OUR STORY

Our road to Italy began when we were driving around the country in a motorhome, falling in love with the culture, architecture and fantastic food. Along the roads we saw many abandoned old houses, and an idea started growing: to buy one and take care of it. We have a background in IT and school, but have long had a desire to get closer to nature and live a less stressful life with the opportunity to grow our own produce and keep animals in an ecological and biodynamic way. Italy is a perfect country to avoid the long dark winters we have in Sweden, but still get to experience all four seasons.

 

So in the late spring of 2012, we browsed the internet and made a list of different houses that seemed interesting. We were looking for houses anywhere from Emilia Romagna down to Umbria, hoping to find something in a cheaper price range which we could renovate for several years. Naively, we did all this without really knowing anything about how things work in Italy and there were many hurdles we could never have foreseen. So we contacted a few real estate agents and went down to Italy to take a closer look at the properties. We learned a lot that trip, maybe mostly what we didn’t want. After visiting all the items on the list, we still hadn’t found what we were looking for. The houses in Emilia Romagna did not feel right, in Umbria we missed the green hills and properties in Tuscany were in inaccessible locations with a bit too exciting plots.

 

So when we were rounding off our tour with the real estate agent at the bar, we asked if he had any more houses to show. He said that there was a house nearby, but that it was over our budget. But since it was so close, he could at least call the seller and see if he could borrow the key. The price was too high and it was actually a little too close to a village, but we figured it was worth taking a look since we were already in the neighborhood. And once we saw the house, we instantly felt that this was a place where we could see ourselves live. When you get that feeling it is easy to overlook things, like the roofs hanging on fragile wires and the barn missing one altogether. There was also a lack of electricity, water, sewage, heating and so on, but it didn’t matter as we had already planned on renovating it.

 

We visited the house for the first time in late July 2012. It took until May 2013 for us to seal the deal. During that time, we alternated between agonizing about what we were getting ourselves into and bargaining with the sellers on the price and what would be included. We got to know currency brokers as well as a geomatra. We didn’t know anyone one who had gone through this process before, so every detail came as a small surprise.

 

Finally, in the summer of 2013, we went down with two of our children, a dog and a large trailer with everything we thought we needed. It has been close to eight years of laughter, blood, sweat and tears. More than once, people have asked what we were thinking when we bought the house

 

Since then, we have made many trips back and forth, always sticking to the plan of renovating the house with care and making sure the authentic rustic feeling remains throughout. We might have taken it to the extreme at times, for example we removed every single stone from the terracotta floor, scrubbed them one by one and then put them back in place. The Italians just shook their heads…

 

During this time, the idea of sharing this house with others has grown. Last summer we did a trial run via Airbnb and it exceeded expectations. We didn’t think we would get any guests but were basically fully booked. We spent a lovely summer with our many guests and, since it was the first year, learned a lot. Things like what people eat for breakfast, how much do they eat, is something missing in the rooms... So this time around, we are a little more prepared!