It was a beautiful apartment. The exterior and interior still have the charm and design from when it was built. Although the interior of the apartment has been remodeled, the owner kept the original windows, door knobs, etc. which give it a special feel.
This is the building our apartment was in. Located along the path of the historic tram line 1, and conveniently just one block away from the metro. I never drove while living in Milan. Metro, tram and walking were the best way to get around.
The setup for this building is very common in Italy. The big door you see in the middle is wide enough for a car to drive through. If you want to spend 500 Euros per month (yikes!) to park in the courtyard, you can drive through there. The ground floor has businesses, and the floors above that are either apartments or office space. Our apartment was on the fourth floor (counting the ground floor as zero, not one), so our windows are actually just above this picture.
Once inside the large main door, you'll find the doorman, who my kids always had to say "Buon Giorno!" at the top of their lungs to. Past the doorman is a large courtyard that is surrounded on all sides by the triangle shaped building. Fortunately, our building had a modern elevator which took us to our floor.
The entryway to our apartment had two doors. The outer door...
...and the inner door. Between these two doors is a ~1.5 foot space which is the width of the walls.
You can notice the thick walls throughout the interior or the apartment as well.
The window knobs, door knobs, etc were all kept as part of the original building. I love the charm they bring.
And anyone who visited us in Milan, probably got my tour of the windows. Yes, the windows are quite interesting! In this picture I closed the left shutter, but there is also one on the right. These would have been on the outside of the building, and they actually slide away into a hole in the wall that's just big enough for them to fit. Each time you slide them in and out, tiny bits of the wall crumble away (not enough to be worried about but you need to brush off your hands when you're done). Our windows have a newer/nicer sound proof window that was added on the outside of the shutters. On the inside of the shutters is what would have been the main window. It's not sound proof or water proof really. The two sides fit together and are locked closed when the vertical bar in the middle slides into a hole in the wall, keeping them secure.
Lastly, there are wooden panels which close over the interior window. These will almost black out a room, which is nice for a sleeping toddler! When folded up, they are conveniently stored into a groove in the window frame.
And I was intrigued by the locks and keys. Now that I have traveled more and live in a second location in Europe, I realize these aren't so cool, but rather just the norm. I now know they can be found in older American homes too. But when I first saw these key holes, it reminded me of the old Tom and Jerry cartoon looking through key holes to spy on each other. And that's just what my kids did when I tried to get some privacy.... even in the bathroom. Sigh... life of a mom with littles!
Even the keys are pretty!
That's my brief overview of the unique parts of our Italian apartment. The rest is somewhat typical. bedrooms and living room, etc. My favorite part was poking my head out the window to see the busy street of the city down below.
No comments:
Post a Comment