For many years this has been a place where we recorded life at Pruga. From looking for the land and building the house to day to day pleasure of running a perfect rural hideaway in Istria. It is so nice to have this record. We continue to capture the spirit of Pruga on Instagram – please visit us there as well!
Winter slump
I was debating if I should post this picture or not - after all, where in it is the promise of eternal sunshine and never-ending summer that is Pruga? An Istrian friend stayed at Pruga this weekend while we were stranded in Zagreb and its 40cm of snow. He sent this...
The kitchens are here
Finally. I am writing this from our flat in Zagreb - far, far away from Pruga and a lovely, long summer. Sigh. Not that Zagreb is bad of course - in fact, we are still maintaining that if we manage this life of the country for six months a year and of the city for...
Manual labour
...is, well, physically exhausting. And, for me, much more often, much more rewarding than a day in the office. And I've been doing quite a bit of it for the last three weeks. Having spent the summer welcoming friends and family, lazing about in the sun and not making...
There is a crack in everything
Of course there is. That's how the light gets in. Aaahhh, lovely Leonard. Things are still moving at the snail pace here at Pruga. Of many things that were set to be finished "by the end of the month" - none were. Still, there is a kind of tendency of progress. Maybe....
Venice is only one hop away
Last week, we went to Venice for a day - with the lovely and talented P. family. Amazingly, Venice is only three hours drive away from Pruga - and what a change of scenery. Beautiful and special place that Venice. Vanja and I visited Venice Biennale of Architecture,...
DIY(ish)
What happens in 20 days in the middle of not much in the height of summer? Well, not much. We have settled into a routine of sorts. Most importantly, we have that long awaited 10Mbit connection and Vanja is happily working away from his "office" here in Lovrinići. I...
Life at Pruga (the beginnings of)
It was two weeks yesterday since we moved in. Huh. Pretty busy two weeks and I write this from bed after a set of guests including Vanja the husband (aka somebody-has-to-work) have left. All alone. Not scared at all. At. All. Doing stuff not to go to sleep is good so...
Exhibition
We have actually moved! This Saturday (21 July). So much is happening and I am waay behind posting updates. Last Saturday, we came to Lovrinici for a night (after an amazing (relatively nearby) Morrisey gig in Grado, Italy) with our very good and very lovely...
Almost there
Just three weeks ago it still looked like this. And now... the builders are moving out this Wednesday! That is - in two days. You can tell by the lack of posting that things are rather busy. An overview of things changed are below. Just to illustrate how I'm spending...
D minus sixteen days
"D-Day is a term often used in military parlance to denote the day on which a combat attack or operation is to be initiated." says Wikipedia. Although obviously I have no desire to compare our project with the military or combat attacks or anything similar, we are...
Shades of grey
No more scaffolding - whoo hoo! But this is least of the things to think about right now. We are only a couple of weeks from contractors leaving the site - hopefully finishing quite a few things left to do before we move in and finally start living this idea of a...
Overview, curtain poles and loads more
The other day a friend pointed out how I have many (pretty of course) pictures of details and it is hard to see from them how the whole thing looks like. I am yet to put a proper effort to that effect, but here are few pictures and a (sort of) video (!) to try and...
Floor, windows, terraces
So much is going on that I obviously cannot find the time to write. I must say, that although I have been warned about how will it all look as the project gets towards the end, I feel a bit overwhelmed at times. I will recount everything that happened since my last...
Interior dreams
More progress. The roof is finished - yay! It looks lovely as you approach the house from the village road - you will only see that roof, maybe a meter of the north wall and a beautiful eastern stone wall. The rest awaits after you park and walk closer towards it. We...
Depth of field
A relatively random post title - seemed "deep" - there is a weak connection at the bottom of the post - hope you'll get that far. We were there last Thursday and I froze my butt off. First time ever that it was raining and it was considerably colder than Zagreb. My...
Vjeko the architect at Venice Biennale
To divert subject from the build a bit I am sharing some good news! Pulska Grupa, of which Vjeko the architect is a member, is selected to represent Croatia on 13th Intl. Architecture Exhibition in Venice. Pulska Grupa founded Praksa where Vjeko now works - an...
Spring and the crane
Huh, I had some WordPress issues today. Or should I say - I was a dumb user - clicked the wrong button and it published unfinished entry - images without words. I guess images are more important, but hey, some commentary is OK as well I hope. The plan is to move this...
Ready for the roof
I had to start with this picture as I liked it most. Was at "the land" this Thursday and oh my. Quite a lot going on. Two teams are now working - one for the house and another one for the pool. Was a bit crazy - trucks, diggers, a proper crane and lots of people. We...
Many things
Hard to believe it has been a month since my last post. There was a couple of weeks of slower progress due to cold weather, but then it all started happening really quickly again - there are too many photographs to choose from and post. Most importantly - there is no...
We have a name – Pruga
It is snowing. Which obviously is not at all unusual for February for the northern(ish) countries of the Northern Hemisphere. Unlike in the rest of Croatia, it was not snowing in Istria yesterday - nice picture above. Still, it is very cold (it was -11 °C in Pazin,...
Walls come tumbling up
Went to Istria yesterday to inspect the progress. Looks really, really good. Slađana, the contractor project manager, sent me some pictures of the last week's progress plus a few I took yesterday and here is how it all is now. I am giddy with excitement. Every time I...
Utilities
This is a story about utilities and how they did or did not get connected. First there was water. Or more correctly, there was no water. Or electricity or toilets or anything. That was at the time when I thought that I, myself alone, will "prepare" everything for the...
The build has started!
The foundation has been laid and the crucial wall is half up! Plus - and most importantly - we have the final building permit - whoo, hoo! One may wonder how come that the foundation was laid before the permit arrived, well, the law says (I've been told) that one can...
Demolition
After making everything legal and coming up with the plan, while still waiting for the final permit, we started preparing everything for the build. Very exciting...
Year 2, part 2 – fun stuff
Boring paperwork stuff out of the way, this is about how we got to the final plan for the build. The one now submitted to the planning office, waiting for the final stamp. In the beginning, there was this huge piece of land and a couple of crumbling houses on it....
Year 2, part 1 – making existing stuff legal
In August 2010, we bought a piece of land in a tiny village Lovrinići in inland Istria, Croatia. We will reconstruct the existing buildings and, hopefully, run a tiny perfect rural hideaway, retreat, b&b type of place while living there. At least during the summer...
Year 1 – looking for a perfect location
The idea We, like many, many, many other well-to-do, living in a la-la-land of relatively secure high income and successful (whatever that means here in 'the west', although, arguably, Croatia is not really in the west, but since we like to pretend that it is...)...