About

I’m Emma. Mario (that’s the Italian BF and the business brains behind www.howtoitaly.com and my co-author on Starting a Business in Italy: how to set up and run a successful business in the Bel Paese) and I live in Sardinia by the sea and had been househunting for months and months before finally falling in love with a rundown property in need of lots of TLC in Arzachena. But what should have been a really simple renovation job turned into the ODTRC (oh-dear-the-roof-collapsed) saga when the roof collapsed in November and careered into the previously-unmet neighbours’ house. As a way of introduction, it’s far more novel than ‘hi, nice to meet you’.

Of course, we don’t have a contingency fund. It’s not every day you expect your house to be demolished meaning you have to rebuild from scratch – including the foundations. So this is our story as it unfolds day-by-day, week-by-week and month-by-month. I’m sure there will be lots of lovely moments but at the moment it’s just one big AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH.