Chapter 25 - Welcome to My Italian Villa

There is not an inch of this house that Steve and I have not worked on - whether we demolished it, rebuilt it, painted it, renovated it or just cleaned it - everything at one point has had our attention. But that south patio has been the most demanding and attention-grabbing area of them all. Like a needy child in a group of youngsters, this patio has required more of our time and energy than any other part of the house. But it is the case of the ugly duckling becoming the beautiful swan.

First, the sad little patio was just so pathetic and hideous that we were perplexed on what to do for the longest time.  With it being such an eye-sore and right off the formal living room, we knew that it had to be completly remodeled. In Chapter 12 - Getting Rid of the South Side Patio

you can see how much work it took to open the space from a cage to an airy patio. It took almost every friend we had to get that old turquoise jacuzzi out of there as well.

(See Chapter 13 - Friends to the Rescue)  
With the patio opened up, Steve wanted to enhance it, give it something to be proud of and create a natural extension of the formal living room. We had some elegant plans for the living room and thought that the patio should compliment the new design of the interior. He chose the highest grade cedar planking he could find. He used this same cedar on the back porch as well as the entrance to create a cohesive look for the whole house but the idea started with "dressing up the south patio."

With a new ceiling and new French doors, the patio was beginning to look better. We also constructed graceful arches to be supported by stone pillars. 

The patio looks across to the next door neighbor's wall with a dirt path in between and we knew we had to do something with this ugly area! So, we told Par 3, the landscapers that we wanted a rose-garden walkway, like an Italian villa. Par 3 did a beautiful job!

I fell in love with it immediately!



The landscaping is going in!



The Stone Pillars are in place!



The floor of the patio had the red concrete that the original house had everywhere. But we got rid of the back porch's red floor by smashing it up and adding basic grey concrete. On this south patio, we again wanted to dress it up so we laid pavers down to accent the Italian Villa look. 

Pavers require lots of sand that you level out or "screed" with a flat board. Then with the sand exactly level, you just carefully place the paver down in the pattern you want. Steve was really good at this and managed to get the floor down and level in 3 days. I helped a little but I wasn't really good and my side had a wavey floor which had to be redone....by Steve...cause I couldn't get it right! Remodeling this house with Steve, I am learning a lot of new skills and a lot of humility!