Is This Luxury Villa Transformation Really Worth It?! | Home Renovation Documentary

[Music] i think happiness is being in the right place at the right time and being where you should be at that time [Music] any business you kind of crave something fresh to reignite your passion again please welcome debbie travis 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 i mean it's a huge commitment that it's going to take most of our savings we've been told that the property you're looking for doesn't exist i think there's people dead in here somewhere they probably are i've got a tree in my living room one friday afternoon i get a call it's a friend from tuscany she tells me hans there's a property that's kind of on the market that is perfect for you i'm really excited have a look at that isn't that something now i have to get debbie's attention [Music] you sure this is the right road any second now just keep going i think we're we're somewhere here on this back rows because that's multiple piano up there it's like we're in the middle of a vineyard seeing this property was a little bit like meeting debbie i knew it was right and i just needed to convince debbie that it was the right one because it wasn't a villa it was actually a very modest farmhouse but the location was absolutely magical we looked at the property together and i'm watching debbie's facial expressions and she hated it and i was like i hate it i hate it it's just this tumbled down mess of dull property pigsties everywhere this barn which was four legs farm vehicles everywhere tired miserable property i couldn't see the potential it was a dark and dingy oh good run-down farm that hadn't been touched for centuries and hands kept saying look at the view look at the view [Music] it was in a beautiful location it had a view to die for and it had a secret thing it had that magic word volume which means had outbuildings it had outbuildings that were just barns but you could use it and convert it i've worked with so many people in italy and seen so many houses and they'll go you're a decorator you're a designer you can do this like some of the properties i saw i had no roofs had a forest in the middle of the living room you know i'm like no no even i can't do this so this was no exception this was just like i don't get it if you're not in love with it it's it's going to be a drag it's an old farmyard now yes but you you can all of that can be changed so i had a big job ahead trying to convince her that it had the potential it had the right location and she could create whatever she wanted with what we had we came back the next day and this guy had made this model the seller was actually very clever he created a little paper model of the house this is the model he gave me still it looks a little rustic but you can see this was the the villa side so it was three four floors here [Music] these were pigsties which just were tumbled down there no pigs left in them but in the end you know i could start to imagine what i could do with this this was the farmyard side and this was all blocked in this was an old bathroom but we managed to imagine what it would look like if we would open up the wall like look at it it's like it's like a it's like a scruffy or box inside um but it i started to see it and because it was 3d it was like oh my god this could be a home and she's looking at me and i'm like a little kid waiting for approval and uh and bit by bit i began to smile and he could see i was starting to turn i told him we're moving ahead really that house in tuscany yes you do it took a bit of convincing but she finally saw the potential it's a decision of a lifetime yeah you're not kidding and if it hadn't been for that model she might never have been convinced that she could actually make the space work it's going to take most of our savings i mean it's a huge commitment the name of the house now is called raniella and we don't know what that means but originally um we were given some documents and it was called reginella and reggie yellow means kingdom small kingdom small kingdom so it's debbie's small kingdom what needed to be done to it everything absolutely everything the roof leaked the walls were covered inside in a white plaster that was black with a type of mold the ground floor of the property was still stables it was empty but there were stables that hadn't been changed for hundreds and hundreds of years the pig styes were falling in they were broken this barn is just metal legs with an asbestos roof thinking that you found the right property and you and that's the end of it is actually just the beginning because you found the property now you have to turn it into yours it takes you 10 years to find a property then you find one then it takes a year to sign the property a year it's about time there's no way we could do this project or even buy a property without an architect an italian architect looking at it because there's so many rules i mean with a name like this you know i expect him to have a leather helmet and fly a biplane not be an italian architect to be the architect who renovated a fantastic old castle that was renovated in such a way that it didn't look renovated [Music] when you started this project what was it like when we arrived here it was a ruling to be honest oh my god this is what it looked like yeah i mean the whole castle this is the main courtyard the plaster of the main building was off this whole roof was collapsed we rebuild it so it was really in a very very bad condition it doesn't look restored it looks lived in this is original as well absolutely everything is originally here the brief we gave balco was to do a massive conversion of the farmhouse but to do it in such a way that was also in keeping with the style of the house and style of the area not an easy thing to achieve particularly if your boss is debbie travis you need somebody with a lot of patience steady you couldn't work with somebody who's very hit strong why because i'm headstrong yes you'd be clashing absolutely you'd be clashing with that person all the time here i i have the list that i just received from debbie of all her wishes uh regarding the restoration of the house of reynella an infinity swimming pool with a technical room and storage for furniture a vegetable garden people like working with me i'm very sweet and nice don't sit down last week an open plan living room kitchen and dining room all bedrooms on suite with walking closet he's not going to have plans ready yet i you know because it's our first initial meeting i think he's going to make some proposals i really want to know from him is how long when are we going to be finished when can i have the first group of women for me that's the most important thing is time she wants to have that wow factor when somebody reached the place i mean some people may just hand over their life to their architect for me you know i i knew what i wanted i think it's really very early now to talk about the vegetable garden why we still have to define the use of the house i've prepared a very rough sketch for you where you can see the different use of the rooms i was thinking to use the pixel as the kitchen and dining room oh that would be cool so you've got the view of the valley you have to view the valley and also your the big sitting room to open it up completely with archers it was very important to me not just to have fancy furniture or expensive fittings but i wanted to be able to reconstruct these bones that were there when you start a project on my point of view is to understand the building and the history of the building so that you have an idea what it was used and how it was built at the beginning and then to transform it keeping in mind that the building can't transform too much it was built from the stone on the land so it started life as a lookout tower in the 13th century that would protect the village behind it and that tower then probably fell to ruin over the generations and then somebody must have taken it over and built on and then built on and on and on [Music] what i was thinking is i'd love to do you know like in the south in puglia and stuff they do those flat roofs and then we could have like a lovely kind of wrought iron fence up there and an outside staircase so they can come up and they can sit on the roof in some way no if when you restore this building you have to keep in mind the tradition of the buildings and the history of the buildings you will never find in tuscany a flat roof it's typical from south of italy and very often he would say impossible but very often he'd say okay let's change that let's try it again let's go back to the drawing board and we keep the oven we keep the oven which is something very typical from farm houses in tuscany it's a very very good conditions the vault inside in cot is still there so realistically booker how when do you think we could be finished when can i have let's see 17 happy women sitting drinking wine on that terrace not less than two years two years and a half oh my god i might be dead by then it's a long process why so long i mean really that's the time that it takes to transform completely property like this the one thing that miss impatient didn't prepare herself for is the amount of bureaucracy and the speed with which things move in italy there are different offices that are in charge of different pyramids and then they need to have their time to go to the commission to prepare the papers to send it to the following commission and so on and so on so this whole process takes you months yes this house has a lot of histories you can't expect that they give you a permit like this in two weeks you need a permit for everything and you know there is a reason for it and the reason is this is an incredibly beautiful area if people could just willy-nilly go and renovate and put in glass boxes and you know crazy stuff it wouldn't any longer be tuscany it would be florida so it will take some time quite a long time and it will be expensive but at the end i will help you to make your dream reality but you need to be patient so i think for us it's a learning tool to be calm so basically say don't argue with him okay we trust you [Music] you know [Music] the first day is the most exciting because um the first thing that happens is they put up a big sign at the front of the property which lists everybody who's working there and the region that you're under just getting the permits took over a year and they tell me that is incredibly quick and then they brought in a hut where the workers would have lunch that is a sacred rule and then they put up a crane it was massive it's the kind of thing you'd see in downtown toronto doing a high rise and it's a great way of moving stuff around i mean it's gigantic and you can see it from everywhere across the valley like this debbie's crave we're actually renovating three buildings the villa which is the main house the old pig styes and the barn then we're going to rebuild these pigsties to make room for six guest rooms which will have each a bathroom the barn's gonna come down it'll be redone as a proper building with three guest rooms three bathrooms and a beautiful loungey loft space major work will also begin on the exterior of the villa it's gonna have a new insulated roof we're going to reuse the old tiles new chimneys and copper gutters we had to keep by law by the community the bureaucrats you have to keep the roof lines all the same but in a way that made us more creative the villa will eventually house five guest rooms a semi-professional kitchen and two more living spaces in the end we'll have two kitchens four living rooms and 14 guest suites [Music] i've done hundreds of houses in north america i have never worked with people like this i genuinely like the people that work for us some of them are incredible craftsmen and i have a lot of respect for what they do raul is the plumber but he's the master plumber speak any english but he's this very like testosterone guy and he has a whole team of plumbers doing this plumbing is so complicated i don't know why um ricardo is really what you call the foreman he's here first in the morning last to leave and he's in charge of the team and plus he's working with them i had never met anybody like that in my life [Music] [Music] [Music] i guess he's my first example of an italian man um he's emotional and he's not embarrassed to be emotional and he takes his role as foreman very very seriously they're all like that if you're a plumber or you're a stone mason that is your life that is your career they really believe in their craft and doing it right the bloody better [Music] the most fascinating thing on this land is these these are called mezzolunas and a mezzoluna means half moon so they're a half circle and these were built to protect their olives it was a way of farming and they were built by napoleon's army so napoleon's army marched through here from rome or wherever they were pillaging and stuff but on their way they put in olive trees so these trees are very very old and they're lovely sometimes i'll come down here just sit quietly and listen to the land and stuff it's very it's very calming under an olive tree very very still just very serene one of the hardest things going into a battle like this is a battle with your north american hat on you know oh you get an architect maybe you get a designer you get a few maybe you have a few permits and then you know within a year you've done them one of the first things we needed to do with the main building was build a massive garage and storage space somewhere where we can put the laundry we can keep all the stuff for the retreat and you know hans has stuff boys stuff so i guess somewhere to put all his things it takes a major readjustment to undertake a project of any magnitude in italy if you're used to getting things done in north america [Music] it's nice having dinner with the people that are building your home it's just a very nice thing [Music] and honestly he's a different person here he's a young guy and he loves this land we've been married nearly 30 years so either you know each other so well that you do something like this together or you end up hating each other and uh i think you have to both be on the same page without a doubt if one of us did not see this vision and did not want to be here you couldn't do it we both enjoy what we're doing we're both very good at it it works for our relationship i think it will add 10 years to to our lives um um uh my italian is so good benny benny uh always you say always always yo any time come for lunch branson quick swim she absolutely has to learn the language so i've been working on debbie to go and enroll in school and she said yes i'm going to learn the language time will tell what happens there i mean i am ashamed that i can't speak any languages but i'm trying but i don't know one day i'll understand like i say i'd say my question is as long as you bring food so yummy [Music] hi it's the first time kind of i'm alone here very italian so limited it's a real issue again i have absolutely no clue what they're saying we are going to open all the palettes and select each single pieces for you see everything is off i've got four bathrooms like this yeah of course i'm really upset

Channel: Abode

Views: 162,813

Keywords: Abode, Beyond Distribution, DIY home improvement, Instagram channel, Italian villa restoration, bespoke home decor solutions, building La Dolce Vita, building a new house, construction mess, construction obstacles, construction projects, dream home transformation, dream house renovation, gardening, high-end property makeover, historical homes, home and garden channel, interior design inspiration, renovation process, unique stories, untold stories

Id: WSHazIsT3aU

Length: 22min 29sec (1349 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 30 2020