28 Nov 11:  We had ordered new interior doors several months ago, seems like 5 or 6 months, & had waited patiently to get them.  Finally the workmen came out at 8:00 last Monday to begin installing them.  That morning was very hectic with the men in & out of the house bringing in the doors & all their equipment.  It was very noisy with them using their drills & other tools.  The pups of course barked & barked.  Because the men were working on both floors, we really didn’t seem to have a good place to put the pups.  At about 9:00 I decided to go to the base to spend the day.  I didn’t feel that I really needed to stay home with all the noisy commotion.  Bill could tend to the pups & the house.

So I hurried up & got ready to go, grabbing my stuff especially my heavy coat.  When I started our Mini I saw that the temp reading was 37℉.  Gradually during the day the temp warmed up into the 50’s.  The skies were clear & sunny as they remained all during the week while work continued on our casa.  At about 10:00 I did a quick shopping at the commissary.  I bought some orange juice & some bottled water because I was very thirsty, not having had my normal breakfast or drinks, because of my quick exit from the house.  After 11:00 I went to the Mensa to eat lunch which was pasta pomodoro & apple strudel.  I wish I had eaten more, maybe some fish, because I became hungry after an hour or two.  Being finished at the flight line, I drove to area 1 to spend the rest of the day.

I parked in front of the hospital between it & the library.  Then being very tired I took a nap in the car which is something that I don’t usually do, but at which Bill is an expert.  He could write a book about it.  Then Bill & I called each other several times so that I could be updated on our remodel.  Then I went to get a caffé from the hospital vending machine, & later went to the library.  Bill called me before 16:30 to tell me the men were finished for the day & to come on home.

Once home Bill filled me in on the work that had been done, & told me how hectic & noisy the day had been which I pretty much knew.  The girls had kept him very busy.  The next day Bill figured out that our dining room would make an excellent baby pen for the girls by putting a pet gate between that room & the kitchen.  I had never wanted to use the dining room as such because of our Turkish carpet in there.  But we were desperate!  Anyhow the girls loved this.  They got tons of attention over the next 4 days until the work was completed on Friday.  They sat with us while we had our caffé & cookies & tried to charm us into giving them something, maybe a piece of banana.  We put their bed in there but they also liked laying on the rug.  We were amazed at how they never pooped or peed in there, excellent babies.  To avoid going by the men, we invented the dining room doggie window.  Bill would walk to the backyard & then I would hand him the pups through the window one at a time.  Taking them out often was the secret to keeping the room clean.  Honey liked to get under the table between the chairs which were covered with long blue scroll design covers, kind of like she was in a doggy den.

The men were here for 4 days.  While working on the 2 bedroom door frames they damaged the partition between them.  So they called their manager who called a muratore or stone mason to come out to do the repair, before those doors could be put on & the work finished.  This process took about 3 days.  Finally on Friday morning the workers were done with the doors & left here, which we were happy to see them go.  Friday afternoon the muratore returned to finish the partition.  Before he left I asked him to write his name & # for me in case we would ever have need of his services again.  He quickly told Bill what he had done & said goodbye.  We really liked him & were impressed with his work.  He had made the partition look like brand new & the wall finish ready for Bill to paint, at a later time. 

During all this time I slept downstairs on the couch for 3 nites from Tuesday thru Thursday.  On Monday I slept in my bedroom without a door.  During the nite & the next day I was coughing, hacking, & spitting up as if I were a “several packs a day” smoker.  I felt like the end for me was near.  I also felt very itchy & realized that it was not healthy for me or anybody to be near or breathing all the dust bits or masonry which covered our whole house, but especially the bedrooms senza doors.  If I ever have this type of work done again I will buy some masks to cover our nose & mouth.  We noticed that one of the workers had a terrible cough, & that neither of them wore any safety equipment that we could see such as masks or ear protectors.  We found this so strange.  By Friday nite I was so happy to sleep in my own bed.  This was after we had shook out all the bed covers & quickly cleaned the room.

We are very happy with our 7 new doors, 4 upstairs & 3 down.  They are solid wood with noce lite or light walnut veneers.  They are a bella brown color with a reddish tint & came with gold colored handles & locks with keys.  Now I can finally go into the bathrooms & lock the doors for privacy, even if only the two of us live here.  Each room is more quiet because the doors have a seal around them & they are not warped like the old ones.  These are the same doors that some of the hotels use.  The doors were made by Dorigo, a company in Treviso, Italy.  The hardware was made by AGB, also in Italy.  They are of excellent quality & should help us enjoy our casa more & save energy on gas for heating.  I like the way the doors are smooth, springy & tight upon opening & closing.  The old ones probably 40 years old, would open & close with a bang, not very pleasant.

We saved some money on the project because Bill took the old doors & frames to the dump in our rimorchio or trailer.  We had to ask the lazy workmen to carry away the cardboard that had covered the doors & frames.  This they did on the 2nd day, I think.  But on Friday they left without carrying away a giant, heavy bag of trash from their work, even though Bill had asked them to do so.  Overall though we were glad that these men would not be coming back, that the work was finally done, & that we could try to get our house back to normal.

That Thursday afternoon we sat in the living room & watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade while I brushed out Ted, & Hon either snooped around on the rug or sat next to me on the couch.  Friday evening we had Nerina & Giorgio come over for caffé.  Nerina bragged on how bella & wonderful our new doors were, & joked that I had spent all of Bill’s money & that he had told me “i soldi sono finiti” or the money is all finished, there would be no more.  We laughed at that.  Neri & Giorgio told us about the old times when they were younger, maybe 50 or 60 years ago, & what life was like in the cortile.  The families that lived here all knew each other & were related, with there being the nonni, grown children, & younger ones, & the families marrying each other.  Many more people lived here than do now.  They would have big barbecues of pigs.  They would pack up a mule to go up the mountains to have a picnic.  Sounds like a different, older style way of life.  Most people did not have cars like they do now, so they lived closely to each other & within their town or local area.

      

Door lock & part of handle

Broken partition between our 2 bedrooms