A couple renovating their dream home in Italy struck vintage gold after discovering a rare bathroom set worth thousands for a fraction of its value. Home renovations can come with a hefty price tag. The median amount U.S. homeowners spent on renovation projects was $24,000, with more than half spending at least $25,000 on improvements to their properties, according to the 2024 U.S.
So when someone in the midst of a renovation finds a way to save money without sacrificing their vision, it's worth paying attention. That's been the case for Tess and Tom, an Australian-French couple renovating a 300-year-old house on Lake Como. Tess told Newsweek about the "slightly crazy story" behind how they reached this point in their lives.
"We first connected online when we were both living in Milan back in 2019, but it actually took us six years to finally meet after being reconnected by a mutual friend," she said. "Then, exactly two months after meeting, we were sitting in an Italian bank together applying for a mortgage on this house!" It was all a bit of a whirlwind and something neither could have predicted. "When we first got together, one of our biggest questions was simply where in the world we were actually going to live," Tom said.
"I was living in Marseille, while Tess had quite recently moved back to Sydney after previously living in Milan for more than eight years." They started casually looking at property around Lake Como. That was when they saw the listing that changed everything. Before long, they were heading to Lake Como to take a closer look.
"It was the first house we ever viewed, and we completely fell in love with it," Tess said. "It had this incredible garden, swimming pool and view over the lake, but also an enormous amount of work to do. We could see so much potential in it that we decided to take the leap, probably without fully appreciating quite how much work we were signing ourselves up for." Dating back to 1719, the Lake Como home is steeped in history and character, boasting a wealth of original features that had been hidden from view or removed by previous owners.
"We've already found original stone and terracotta floors hidden beneath newer flooring, as well as an original lake-view porthole window that had been completely concealed by a fireplace in the 1970s," Tom said. The discoveries haven't been limited to inside the house, however. Tom and Tess share an appreciation for vintage Italian design and admit to spending "far too much of our spare time" in secondhand shops, markets and scrolling through online listings looking for pieces for the house.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
