My Villa Opens In A Month But It's Not FINISHED! | Home Renovation

[Music] i think happiness is being in the right place at the right time and being where you should be at that time in any business you you kind of crave something fresh to reignite your passion again so i says myself well what makes me happy one day she comes up with this idea and saying wouldn't it be great if i take a group of women somewhere nice and motivate them i love tuscany so i thought well what if i invite women from around the world and they come and they share my villa with me but i didn't have a house it was like oops here you're restoring a 13th century property from the ground up it's hard work but it's so exciting laura has been a complete surprise she's ballsy she talks to them she tells them no we're going to do this again yeah i am the rooster every time i have this doubt will this work and i go that's what it's all about it's about friendship [Music] [Applause] [Music] well after three and a half years uh the crane is going to come down now it's a big day because it's the end of a chapter this crane i never realized would become such a big part of my life um and that means to the workers the main heavy construction work is done each piece of stone you know these beams the cotto the pipes the dirt you know everything everything has been done by crane for me it's a mixed emotion because it's like this chapter is over and i will never do that again i will never have another crane so i don't know how he's going to come down if he goes through my roof i will be very upset [Music] in 12 weeks 17 women will arrive here and i am nowhere near ready psychologically physically the building you know we have 12 weeks lara 12 weeks i know these women will understand but they won't understand if they don't have a bed and they don't i'm afraid [Laughter] the next thing that starts is the landscaping which is around the whole property i think it's really opportune that we've come here at this particular moment i'm peter kurzen and i'm a landscape gardener i have been employed here to alter the landscape everybody i've worked with here has been male and has been italian so peter is a true brit and he's extremely knowledgeable over many years i have worked in france spain england italy greece i think that's all i have to listen to him if plants don't work they die and there's a lot of plants going in here [Music] we are in one of the biggest nurseries in italy which is called fratelli margariti [Music] oh look at that can i have uh look at the palm trees yes look at them ox what if we had like a a driveway of palm trees coming in i don't think that would be a good idea we went around and uh debbie would say that she wanted one particular plant or another particular plant that i really didn't approve of these are nice look at that i wouldn't have them looking like that all these are possibilities i believe that the garden must belong to its place in other words when i make a garden or alter a landscape it is the place that dictates so these are pomegranates these are pomegranates beautiful so these were i think in the courtyard at the front detroit alberta how old is this it's more than secular is uh 100 years old 100 years old oh my gosh it's absolutely stunning well this one is a beautiful shape this one here okay let's put a ribbon on that one yeah yeah okay i would definitely choose this one okay let's can we put a ribbon on this one yeah i'm gonna get shots when i get back okay i love oleanders [Laughter] they put it in the center of the highways and i think peter's a snob i think he doesn't want it because they grow it on the highways debbie has her favorite plants but that doesn't mean that they are good to use of course in the summer it flowers but then for the rest of the year it really looks dull so [Music] i've traveled all my working life and you know when women are tired there's things that they want and it doesn't have to be the four seasons or the ritz it's really about i guess a home away from home so these pig styles will become the bedrooms good nice oh sorry it's heavy [Music] in italy they don't use baseboards so they put a band of paint this is called lining the reason they do that is that's the mop for the mop so you don't have dirty mop marks on your wall to be able to design 14 bedrooms is really great because they can all be individual and they are they all have a different flair a different look but they are all designed around warmth around being special that's the the thing that i really want to get across okay so i have a pretty big list somewhere i think one of the most difficult parts of this process has been juggling the two worlds the two lives the renovation here and work back in canada i go back and forth back and forth for me it's like a bus service the writing my publisher the newspapers the product line all that kind of stuff and it is difficult i'm a regular on many of the daytime shows i'm in the makeup room at the marilyn denis show in toronto this is eden it's trying to make me look decent this morning so i've been doing this show for a long time i've known marilyn for many many years i'm constantly thinking about what's going on on the side i'm sitting in here and sitting in here with this great makeup mirror thinking you know the women should have nice makeup mirrors in their rooms it never leaves my mind marilyn's been very interested in what i'm doing and she's done a couple of interviews i started thinking one day i was actually live and she's talking about i'd love to come you know just take a holiday and everything we're getting ready the opening is mid-june so we've got 20 girls coming from across the country wow i would love her to come here and experience what this place has to offer um so maybe she can test out the room try out the things we're going to be doing with the women if this is the year for me to do it now i'm over for that so we've been talking about him for so long yeah and you're almost done and we've got a roof now and bathrooms are plumbing that's perfect i think i might even have sheets i'm in really i can do it this year oh my god okay yeah i think she is somebody who needs a break i think she's somebody who will really appreciate what i'm trying to offer here and just relax and think and share and talk and and enjoy everything [Music] uh look over towards the light month but not quite as high but yeah i've done this before you know once or twice well max is my youngest and you know he started his own career as a photographer try not blinking this time then okay josh's in africa so you know it would be great if both boys were here together when are you going back home mum you mean back to italy yeah it's funny calling at home isn't it about three days i mean come and visit i have to say i see my i see my dad probably more than i see my mom because he's he's back in canada a lot more than than she is sometimes we're all on different continents you know it's hard it's harder it's harder actually when i'm in italy because i'm alone a lot of the time it's a new project it's a new chapter in their life and they i mean they're definitely working really hard to kind of build this new this new dream for themselves i'm here she's there and i can't help out really help out it's easier if two people are there you share the load to some degree and you know you can vent so fed up and looking suitcases thanks [Music] trees are coming which is about time everything has got delayed because of the rain bloody hell they're really heavy [Music] they're so heavy i was trying to help let's see how you trying i'll go back to the kitchen [Music] i understand why debbie is anxious i think if i were debbie i'd be anxious too because she's got a lot at stake and when you see the building site in the condition it is now it's daunting this is true tuscany you have to have cypress trees this is the first lot and that truck here look at this look how magnificent that is look at the size of it absolutely gorgeous so these are very old we have five right we've got five they're all very similar they're all similar but i think this is probably the most beautiful the biggest [Music] you definitely have the wrong shoes if it carries on like this with all this model it's difficult to do anything but if we could prepare at least the passageways with solid gravel underneath the gravel is the last thing to go down and the problem is that here we have a very clay yellow soil and when it rains it's a nightmare because you sink into it and it's muddy and it clings to you it's sticky it goes everywhere so it sucks you in you know it's horrible so the gravel holes all let in but you can't put the gravel in until 98 of the work's done so then i'm like suddenly it's like we need the gravel this week and i wanted a particular color and i wanted a smooth gravel i didn't want the chips you know i wanted some i just wanted the right thing and it is all the walkways i said i wanted white white whites peter saw it and peter was like it's too white it looks like sicily it's not that i don't like white gravel it's just that i'm i'm worried that lots of people could get headaches white gravel produces a great deal of glare as i don't care i love the gravel so it's very hard to walk around here because it blinds you you know it's very very bright but it's what i wanted so this pile of what my husband says looks like a pile of crap is actually i have been collecting for months this is a portulaire little door portulaire means pigsty and i'm gonna use these for other things they're are beautiful doors here the italians seem to make the most fantastic doors and what happens is over the centuries they get faded so you get these beautiful patinas i mean we imagine when that's all cleaned and waxed and stuff it'll make a lovely something this is going to be a coat hook so he's taking one of these and this is called a mangiatoria and a mangitoria is the manger this is where the balls were chained up it's a beautiful wood and you can that could be a shelf beside a bed i know everybody's looking like i don't see it paulo here can you come down paulo's the most incredible guy and he does he takes all wood like this and turns it at other stuff so if you make that into a headboard you polish it and then we like the wax and transparent and imagine that as a headboard be gorgeous you know they just got so much character and they smell really good will the smell go away my alley [Music] i've been collecting uh stuff for for three or four years when you're antiquing you just keep your eyes open all the time i literally ask farmers can i have your door you have some doors [Music] this thing's growing on this oh i like your ladders now that's nice for me it's not good but i think well maybe it's a little broken but for a towel you want there's olive ladders everywhere and i've actually found a lot of you know they were handmade the farmers made their own ladders because you're the best this is my aladdin's cave so this is where i'm collecting stuff for all the rooms things like this these old i don't know what it was but great for towels just gorgeous i can't find this stuff anymore and this this is a pig carrier so they would put the dead pig on here and then i guess two men would carry it amazing towel rail i mean really this is priceless and it will look so good in some of the rooms so you'll have modern and then you'll have these little old pieces and it's kind of the new industrial chic this is from a pharmacy and they had drugs in so they would have had powdered drugs and some of them i have still have drugs and i have one that says arsenic it's the way you put things together if you put too much clutter in one room it's going to look like a junk shop old benches i'm going to need a lot of benches because i'd love to have areas where the women can sit quietly they can go for a walk in the woods and suddenly there's a beautiful bench there's something about being in a place where your mind can empty a lot of the women who are going to come here are looking for something they're looking for next chapters they're looking for where they move on to you're looking for something you're not sure what it is i think this trip will change me in some way just by the sheer fact of going to a different country experiencing that if i don't do it now at this age or in this time in my life i don't think that i would do it since turning 50 i'm really questioning what is my purpose now and for the first time i think i'm starting to give myself the permission without feeling the guilt of discovering well what more can i offer the world saw the way services maria is speaking now i'm starting to explore those possibilities [Music] you know i've struggled for lots of years with lots of things do you want apples or grapes okay um okay i'm like to look at myself as a as a caregiver and do that for a lot of people but i'm exhausted so i look at it thinking yeah i guess i do deserve it i just want somebody to look after me for a bit although that's hard to say thinking away what's kind of crazy is all the things that the women who are coming worry about you know what if what if what if and that's still going on [Music] we have two weeks before 17 women arrive from around so it's kind of slightly nerve-wracking the landscaping here is a massive job we're putting in lots of mature trees we're putting in cypress trees we're creating areas within the property through vegetation we've taken what was once this farmyard just all machinery and stuff like this and we've turned it into a pomegranate garden and we've got it on these raised beds because underneath we have garages so this was a massive hole and now it's a garden of pomegranate trees as far as the grass is concerned it's rather patchy it is a problem in having the building works going on at the same time as landscaping i wanted lush gorgeous grass and this has been down for nearly two months now and it looks like somebody balding i mean it just looks horrible hi debbie romano ricardo thinks it's really funny he's like you know not going to happen he's like watching the kettlebell debbie is very anxious and i think also often on the border of panic peter wants to show me a typical tuscan garden that he's done at this point i hope it will comfort her to see what a property looks like once it's um settled what a beautiful house so would you say this was a typical tuscan garden i don't know what a typical tuscan garden is really no you don't know no i don't know because there are so many gardens in tuscany it really leads to the question what is tuscany i suppose the use of cypresses has had an influence on the design of gardens what are those big there's a that's a rose which is called sally holm and i'm putting it in at your place what is so clever about this place is the way your eye keeps moving it keeps going on and on so you know you put a huge urn somewhere and your eye is drawn towards that whether it's a pond a dove house an urn that's what you do in interior design it keeps moving it's not just four walls it's got ducks and ducks oh ducks and geese while we were there we were lucky enough to meet the owner who was this charming charming gentleman it's always the special story peter keeps talking about the trust factor because these are not your typical gardens full of annuals and you know different colored flowers i love oleander niente nothing i hate oleander you have to have plants that are typical of this area and i guess he's trying to get that to sink into my thick head why does my grass not look like this peter i can't wait any longer i mean i'm staring at the stuff every morning it's a question of one year to get grass like this okay i've got two weeks left exactly so you're good to have sod this festiva american grass they call it american gross cause america's got no patience they want it now that's me now so i want american grass i want this grass laid like a carpet perfect everyone el tapito verde [Music] i hope debbie has got over the fact that she can't have slaves of oleander however there is oleander here in the way that i think it should be put here okay this is for debbie are you kidding me my goodness how much work they have done on this place in 24 hours the ladies arrive and i've still got men i've got men running around here i want every single woman to come in and go wow i'm glad i'm here

Channel: Abode

Views: 43,985

Keywords: Abode, classy villa remodeling, deluxe home design, elegant home decor ideas, elegant house renovation, elegant villa design, exclusive villa design, grand villa refurbishment, high-class villa upgrade, high-end home renovation, home makeover journey, lavish property construction, lavish renovation project, luxurious mansion renovation, luxury lifestyle vlog, opulent house makeover, opulent villa decoration, upscale property renovation, villa renovation progress

Id: N8ILp9qXfQc

Length: 22min 28sec (1348 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 02 2020