A Barn Restoration in Tuscany

The Fienile (barn) before restoration

This is the story of the restoration of a barn in Tuscany conducted by my friends Sara and Allen. Sara wrote this post for the website Wandering Educators. This is just the beginning of the article to tempt you - read the rest here.

In 1994 Allen and I bought the property we had been renting for over 10 years. The reasons why we ended up in Tuscany – on a hilltop in the Valdarno – are totally serendipitous, and entirely too long to go into here. But we did it, and lived in happy nonchalance, raising our daughter and commuting to work in Florence until the economic crunch began to make itself felt. In 2005 we had the belated realisation that this property had better help maintain itself, otherwise we would find it very difficult to keep up the land and buildings after we retired. I keep buying lottery tickets with blind faith, but in the meantime we bit the bullet, hocked our souls to the Banca Toscana, and decided to carry out a dream: to restore and convert the villa’s barn into a rental cottage…

Read the full story on Wandering Educators!