We've shown you how our Abruzzo holiday rental villas turned out. Time now to look at how our own new Abruzzo house was built in just under a year.

Here's what we first found in May 2007. Think it was just short of the 100th house we'd seen.

If you've just begun your own Abruzzo property hunt, take a look at our experiences – it'll stop you getting too downhearted !

A ruin standing in about an acre in the tiny abandoned hamlet of Cinonni, just outside the old hilltop town of Casoli.

In March 2008 it was ours. In May 2008, we got planning permission for our new house and our Abruzzo holiday rentals.

Then we knocked it all down and started again. We salvaged – as you'll see when you stay in our Abruzzo villas – huge quantities of old tile, stone and wooden beams and recycled them throughout our rebuild project.

June was a dampener. Literally. Two weeks of nonstop rain at the start.

Then the sun grudgingly put in an appearance again and that allowed us to get the foundations down. 

Work in the early stages was pretty equally divided between our own house and the villas.

Once the basics had been completed though, we prioritised our house. Reason ? If we'd finished our Abruzzo villas first, you'd have been holidaying amid a building site while work continued on the house. Not an ideal scenario…

Come November and our Abruzzo house was starting to look like – well – a house.

It was weatherproof; the underfloor heating had gone in; and the first electrics and plumbing fixes were underway.

By the time Italy shut down for the Christmas amd New Year festivities, the big, traditional, curved 'coppi' roof tiles were starting to go on and the external plastering was finished.

Early 2009 saw work revert to the Abruzzo villas. Yes, we wanted the house finished first – but we didn't want a huge gap between our completion – and the end of work on the Abruzzo holiday rentals. It all called for a careful balancing act.

And it worked !

We moved into our new Abruzzo house on March 30.

And our Abruzzo villas were finished on April 15, well in time. (Well…in time perhaps…?) for our opening on May 2.

On time. Over budget. (But only a bit). 

We're told that to build not only our own house, but the villas too, from scratch in under a year is a record in the Abruzzo property market.

Is there a secret ? Having permanently relocated from the UK in October 2007 and living only about 500 yards from the site helped hugely, as did being lucky enough to have a great local builder and a great designer/project manager.

We saved a lot of money sourcing tiles, windows, doors and bathroom fittings for the entire project ourselves and – perhaps most importantly – sticking absolutely rigidly to the design of both house and villas. It's deciding you want to change the position of a window that costs time and money.

And it's all finished ! We're thrilled. And your Abruzzo holiday rentals are great too. Come and take a look !

a

Considering we opened a week ago, I really should've got my act together and written this earlier. However Week 1 in our new career of providing Abruzzo holidays for couples was designed as a kind of 'roadtest', with all three Villas occupied to make sure that everything works. And with a sigh of relief, I can tell you it does. Aside from a leaking kitchen tap in Acquaviva, (each of our three villas is named after a mountain in the nearby Majella range), which Domenico the plumber is going to fix tomorrow.

The weather was utterly fantastic. A week of unbroken blue skies, temperatures in the mid-70s and gentle breezes. But that was honestly nothing more than we deserved, because April was pretty dismal, inflicting the one irritating casualty on the building schedule.

We'd earmarked March and April to landscape and plant our Abruzzo property. We made a good enough start to the area around the pool and the Villas but then it simply got too wet to work – and now it's too hot and too late in the planting season. So the gardens have to remain unmade for a year. Such is life. Gardeners are good at being philsophical – and I guess I can try passing off the non-garden as the ultimate in minimalism…

Luckily, we can borrow the stupendous views around our Abruzzo Villas. Take a look at the panorama spread out before you from the big sun terraces by the pool and right outside your own doors.

Not the worst of places to pass a day or two – or three – of your Abruzzo holiday – under a sun umbrella, sipping something cool, and slipping into the pool every now and then…

Like to take a look inside ? Our Abruzzo villas have tiled floors and are topped by a big beam of reclaimed chestnut wood from the ruined buildings that were originally on this site.

There's plenty of room to sit and relax. A proper kitchen to fix yourself something to eat – and a place to sit and eat it. Plus a clean, modern bathroom with a walk-in shower. 

And so you can keep cool on those hot summer nights and warm in autumn and winter, each of our Abruzzo Villas has its own air-conditioning and central heating.

TV ? No, no TV. (Have you ever actually watched Italian television ?) Instead, if you fancy a night in, each Villa's got its own multi-region DVD player. Bring a couple of your own favourite movies – or borrow one from the Villasfor2 DVD library.

Up the stairs, you'll find the wood-floored, galleried sleeping area, with a choice of a Kingside double – or two single beds. Plus plenty of space for all your holiday bits and pieces and a small personal safe.

Browse through the Vf2 site for more info about Abruzzo holidays; our Villas; how to get here; what you'll find when you arrive – and of course how to book. 

Next time – soon, I promise – we'll round-off the Abruzzo property saga with showing you how our own house turned out.

Less than a year ago, we started work on two old ruins. Villasfor2 is now up-and-running. And as for our own home…

Join us next time and see !

a

Some day very soon I'm going to have to sit down and start thinking about how to turn our acre of Abruzzo into a garden.

And to do that, I'm going to have to un-learn most of what I know about gardening in England and develop an instant knowledge of the right plants; and the right planning; and the right water-saving techniques that are all needed in a Mediterranean garden.

In the wake of building our new Abruzzo home, the garden budget has shrunk to the point where it now comfortably jingles around in a pocket, so like all good gardeners everywhere, I've been adopting the 'plants for free' principal and have been taking cuttings from around the house we've rented for the past 18 months.

Principally – figs. 

A previous owner had the excellent idea of choosing varieties that ripened in sequence from June through to October. That's given us a wide choice of cuttings material – a choice made even easier by the wildly-varying size and quality of the fruit produced by the the dozen or so trees around us.

Not that we have the remotest idea of the varieties involved – but it's the taste first – and the size of the crop second – that matter most.

The first choice was easy. A tree bearing luscious gold-flecked, dusty purple figs in abundance during June and July. But when to take a cutting ? And how ?

With the gardening books all still packed away, the internet produced conflicting answers. Autumn or winter ? Thin or thick cuttings ? But all were agreed that growing figs was easy.

So in mid-October, just as the leaves were starting to turn yellow, I cut four pencil-thick twigs, each topped by a leaf-bud; dunked them into some rooting powder; and stuck each in a deep pot of multi-purpose compost.

By December, three had died. But one hadn't.

The survivor was the sturdiest and stubbiest, which on December 12 prompted me to take two more sturdier, stubbier cuttings from the same tree and two from a tree which in September and October had given us translucent green fruit. Not as sweet as the ones we'd eaten in summer – but an autumn-fruiting fig is to be cherished.

And they're all just fine. As is a thin sprig – a pruning by-product actually – from a pot-grown 'Brown Turkey' variety bought with us from England and subsequently stunned by Italian heat into producing a small bowlful of fruit last summer.

That cutting was taken in February and seems to be romping away. But what's more exciting – and perhaps only gardeners will appreciate and understand this – is the sight of a curled-up, crinkled lead just starting to emerge from the surviving October cutting. 

I'll tell you if growing figs really is easy once they've been transplanted into the new Mediterranean garden of our Abruzzo home and are producing figs for you to pick and nibble – still warm from the sun – with a slice or two of prosciutto (nice) or ripe, creamy gorgonzola (even nicer) on your Villasfor2 holiday.

a

Considering the two old ruined houses that originally stood on our acre of Abruzzo weren't actually demolished until May 25 last year, we're setting new Abruzzo property records in getting our new house and our new Abruzzo holiday villas built inside a year.

Though salvaging as much of the old stone and timber as possible veered from the straightforward to the suicidal, we're pleased to have saved as much as was practical to save – and reused it in the new builds.

The wood beams that run along the ceiling of your Villas are made of chestnut and are over 100 years old. And having personally dragged each of them from the wreckage, I can tell you they're incredibly heavy…

After a year of construction, it's a strange feeling that those new builds are now on the verge of completion. 

Our new Abruzzo house basically just awaits having the doors, windows and lights fitted. Your Abruzzo holiday villas are currently being kitted-out with their bathrooms. Our moving in day is March 30. Yours is May 2. 

(Actually, it's May 9. We're drafting in selected friends to road-test the Villas for a week on May 2 to ensure we spot and fix any hitches before you get here…)

But we thought you might like a glimpse of pool, shimmering through the olive groves. 

This'll be one of your first sights you'll see on your Villasfor2 arrival. Assuming of course that you can tear your eyes away from looking around at the mountains and surrounding countryside and glance down through the olive groves !

By then, the pool will have acquired a pale blue liner. That'll get fitted after the big south-facing sun terrace by the pool is laid. Then the pool's filled. All that's needed then is for the weather to warm up a little bit !

Over the next month, we're looking forward to showing you pictures of our Abruzzo house…and of course your Abruzzo holiday villa. 

If you've ever been involved in a big building project yourself, you'll know how time somehow seems to drag by – and race by – at the same time. Demolition day last May seems an age ago. Moving Day on March 30 – and Opening Day on May 2 – are suddenly seeming frighteningly close…

a

All through winter in this part of Abruzzo, the weather had been unusually mild. Only a couple of dips below freezing and not so much as a snowflake.

But on Thursday lunchtime, just as the guys from Tropicale Piscine were making a start to the swimming pool framework, it started snowing. And it's been snowing pretty well ever since.

Gamely, the pool guys slogged on through the worst of it and had the pool basics finished by Friday afternoon.

But the landscaping work we've begun ground to a halt. Can't lay out the paths and the planting areas if they keep disappearing under snow…

But while our Abruzzo property was being gently blanketed, the Majella was getting its first truly serious snows of the winter.

You've been able to to ski La Majelletta pretty much since late November – but a little lower down, Passo de Lanciano skiing has been patchy at best. Not so now however. All runs are open and the chairlift's working overtime !

Hopefully, the show will have been just a temporary glitch. Any Abruzzo property project has a few days lost to the weather built into the schedule – and we've been lucky so far. Our May 2 opening date is still on schedule !

This week, installing the underfloor heating starts in to our house and I have to order the aircon units. Seems strange thinking about soaring temperatures when it's around 2?C outside, but for this very reason February's a good time to buy aircon ! And sunbeds and umbrellas. (Except we already bought these in December. Another peak month for making summer-related purchases…)

And I have to buy a few trees. It's too wet – and cold – to plant these now, but I need to plan, choose and buy a few 'instant impact' plants  sometime in March.

Abruzzo gardening is a brand-new challenge. I have to unlearn 25-odd years of UK gardening experience – or rather try and find which bits of that experience I can use in Abruzzo gardening.

This gorgeous Nandina Domestica 'Firepower' never turned such a spectacular colour in the UK. But then again, it never had to cope with the weather we've had over the past few days. It's survived fine. As indeed has pretty much everything else I dug out of our former UK garden, stuck in pots, and bought with us.

Some will prosper once they've been stuck in the garden, given a drink and left to fend for themselves. As for others, I fear for their long-term prospects…

Click here for more info about skiing Passo de Lanciano and La  Majellett.

a

All you have to do is look at the check-in queues for Ryanair flights to the UK from Pescara Airport to accept that this is still a hotspot destination.

And those queues grow every time Abruzzo's mentioned on one of those relocation programmes on TV in the UK,  or in the property section of one of the Sunday papers.

Of course not every person on every UK flight is on an Abruzzo property hunt – but the fact that there are now four real-estate agency offices within Pescara Airport – compared to just one when we started our own Abruzzo house hunting in the autumn of 2006 – shows that a lot of Brits still want to move here.

But there's one telling and subtle change in the Abruzzo real-estate market. Previously, all the agencies at Pescara Airport listed their property details in English only. Now, they're starting to provide those same details in Russian and Bulgarian too. Eastern Europe is the source of some of the serious new money that's now arriving in Abruzzo.

But in the main, potential buyers from Eastern Europe and from the UK – still the leaders in Abruzzo real-estate deals – are looking for very different types of property.

The majority of East European buyers want ready-for-occupation holiday homes near the coast – big villas, or an apartment in one of the developments along the Adriatic, mainly north of Pescara, where a modern beach-front condo facing the sea costs €500,000+  And there are plenty of takers…

The Brits still hanker over restoring and modernising an old stone-built house in the hills or mountains. (Or in our case, knocking them down and starting again).

Abruzzo house prices in our area have remained reasonably stable since we arrived, but the pound's nosedive means that a property here now effectively costs 30% more than it would've done a year ago. That's the bad news.

The good news is that despite this, Abruzzo house prices still represent an astonishing bargain. Again, in terms of our local area, there's a decent supply of properties in need of varying degrees of restoration starting at well below €100,000.

Abruzzo's popularity hasn't just become apparent in the increasing number of real-estate agents at Pescara Airport. The number of online agencies has mushroomed too.

And that's meant a corresponding rise in the number of companies and individuals who are – shall we say – less than scrupulous in their dealings with buyers and sellers alike.

Property-buying in Italy is tricky and time-consuming. Don't for a second believe otherwise. It could save you an awful lot of money and heartache if you take independent, English-speaking advice before committing yourself to anything in writing.

Check out a previous post on the perils of Abruzzo house hunting – plus one or two estate agency recommendations.

a

This time last year, we'd signed the primary contract to buy our Abruzzo property. But not the final contract. So as the snow fell, with its promise of a white Christmas, we didn't actually own anything.

Or rather we did – but in the wrong country, because the sale of our old home in England had fallen through two weeks before we left for Italy. 

So as we watched the snow gently lay a wintry coat over one of the two long-derelict properties we'd half-bought in the equally long-derelict hamlet of Cinonni, just outside Casoli, we couldn't help but wonder if we were making the worst mistake ever.

The idea had seemed simple enough. Buy two old ruined houses about forty metres apart on an acre of south-facing land with stunningly panoramic views.

Knock them down and rebuild a wonderful new Abruzzo home for us and three new Abruzzo holiday villas for you, all in the traditional Abruzzo style of white walls, terracotta-tiled roofs and dark green window shutters.

We finally completed the purchase in early March. Problems ? Not really. But. things. just. took. quite. a. long. time.

In the middle of May, the old place was still heroically standing and looking even more impossibly scenic than it had in December. We were getting mails asking, 'Are you crazy wanting to knock down such a beautiful old house ?'

Trouble was, the beautiful old house had not-so beautiful foot-wide cracks in the walls and crumbling foundations that'd have needed a mile-high stack of €500 notes to fix and taken more time than building the pyramids. Neither of which we had.

So the day after this picture – in came the demolition crew.

Then it rained. For two solid weeks. Probably served us right.

So by the middle of June, we were the proud owners of an acre of mud and the hopes for our Abruzzo home and your Abruzzo holiday villas looked…well…not exactly immediate.

But now. (Roll of drums). It's come on a little. Take a peek.

This is how it all looked last Sunday – just a couple of days short of a full year on from the snowy scene above.

In fact, it could've been a little better had we not lost a couple of days last week to – guess what ? – rain ! But for that, all the roof tiles would've been on our place and a start would've been made on doing the roof tiles on your place.

As it is, as we'd always set our sights on, we end 2008 knowing that we'll be in our new Abruzzo home late February and – more importantly – we'll be opening for you on Saturday 2 May. 

Come the New Year – about the middle of January to be exact – the current Villasfor2 About Abruzzo blog will become a cog in the all-singing/dancing Villasfor2 website which'll tell you how to book and the big introductory discounts that'll be on offer – and, more importantly, how it's all going to look.  

Keep watching…

(ps. Click on the images above for the bigger picture !)

a

So here we are, a couple of weeks before Christmas, with the roof of our new Abruzzo property half-tiled and the outside walls half-rendered; a chimney; the first fix of plumbing finished; and the first electrics fix about to start.

By the time the crew break for the holidays, the target is that all the tiling and rendering will be finished and our house will be painted. Plus one or two little extras.

When the old ruins that stood on our site were demolished at the end of May, we kept as many as we could of the massive old roof beams. Now the time has come to haul them out of the distant part of the garden where they've been lying for seven months and recycle them.

They're made of chestnut and some are absolutely huge – 3m long and 50cms thick. Now they have to be carefully selected, cleaned, cut to length and used – as they were before – in the ceilings of our house and your Abruzzo holiday villas. We think we have just about enough.

Then there's the decorative brickwork at roof level. Take a look at any older Abruzzo property and you'll see this distinctive pattern. It's a style unique to this particular region.

This traditional Abruzzo brickwork was a feature on the two old houses we demolished and we liked it so much that we wanted it on our own house and the holiday villas too.

Trouble is, that to lay traditional Abruzzo brickwork around your Abruzzo holiday villa, (not to mention our brand-new Abruzzo home), you need experienced Abruzzo craftsmen – and time. This isn't a job to be rushed. It's meticulous and painstaking.

The two signori of a certain age, who arrived each day in an equally time-defying van, worked at their own pace, puffing contentedly on their pipes, in a different time-frame to Gianni and Vito and Antonio and the other ragazzi. For two weeks, work went on in a blur around them. Then they'd finished and two our Abruzzo craftsmen puttered away in their van for a final time. Their contribution is a now-permanent echo of the past and of old skills. E' bello cosi'- non e' vero ? 

a

The stunningly scenic acre of gently-sloping, south-facing land bordered by olive groves that we bought in Abruzzo after moving permanently from England a year ago is coming along a treat. Soon, it'll provide our new home; your three Abruzzo holiday villas; and a swimming pool. Now we just have to transform an Abruzzo building site into an Abruzzo garden…

Luckily, we don't have to do much in the way of ground clearance. Not that there was much to do in the first place as our acre was a tree-free vegetable garden. Stretching away into the distance are beautifully-tended olive groves. (From which – incidentally – comes the oil we provide in your villas).

But how do we transform the rubble-strewn mudslick leading down to the olive groves into a Mediterranean garden blending seamlessly into the scenery ?

We'll be starting the hard landscaping later this week – putting in the foundations for the swimming pool down by the olives and then terracing our way up the slope.  That's all pretty straightforward and can be done reasonably quickly, but the real work on the garden starts with the planting plan.

I'm going to have to unlearn everything I know about gardening in England. Fuelled by optimism, we crammed as many plants and cuttings as we could from our old garden in south-west England into the removal van and brought them with us.

All except a couple have survived the year – but only thanks to constant care and gallons of water. The kind of attention we simply won't be able to provide on a large scale next year. Some will be OK. Many, nurtured by the damp, shady softness of an English garden and unsuited to the harsh glare of a Mediterranean garden, will not.

Afraid of what won't survive, I'm on a crash course trying to discover what will. The Royal Horticultural Society in England provide a useful 'Mediterranean Climate Plants' list; and I've been reading and making endless notes through 'Mediterranean Gardening – A Waterwise Approach' by Heidi Gildemeister; and Graham Payne's 'Garden Plants for Mediterranean Climates'.

I can sum-up their approach to Mediterranean gardening in a sentence: Plan carefully; buy wisely; mulch deeply. But their plant recommendations – and the RHS's – are irritatingly and bewilderingly different. Not that many plants appear on all three lists – so what are you supposed to make of a plant endorsed by one – but not the others ? Our Abruzzo garden will be hot in Summer with some snow and frost in Winter. Painstaking choices to match these criteria lie ahead.

ps…
How's the build going ? Really good thanks. Vito and the boys are currently putting the big, traditional coppi tiles on the roof. Then the plastering and painting of the outside starts.

You can plan to take your Villasfor2 holiday – and be one of the first to enjoy our new Abruzzo garden – anytime after 2 May, 2009. You'll be able to book your Abruzzo holiday villa – with big introductory discounts – from early January. More soon…

a

Since the last Abruzzo property blog just a month back, the structural work on our new Abruzzo home is now about 90% completed, with just the roof tiles; a bit of decorative brickwork; and a couple of internal walls to finish. 

This week, Domenico the plumber's on-site to start work on the heating systems and bathrooms in both our home and your villas. At some imminent point, a digger's going to lumber onto the site to excavate a hole for the swimming pool.

The phone keeps going with people asking when I want loos, sinks, bidets, tiles, kitchens and sunbeds delivered. Sunbeds ? In November ?? Sure. Why not ? We've already got the tables, chairs and umbrellas for the villas' sun-terrace  and – thanks to my new best friends Alfredo and Pepino – I'd met Alessandro the sunbed king, it seemed silly not to.

Anyway, you're going to need somewhere to lie back and luxuriate in the view. As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, though Pauline and I are still pondering about a name for our new Abruzzo home, we've decided to name each villa after a mountain in the Majella: Martellese - the nearest mountain to Villasfor2 – Acquaviva (which you can also see from your villa terrace) and Pesco Falcone (which we still haven't quite worked out if you can see or not…)

So, on the right, with Martellese beguilingly-clad in scaffolding, here's what you'll see to the south-east.

Change the view to due south. In the distance are the Monte Pizzi at the furthest end of the Majella. Rather nearer is a corner of the big sun terrace fronting the three villas – and the one little remnant of the assorted ruins that we took on when we bought our Abruzzo property.

It just seemed right to keep this little reminder of what had been on the site – and it does nicely frame the olive grove that lies just beyond Villasfor2 at the other side of the swimming pool.

And talking of the pool – and the imminent arrival of Digger Domenico – not to be confused with Plumber Domenico – plus another big sun terrace, plus the sunbeds and yet more umbrellas, our 10m x 6m bean-shaped pool is rather prettily-place. Take a look.

Those three white rocks in the picture mark the spot where hopefully Domenico will stop digging. Your sunbed view from the pool terrace across the water will be of flowering oleander and olive trees. And blue skies.

Click on the pictures in the text for larger images. And think about your Abruzzo villa for two holiday next year… 

a