Hotel Hart

Life is getting back to normal after the flooding.  As a result of the weather, I spent a lot of time indoors this week...which got me thinking about our Italian Villa.  I get a lot of questions about where we live and what it's like.  I admit, I had a hard time envisioning what my home away from home would look like.  I was thinking old and small...with perhaps a grape vine in the backyard.  Quite the contrary!  As my family members will tell you, Hotel Hart is relatively modern, spacious and comfortable. We don't get many visitors...so if you're looking for a Northern Italian get-away, Hotel Hart may be for you!

Instead of showing you the rooms or giving you a virtual tour, I've decided to just showcase some of the neat things that we have here at HH.  (I'm also not showing rooms because I'm a terrible decorator and you'd be completely unimpressed!)


Neat Thing #1: The Door

We live in a fortress.  As you can see, there are three different places the deadbolt locks into the door.  I think there is also a vertical rod that locks when turning the key.  Our door not only prevents trespassers, but also locks out our guests when they attempt to return in the middle of the night and can't figure out how to unlock the door and call my cell phone at three in the morning from outside the door when I'm sound asleep....

Neat Thing #2: Fancy Artwork

I know I said I'm a bad decorator, but look at the fancy Italian art we have!  Actually, this is a small piece of art above our stove.  It was given to us by our nice uber-Catholic friend we've met here.  For the life of me, I can't remember the name of the woman, which makes me a bad Catholic and an even worse friend!  I think it's Our Lady of the Stove and she's suppose to watch over your kitchen and prevent any unnecessary fires.  If you know how I cook, you know this is a good thing.
P.S.- If you know who this is, let me know!

Neat Thing #3: The Magnets

 No home is complete without one of these.  Luckily, we have 2!  Every time I open the fridge, I'm reminded of my home...until I realize that at my fridge at home, there was a lot more food!  Currently, these magnets are holding up our "Wish List" travel spreadsheet...a nice chart I made one day of the places we want to visit this upcoming year and when we plan to go.  I don't know what's worse...the fact that I have such a spreadsheet or that it's held up by two Quincy magnets...


Neat Thing #4: The Windows

 All the windows in our house are floor to ceiling and double as doors.  What's even better is that they have these protective shutter things on the outside that block out noise and sunlight.  We sleep in a cave.  If you pull them completely shut, it's pitch black in the middle of the day. I've grown to appreciate this, which is a big deal for me (who grew up in a house where there were practically no shades or shutters and you woke up in bright sunlight every day). I'm also pretty proud of these curtains- the only decorations I've put up.  It only took a few trips to IKEA to decide on them and they're still a work in progress.  You aren't getting a vertical shot because you would then see that they are too long and need to be hemmed.  Nana Kelly needs to come ASAP.

Neat Thing #5: The Bidet

 Here's our bidet.  It's in bathroom #2 and is getting rather dusty since it's not used very much.  I think I've rinsed some sneakers in it...and that's about it.  It makes the bathroom look all majestic and European, which I like.

Neat Thing #6: The Toilet Flusher

 Our bathrooms are just full of cool things!  This is how we flush the toilet...with a push button!  The big button the the left is for heavier loads and the smaller one on the right is a quick rinse.  This is mounted on the wall above the toilet and the first time I went the bathroom here, I couldn't find it.  I actually like the push-button idea, which is quite common around Europe.  I bet my friends at Economy Plumbing Supply back home could hook one of these up in your bathroom.


Neat Thing #7: The Washer

 This is a thing of beauty.  It's the LG Intellowasher 7kg!  No home should be without it.  Look at all those settings!  I think it even has a child lock function!  Hands down the most amazing washing machine I've ever had.  It makes all these cool sounds and lights up like an airplane cockpit when you turn it on.  The only down side: a regular cycle takes close to 2 hours...and the rapid setting is a brief hour and twenty minutes!  When I asked a European about this, her response was that she didn't feel like clothes were adequately washed after the standard US-cycle time of 30-ish minutes.  Point taken.


Neat Thing #8: The Dryer

 Not really a HUGE fan of the dryer (because it kinda sucks at actually drying clothes), but nonetheless, it is neat.  First of all, it's pretty remarkable that we even have a dryer in Italy.  Most laundry is hung out to dry, even in the cities.  The neat thing about this LG dryer is that it has no vent!  Most US dryers have a vent to outside the house (which makes our deck at home smell like a mountain rain or a spring mist and causes lint to accumulate on some potted plants).  This dryer sucks the water out of clothes and stores it in the reservoir you see pictured above.  Every time you dry clothes, you have to empty this thing because it's full of water. Neat that it stores water...not so neat that clothes don't fully dry. 

Neat Thing #9: The Dishwasher

 Since I took this picture, the dishwasher has fallen out of favor here in Hotel Hart.  It has a weird odor coming from inside and I hate opening it.  I guess it's neat that we have a dishwasher...even apartments in Boston lack them.  The neat/weird thing is that we have to put "special salt" inside a tube in the dishwasher every so often to prevent build-up.  This is a picture of the sticker on our dishwasher to remind us.  It's pretty hard to forget though because the water here is so hard.  That's probably not-so-neat thing #1- the nasty water.  It dries out your skin, leaves water stains on everything and requires you to buy this special salt to put in the dishwasher.  My latest hobby is cleaning toilet bowls because the water calcifies and forms a nasty residue on the inside that's nearly impossible to remove.  Last weekend, we had to soak our shower head in bleach because it clogged from the hard water.  On the plus side- our bathrooms are really clean.

Now that you know how cool Hotel Hart is, you must come visit!  Book your trips today before we fill up!