2 GARAGES with heavy moulded wooden doors in 4 rolling over sections – with remote control. The floor is coated with a hard red shiny resin (does not wear out, easy to maintain) - Several storage shelves – lighting – internal tab and central draining systems for easy cleaning.
THE DRIVE is completely tiled with white Bradstones. Automatic ground light system in the middle of the driveway.
A GREENHOUSE, behind the garages, is simultaneously a workshop, tools storage, garden preparation work and winter plants storage, an indoor plants handling and nursery place; it also has a full size bath for cleaning big containers, or wash the dog. There is also a sink and large working table tops. It also serves for the winter logs or barbecue wood storage…. The floor is tiled with central drainage system – except for a corner where soil was left for small greenhouse cultures (tomatoes etc…). Electric heating system. Numerous storage shelves.
Adjacent to the garage, there is a LARGE GARDEN SHED, where garden equipment and products are stored: lawnmowers, garden furniture in the winter etc…Tiled in Bradstones. Storage cabinets.
2 large (± 2,5 m²) COMPOST BRICK BUILT ENCLOSURES for garden residues and refertilising.
In the entrance drive there is A BUILT-IN SHED for outgoing rubbish bags and ready refuse.
SEVERAL WROUGHT IRON GATES (custom designed) close the side accesses around and in the back of the garden.
The property is completely surrounded with walls, thick old trees, hedges or wire fencing. All around the house there is a path tiled in Bradstones, allowing rolling of heavy objects to bring inside or in the back.
Some wide steps tiled in white Bradstones gives access to the front door.
Above the front door a white stone has been sculptured, replica of the original one, left on the formal porch, now the main entrance to the kitchen, on which the name of "Villa Hortensia" has been carved.
THE FAÇADE has been completely sanded and protected, all the decorations and ceramics have been restored as originals.
The new extensions have been built with the same hand country oven baked bricks as 100 years ago, jointed the same way: bricks sanded to remove the trace of ashes, cut edges and large joints left open deep, cleaned neatly, then filled with red cement partially over the irregularities of the bricks, Then a new groove drawn in the red cement with a ruler. This groove was then filled with white cement to form the final neatly straight joints. We found only one elderly couple who was still able to carry out this ancient craftsmanship. It took them several years (on and off) to come and do this incredible job.
THE ROOF itself has been very largely redone. All the roofs are covered with genuine black natural slates.
ALL THE CORNICES are new, rebuilt with an alloy of stainless steel. All the water drains are new.
RAINWATER gets collected in a large tank.
