The month of August is traditionally holiday for Italians making this a short update. Almost nothing will get accomplished, so we wait until September to see things pick back up in Italy. Luca the project Architect, reports to us that he did receive the approval from the comune that the demolition is now done and approved as closed from their view. This is a huge milestone as it was mainly what was slowing things down. He tells us that his contact in the comune returns from vacation on September 9th, and will issue the permits immediately for the remaining repairs, allowing them to hire the team. Luca indicates he will push to have the wagon wheel room and septic work start in September, latest October. With the goal of being done in November. We remain hopeful.

We spend much of August getting the LA house ready for market. Repairing a few small things, garage clean up, under house storage….purging. Also restoring the usable area under the house. We need to have the inside of the house cleared for the painter who starts September 9th and then the stagers immediately follow September 12th. There was some early debate from the stagers on using some of our existing furniture, but they changed their minds and told us to clear everything… blank slate. How rude? LOL.

We will head back to Italy on September 15th, so we need to be certain everything is settled to get the house on the market as we won’t be here. Between neighbors, friends and donations we think most of the house will be cleared in time. How do you get rid of 16+ years of your life? We anticipated this was coming and knew we’d take VERY little with us. Vabbé.

We’ve been squeezing in some visits with friends and family in August. The idea of just getting away for a long weekend was rare when we were working, so we take advantage of the time we have left in LA. We plan to do more of this when we come back in early October.

As we try to project what will happen from this point, things getting a little less clear. We get the LA house on the market and hope it performs well and sells quickly. We push for completion of the Italy house, though not likely done now until November. So it’s possible we come back from this Italy trip and have a small window of time to remain in this house. We then will need to make some decisions. Rent something here for a very short time or see if we can take over the month to month costs on the Italy house while awaiting the sale and move there sooner than originally planned. Things will get clearer towards the end of September.

We hope the Italians are nice and rested from their holidays overrunning the beach towns. We look forward now to hearing how much progress they are making and cross our fingers that the house might be ready before November. Stay tuned.