finally... our house!

At long last I have some pictures of our beautiful house in Sicily.  We've been living in temporary housing for the past 7 weeks while searching for a home and then waiting for all the improvements to be completed.  Yesterday, at long last, everything was complete.  We are free to move in!

So I'll interrupt my previously scheduled program of pictures of Venice (the weekend there was ah-mazing!) and share some photos of our house first.

The house is located a 10-minute drive from the base in a little town called Motta Sant'Anastasia.  The photo at the top of my blog is a picture of that town.  Our house is located on the cliff's edge just under the castle.

Our landlord and landlady invited us up for lunch while we were in the house waiting for a delivery of some military-issued furniture (fridge, washer, dryer, etc.).  Lunch was interesting because we speak very little Italian and our landlord and landlady speak no English.  At all.  Somehow, though, we had a wonderful time over chilled red wine, fresh pasta, roasted eggplant, peccorino cheese, Italian bread, caprese salad, olives from her brother's groves, and summer peaches.

After lunch, Elliott and I took pictures downstairs while Lena talked to our landlady in her apartment:

Back downstairs, we were walking through the front door.  The balcony is straight ahead; the door on the right is to our first bathroom.   The fireplace is directly to your left; you can see the edge of it.  The hallway on the left side of the living room leads to our bedrooms.

Here's a view from the other side of the living room, standing near our bathroom door.  The art on the wall is an original by a friend of our landlord.

Now out to the balcony.  Elliott looks out over the valley to the Mediterranean.

Now he walked down the balcony past the second bathroom window to the door to our bedroom.  That faux owl has been very good at keeping pigeons off the balcony thus far!

Now we're in our bedroom.  Elliott's standing in the balcony door.

This will probably be Lena's bedroom.  The yellow was just too strong, much to my dismay.  I've asked them to paint it back to white.  Maybe I'll add some stencils down the line...

There's also a small third bedroom/guest room, but there's not much in there, so we'll skip that.

Here's our second bathroom.

And now the kitchen!  The kitchen is directly to your left when you walk in our front door.  Don't you love that gorgeous long farmhouse table?!  It comes with the house and was one of the reasons we decided to rent it.

And now in my kitchen!  We picked this kitchen out ourselves in IKEA with our landlady.  Second time in my married life that I've been able to design my own kitchen!  We love every detail.

The view from our kitchen window.  That's Mt Etna, the volcano, in the not-so-distant distance.

Looking back the other way at the table and cabinets.

Detail of our sink, faucet, and the beautiful backsplash that our landlady chose for us.  

Italians put drying racks inside the cupboards over the sink.  How brilliant is that?

The built-in cupboards under the built-in countertop.  We'll hang a curtain in front of the cupboards.

Lena, Elliott, and I can't wait for lots of fires in the fireplace this winter! 

We can't wait to move in and make this our home.  Which unfortunately won't be until December because of Elliott's training course in Texas from mid-Sept to mid-Nov.  We leave on Friday!  But more about that adventure later...