When we planned our move to Italy we knew we wouldn’t have enough money to renovate everything at once, but we hoped to do it in 5 years. To be able to earn money as soon as possible we started with the guest accommodations, then we built the outdoor kitchen and terraces for them, next phase “the wall” for our privacy and our living room. We created a temporary bathroom and put our bed in a small bedroom where the walls were already finished but there wasn’t even a floor. We stumbled over the water and electricity cables to get to the bathroom.
5 years passed faster than expected and it was clear we had no idea how we would gather the money to finish our house. Luckily there was so much to enjoy about life on our Italian hill and most of the time we were able to just ignore our worries about this.
I must confess there were days I just wanted to throw the towel in the ring, put our house up for sale and just leave, there was even a period Nicolas started dreaming about a life on the road, in a camper… until I showed him the inside of one ?
Luckily we persevered, and in the end it was the combination of the income from the guest accommodations and our real estate business that made us able to finish everything, but only after 10 years instead of the 5 we had foreseen.
You can’t imagine how many times I walk around in my house, proud as a peacock. Our patience has been tested, but maybe that’s a good thing, as patience is a skill you need a lot in Italy