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PALAZZO MENICHELLI

@palazzomenichelli

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Once upon a time an average Aussie girl up and sold her average Aussie house and bought an ancient fairytale palazzo just a little north of Rome...

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The view last night from my bedroom balcony doorway…
#palazzomenichelli #stimigliano #theheavenlysabina #lasabina #laziolife #palazzolife #nearrome #myitalianlife #anaussieinitaly #noitsnottuscany taken in Palazzo Menichelli by @palazzomenichelli

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6 months ago

taken in Palazzo Menichelli by @palazzomenichelli

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6 months ago

Up on the rooftop terrace this morning… #palazzomenichelli #stimigliano #theheavenlysabina #lasabina #laziolife #palazzolife #nearrome #visitlazio #regionelazio #noitsnottuscany taken in Palazzo Menichelli by @palazzomenichelli

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7 months ago

This weekend the designerwear reseller who’s been buying most of my Tom Ford for Gucci and YSL pieces for the past three years arrives from the UK to pick up what will be her last major order. I still have plenty of pieces left, but that’ll be the vast majority of my once enormous runway collection gone.

The final payment I receive from her this weekend will pay for the last few tapestries, that last 18th century dresser for the ground floor kitchen, a maiolica pedestal I found recently that’ll allow me to complete a second basically matching pair of 19th century maiolica urns and pedestals, and a handful of other things.

It’s all coming to an end… that once seemingly endless hunt that’s lasted me some 5 1/2 years since arriving here in Italy, but that really started a couple of decades ago back in Australia. There’s still plenty of work left to do here, of course, but it’s a simpler kind of work; the kind of work you do when you already have all of the pieces of the puzzle.

Those actual puzzle pieces, though; they’ve all fallen into place over these past few months, with everything that has a place now either literally or metaphorically in their place, and those that don’t have a place now pretty much gone. And I ended up collecting almost all of the things I’d concluded long ago the palazzo needed, but a handful I’d eventually concluded wouldn’t be necessary.

It’s been my ‘capolavoro’; finding the perfect furniture and furnishings for every inch of this palazzo… my masterpiece… and in the end it’s everything I ever hoped it would become and so much more. And now here we are at the beginning of 2026, with all of the puzzle pieces either already in their place or waiting somewhere here ready to be, and with me no longer sharing this life with Jess and an entirely new life laid out before me.

2026, I suspect, is going to be a very good year for my heavenly palazzo and I… #palazzomenichelli #stimigliano #theheavenlysabina #LaSabina #laziolife #nearrome #myitalianlife #heavenonearth #noitsnottuscany taken in Palazzo Menichelli by @palazzomenichelli

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9 months ago

Up on the rooftop for the first time in a couple of weeks… oh my heart! #palazzomenichelli #stimigliano #theheavenlysabina #lasabina #laziolife #nearrome #noitsnottuscany #visitlazio #regionelazio #palazzolife #heavenonearth taken in Palazzo Menichelli by @palazzomenichelli

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9 months ago

A peek inside the palazzo’s main entrance this afternoon…

After five and a half years of near constant shuffling, as of around three months ago now, all of the pieces finally fit together the way they should in the palazzo’s main entrance, and it’s very much the way it’s going to stay. Well, you know, apart from slowly continuing along with removing as much as I can of that modern paint covering the frescoes and trompe l’oeil, that is, anyway.

Yes, it’s a little cluttered. No, I never intended for it to be quite so cluttered. But nope, I wouldn’t change a darn thing. It’s everything I ever dreamed the entrance to an historic palazzo should be, and then some.

It’s all very practical and functional. The sofa is, of course, for sitting. The clock to tell the time when coming or going. The mirror for last minute self adjustment. The console to hold that book stand, and the book stand to hold a guest book. The terracotta urn in the foreground is an umbrella stand. And the two huge urns in the background are because I don’t actually have anywhere else to put them. Well, it’s almost all very practical and functional 🤭

Oh, and for anyone who doesn’t already know this, no, that’s not a real dog up there at the top of the stairs. It’s a fresco that was painted there around 100 years ago. There’s actually another one still hidden under the modern paint at the bottom of the flight of stairs on the right, which, all going well, will eventually be uncovered too… ♥️ #palazzomenichelli #stimigliano #lasabina #theheavenlysabina #palazzolife #laziolife #visitlazio #regionelazio #nearrome #noitsnottuscany taken in Palazzo Menichelli by @palazzomenichelli

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10 months ago

Finding this exquisite antique bed, armoire and pair of bedsides down in Palermo the other week has enabled us to at last be able to group five years worth of Venetian hand painted antique finds into the three bedrooms suites, one salon suite, main entrance and other areas we wanted to furnish in this style.

It’s been a huge task, in truth; antique furniture, by its very nature, is all different, and when you’re as meticulous as I am about every single piece being exactly right for the feel you’re after it can take hundreds of hours of searching just to find one piece that’s up to par.

The table in this room may eventually end up being replaced by a similar table in a lighter shade, but we’ll see, and apart from that this suite and all of the others I mentioned are at last exactly the way I was hoping they’d eventually be. Every single piece of furniture in every one of the afformentioned rooms.

Which, to me right now, feels huge…

So, now that we know exactly what furniture is going in each of those rooms, we can finally start finishing off the walls, ceilings and floors to go with them 😅

Oh, and ps, the cream single bed on the left at the end of this room is one of a pair, but we’re just waiting until we’ve moved that giltwood daybed out of the taken in Palazzo Menichelli by @palazzomenichelli

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a year ago

Down here in the rear garden this morning 💐🪴⚱️🌲

So many people seem to see creating a garden as being all about controlling nature. But I don’t see it that way at all; to me it’s all about merging with nature…

Palazzo Menichelli, Stimigliano, gateway to the heavenly Sabina, Lazio, Italy 🇮🇹 🇦🇺 #palazzomenichelli #stimigliano #lasabina #theheavenlysabina #sabinalife #laziolife #italylife #palazzolife #nearrome #anaussieinitaly #ladolcevita #labellaitalia #italiangarden #italiangardens #noitsnottuscany taken in Palazzo Menichelli by @palazzomenichelli

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a year ago

Well, that’s another job done and dusted…

The console down at the rear gate that’ll hold a sign in book for whenever we hold events in the rear garden, and the terracotta wall pot underneath it, which we’ll be planting a gorgeous clematis in so that it can grow around the console and mirror and above the gate.

Over the past couple of days we’ve had to modify the size and depth of this console to fit around the terracotta pot, and Jess has had to make a support shelf to sit the pot on so that it sat a couple of inches above the row of pots with the erigeron in them below it. And I’ve also repainted the console and mirror from its original pale green to patina green.

The console is all finished now, apart from me painting a wrought iron coach lamp in a darker shade of turquoise green so that Jess can fit it to the wall directly above the mirror.

Ps, this whole console/mirror/wall pot idea has been a very long time in the planning, and I don’t mind saying that now that it’s done we’re thrilled to the back teeth with it! 🥰 #palazzomenichelli #stimigliano #lasabina #theheavenlysabina #laziolife #palazzolife #visitlazio #regionelazio #nearrome #noitsnottuscany #myitaliangarden #myitalianlife #labellaitalia taken in Palazzo Menichelli by @palazzomenichelli

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a year ago

Springtime here in the heavenly Sabina… #palazzomenichelli #stimigliano #lasabina #theheavenlysabina #laziolife #palazzolife #visitlazio #nearrome #regionelazio #springtimeinitaly #myitaliangarden #arosegardeninitaly #noitsnottuscany taken in Palazzo Menichelli by @palazzomenichelli

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a year ago

The view from the balcony doorway of the fourth storey bedroom, where I’m currently working, right now… it makes me want to cry just to look out at this 🕊️ #palazzomenichelli #stimigliano #LaSabina #theheavenlysabina #laziolife #visitlazio #palazzolife #nearrome #labellaitalia #noitsnottuscany taken in Palazzo Menichelli by @palazzomenichelli

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2 years ago

Just another day… ☀️ #palazzomenichelli palazzomenichelli #stimigliano #lasabina #theheavenlysabina #sabinalife #rietilife #laziolife #palazzolife #visitlazio #nearrome #ladolcevita #labellaitalia #noitsnottuscany by @palazzomenichelli

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2 years ago