Behind the Reno: Our Army Barrack

I've walked past this building many times, our sons friend lived nearby, and I always wondered about it's story little knowing that one day we'd own it.

From the outside it seemed like a shed, covered with brambles, and hidden by trees it seemed quite small from outside. I really didn't give it much thought! Yet when we went inside we discoved much like the Tardis in Dr Who it is huge!!

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In Bobbio Pellice you can find a number of Army Barracks (Caserme dell'Esercito) in fact Sam works in a larger one called Le Cassermette. I hope to learn more about the history of our new place, we are told it was the Armoury. Sam guessed it might be the Armoury as it has anti lightning bars running around the outside.

At some point a small flood bought a lot of earth down from the hill and dumped it right at the doors of the Barrack, some came inside and covered the tiles, rotted the furniture and made a nice mess. The rest piled up outside so we have had a friend over with his tractor digging out the rear of the building.

Upstairs... who knew they had an upstairs!! I'm in love!

The skylights had broken and many years worth of melting snow, rain and who knows what else came into this bedroom. In one of the apartments the broken skylights meant rotting boards so another job to be done.

The Barrack is around 260 msq on the ground floor with another floor above so over 500 msq in total. It is split into four apartments and we are slowly emptying them out. Three apartments were finished and in use and the last one was partly done and then it seems left for storage and has a sign Area 13 m G which I plan to keep.

At the moment we have a few renovation projects on the go (which I'll write about asap), but the Barrack will be the one we concentrate on for now. Eventually we'll open the apartments for guests and I can't wait for that day when it will be filled with people again!