the newer wing into guests’ rooms.
What else?
What else could we think about, to make the house not only our new home but our definitive place where we could permanently feel on holiday? Only one thing was missing: a swimming pool!
OK, that was a first statement. The next step was to think: what kind of swimming pool would we like?
Many people add a pool to their property to make it beautiful and prestigious. In this case the pool is usually large, it has sinuous shapes and is placed in a strategic point of the landscape.
Instead we had something else in mind. We wanted a pool specifically meant for our own well-being, that we could USE every day of the year, which could be accessed in slippers without leaving home.
With this premise, the pool of our dreams was obviously going to be indoors, accessible from inside the house. It had to be a lap-pool in a veranda.
So the architect designed for us a nice new veranda with a heated lap-pool. The architect designed, we began to dream our little morning swims.
Slowly, the renovation project began to evolve, it moved out of our own minds and took a clearer shape on paper.
It will take months to see it finished, but we can not wait to try out the pool.